'Blight to Beauty': Crews clean up blighted properties owners refuse to maintain

DETROIT (FOX 2) - The city of Detroit is working to clean up blight and beautify the city.

"Our initiative is the mayor's passion, which is transforming our great city from blight to beauty," said Katrina Crawley, the assistant director of Blight Remediation for the City of Detroit General Services Department.

On Thursday, a number of city workers were out cleaning up through the Blight to Beauty initiative.

"We’re going around 14 strategic corridors with our colleagues, finding some worst properties, out of state owners who just give us the finger and don’t want to take care of their property," Cawley said.

Many of the property owners have been issued blight tickets by the city, which continue to be ignored.

"There were about five violations on this particular piece of property, and you can see our team cleaning up vegetation, overgrowth,the fence," Cawley said. "Once the owner does not remediate, they are given an opportunity to take care of their own property. General services gets the call and we begin remediation.

The cost of this cleanup is then added to the blight ticket fines and fees which remain the responsibility of the property owner

As the city of Detroit continues it Blight to Beauty initiative residents say they’re happy to see progress in their neighborhood

"We definitely need the cleanup. When you have a clean neighborhood it’s less crime, but when people see it not being clean they feel like they can come in and do what they want to do," resident Cynthia Casey said.