Since April 1998, efforts to demolish abandoned buildings near Detroit schools have failed to combat the deterioration of many neighborhoods. It's been sitting like that forever. In September, a Detroit News investigation found that 1,181 vacant buildings stood within a block of a city school. The buildings endanger students because, residents and police say, they shelter rapists, crack dealers and marauding dogs. There is drug-dealing all the time.
Cars come up and beep, people run in and run out.
We call the police, and they have to come out to board the place up. Then the door gets kicked in that week, and they're back at it. Today, the doors to the once-beautiful building are wide open. Inside, lockers, light fixtures and other metal objects have been stripped. The school's auditorium has been demolished, the chairs kicked over, the walls smashed and the roof partially caved in.