LCC, Ingham County Land Bank partner to fix up homes

Matthew Miller
mrmiller@lsj.com
Lansing State Journal
Jan 22, 2011

LANSING, MI -- The houses at 1501 and 1512 E. Kalamazoo Street were early victims of the foreclosure crisis. Repossessed by the banks that held their mortgages in the early months of 2007, they ended up in the possession of the Ingham County Land Bank and were slated for demolition.

They’ll become living classrooms instead, thanks to a partnership between the land bank, Lansing Community College and the Allen Neighborhood Center called Restoration Works.

Over the next five years, students from LCC’s alternative energy, architectural technology, civil technology, construction, electrical, HVAC, interior design and landscape architecture programs will work to restore the early 20th century structures at the same time they learn their future trades.

Justin Monahan, a student in LCC’s alternative energy program who has already participated in energy audits done on the two houses, described it as “the best hands-on you can get.

“These houses are horrible. They’re unlivable,” he said. “We get to go through all sorts of problems.”

And, ideally, to solve them, leaving the neighborhood with two viable homes where vacant lots would have been and the land bank with two houses it can sell.