Building Thriving‑Class Neighborhoods with Life Remodeled

0:00Welcome back from the holiday weekend and welcome back to your daily Detroit. This is your show for Tuesday, April 7th, 2026, I am Jair Stays before we get started. I want to thank our members on Patreon, local media needs, local support to survive and thrive. That's where you come in. So join us at patreon.com slash daily Detroit. That's patreon.com slash daily Detroit. And we appreciate you so very much. Let's get started. Joining us at the table at tectown is Diallo Smith, the president and CEO of life remodeled, also joining me for this conversation, none other than the indefatigable Norris Howard. Thank you. Never tired. Never tired. Although, you know what I'm really glad about is that for once, you're on the show and the east side out numbers you. The east and finally out numbers me, usually not usually the west side representation is very, very staunch.

1:02But today the east side is in the building, Jair Diallo. I'm so excited to talk to y'all today about life remodel because I think it's one of Detroit's hit and gyms in terms of organizations. Yeah. And they do such great work. Diallo, while you talk about life remodel a little bit and, you know, you kind of taken over, you know, as president and CEO and what you're thinking about with this organization. Sure. Number one, thanks gentlemen for having me on the show. I have to say, one of, if not the coolest sets that I've ever experienced, so you guys did a great job here and decided to outnumber the west side of today, man, but it's okay. We have to tip the skills. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. I got plenty of love for the East. Always, always. Life remodel is a Detroit based nonprofit that's really committed to neighborhood revitalization. We have some beautiful neighborhoods in the city of Detroit, unfortunately, through decades of disinvestment and to some degree neglect. The beauty in those hit and gyms just remain hidden. One of the ways that we reveal the beauty in those neighborhoods is by repurposing vacant school buildings into what we call opportunity hubs.

2:04It fits within our core E3M model. We're really focused on educational, economic and environmental mobility and I could talk a little bit about how we do that. One way to approach neighborhood revitalization is really respecting the history of it. So, in the Durphy neighborhood, the Durphy Intermediate School, which, by the way, will be 100 years old next year. Wow. And it's a beautiful building. It's one of the most gorgeous school houses in the whole city. It's the architecture is incredible. The history of it is incredible. We wanted to find a way to give it new life, working with a collaboration of other supporters, volunteers, donors, et cetera, we transformed it into the Durphy Innovation Society. I would host 34 incredible nonprofits, social impact partners who are doing work to bring direct investment services and resources to that Durphy neighborhood. So, when you talk about an opportunity hub, I think a lot of people out there understand what school is or what center. What in your mind is an opportunity hub? It is a place where a full family can receive all the services that resources and investments

3:08that they need to thrive. Another motto, our belief, is that the traders have all the talent that they need, but many don't have access to opportunities to thrive. So, these opportunity hubs do one of two things, either they are breaking down the barriers that disrupt those access to resources or, in many cases, building bridges to help navigate people from one neck of the woods to the other neck of the woods, which is where they want to be. So, if you can imagine walking into a place where you have big brothers, big sisters in one part of the room. You have Detroit at work, which is the largest workforce development center, and on the other side of the other room, you have new foster care, which is helping students transition out of the foster care system to land in a healthy environment or one side. So, just a malgumation and a constellation of incredible, incredible organizations where if you walk into there, there is nothing there that you can't receive to enhance your livelihood. And really, just even going through the list of tenants and just derpy alone, because

4:10this is not your only facility, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But just going through, you've got youth programs, you have healthcare resources, you have daycares and stuff like that. These are programs that when I was growing up, we're all either housed in the community center, or the school system had some sort of semblance of connection to it. But with those being broken down, or defunded, as you said earlier, it's very heartening to hear that life remodel in places like derpy are filling that gap. Why at the same time maintaining these beautiful buildings around the city? And our neighbors have earned it and deserved it, right? They have incredible ambition, they have incredible will, and I'll be remiss to say that all of those impact parties that you just name, quite frankly, we take a very community driven design approach. The people who are living there in the neighborhoods, the Mrs. Jones who's been there for 50 years, seeing people come, seeing people go, the students, the teachers, the small business owners, the faith leaders, they know more about what's needed for their neighborhood than

5:13we ever will. So we tapped into their genes and just said, hey, listen, this is what we're planning to do. You tell us what are the barriers of access that if we found a way to get support in helping those areas, would truly expand and grow your neighborhood. And so based upon their intel, then we sought those incredible impact partners. It's the genius of the community members themselves who helped to design the collaboration of those different organizations. Yeah. And you're doing work now on the East side as well. Oh, yeah. East side. So for those who are familiar with the East side, off I-94 and Whittier, there is a school campus that used to be called the Minikin. The Minikin was an all girls Catholic school. It closed in 2005 and then became the Wine and Academy of Performing Arts that closed in 2023. And we've acquired that campus and that building with the same idea of mine, you know, talking with community leaders and alike to find out what are the most salient resources that's going to bring renewal to the neighborhood. One of the things that we found over there, which was a little bit different from the

6:15Derfrey neighborhood, is they really have an appreciation and a desire for technology, arts and culture. Hmm. Hmm. Very interesting. And so because of that, one beautiful part of the building that we will totally modernize, there's a 700 seat theater on that campus. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. That's cool. And you know, the East side needs those kinds of amenities and if you think about to the East side history, there are so many movie theaters and performance spaces and all this other stuff that just isn't there anymore and not in great condition, all that. And I think that's part of what kind of knitted together the East side in so many ways. I mean, whether it's that part of the East side, I'm personally more familiar with the area by St. Jefferson Chalmers and Indian Village and all that, but there's so much about that and so much history in all of that. If you could imagine, it's very interesting that you say that. So the night foundation did a study and what they discovered is that neighborhoods or communities that have arts and culture resources centered in that community, they have a lot more pride.

7:18They have a lot more investment and not only staying in that neighborhood, but inviting others to live in that neighborhood because, hey, listen, what neighborhood do you know of that has a great movie theater or a performing arts center? And so we're really excited to be able to fully modernize that. It's going to be full of performances that will be called some call high art like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, but also people who are coming in town to showcase their views. It's a beautiful place and a beautiful space. And then on the technology side, this is something that doesn't exist yet that we're proud about on the heels of listening to all of these great comments about what would be necessary to create a great neighborhood. We're building a 26,000 square feet edition that's totally dedicated to technology, technology education for our young people. We were just talking about esports, man, imagine if I were to stuck with my Atari 2600, who knows? Who knows how much money I've been made up my life. My folks will argue I stuck with my game and council's a little bit too long. But on that topic, I actually was able to host an event courtesy of life remodel just

8:23before disclosure to our listeners. But I went to Durphy and you guys opened your doors to me and we had a really big esports events all around esports education. And that was such a unique thing because the feedback that I got was I didn't know one there was a facility like this in Detroit, but two, that these resources and ability to explore this as a career path was a real thing. I heard that from kids, I heard that from college students and so on and so forth. I just feel like that kind of energy runs through what you guys are doing at life remodel. So to see what's happening on the east side as well is very heartening because a lot of young people are going to be really excited to have this in their neighborhood. I had a chance to speak out to Detroit Policy Conference back in January. One of the things that I said, and this is for all of you, I know you have a lot of Metro Detroit listeners, I said that the future of the Detroit region is fundamentally connected to the future of Detroit neighborhoods. What I mean by that is this. And I think we have some incredible cities, whether it's Rose Point, whether it's Ferndale,

9:26whether it's Royal Oak or Birmingham or whatever, and some incredible neighborhoods in those cities. When we find a way to truly reorientate our Detroit neighborhoods to an incredible future, not only is it going to be good for the city Detroit, it's going to be good for the region. Yes. You'll have people who are experiencing mobility in their life that are getting great jobs where they can invest in their household, invest in their children, students will will love going to school because they know that there's a future for them there. And then environmentally, we do something every year called the Six Day Project. It is the biggest volunteer project in the state that's contested six days. We get thousands. When I say thousands, and not just, it's not hyperbally, five to six thousand volunteers a year, bring them into one Detroit neighborhood with the idea of transforming that neighborhood within those six days. We're moving blight, we're moving litter, we're moving trash, boarding up houses, doing work within the schools. And once that six days are done, the landscape looks totally different from the beginning

10:27of those six days. And some of our Metro Detroit residents are incredible volunteers in that. I'm a bit of a radical on this, but I believe, yes, the Detroit region has a lot of things going for it. But as we, you're at the Detroit Policy Conference, you've been to Mac, and all you've been to those things. There's also a lot of challenges. And I think one of the reasons we have those challenges is because we're not taking care of our heart. Part of our region is the city of Detroit and the neighborhoods. You can't expect this region to work at full force with a heart that still needs work. And to me, I think that's kind of what ties it all together for me when I talk to people in the suburbs and such, because how can you expect otherwise, right? Especially you can't just skip over the middle of your entire body of who you are. Yeah. There is no healthy region in the United States economically and otherwise, in which the core city of that region's neighborhoods are not successfully advancing. None. Flat out. And so that, to your point, is a clue to the opportunity that we have in front of us.

11:28You know, one of the things that we talked about as a team, shout out to my life and my model team. Their own, their sleeves every day. They're doing great work. Very passionate group who gets a lot done quite frankly with, with very little. But we really thought comprehensively about, okay, why are we doing all this, right? So we have the six day project, which is great. You know, we have these opportunity hubs both on the west and the east side, which is great. We do a lot of work with directly with schools on a, with derpy middle school, elementary school, central high school, then be high school, which is great. But the intention and the design is to cultivate what we call thriving class neighborhoods. There is a class of people I believe that is not weaponized politically, nor can you just define as an income bracket. But they're more defined on their tenacity, their will and the ambition to see their neighborhoods thrive and they're willing to broke their sleeves and do the best they can. And so that class exists broadly within Detroit. So the end result of all the work that we're doing is to elevate households and elevate

12:29whole neighborhoods to experience that level of thriving and to feel proud about it. So that you have parents that can raise their children well in a safe environment. Yeah, families that are not only working and making sustainable incomes, but also are growing educationally. You have block clubs and leaders who are investing in their neighborhoods. And ultimately, the design concept is that you know when you're done, when that neighborhood and the residents in it are at the point where they're saying, we want you, Jerry, we want you there to come and move into our neighborhood because this is a place where you can thrive. So that's our five to ten year goal to be able to cultivate thriving class neighborhoods both on the west and the east side, and we're excited about it. You know, for all our listeners out there, Diallo, where can more people find information about life remodeled if they want to volunteer or if they want to come check it out? The quickest way and the most effective way is to go to our website. Our website is life remodeled.org and that's lifemodeled.org.

13:37And that is it for today's episode. Feedback is always daily Detroit at gmail.com or 313-789-302-11. Norris Howard will be back with us tomorrow to talk all things metro Detroit. Until then, I am Jerry Stays. Thank you so much for listening. Remember that you are somebody and we'll see you around Detroit.