Will Offering Free Homes to Police Officers Help Revive Detroit?

Will Offering Free Homes to Police Officers Help Revive Detroit?

Will Offering Free Homes to Police Officers Help Revive Detroit?

On MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry praises a Detroit program that provides free and reduced-priced homes to police officers.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

In an effort to revive its neighborhoods, Detroit is offering two hundred free and and reduced-priced homes to police officers living outside the city limits. So far less than a dozen officers’ families have decided to move in. Can a program like this be enough to bring Detroit back?

On MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry says the program is "brilliant" and serves as a model for local governments across the country. When cities value public sector employees, she argues, and encourage them to live in their communities, they get a better tax base, better neighborhoods and more effective policing. 

Kevin Donohoe

Time is running out to have your gift matched 

In this time of unrelenting, often unprecedented cruelty and lawlessness, I’m grateful for Nation readers like you. 

So many of you have taken to the streets, organized in your neighborhood and with your union, and showed up at the ballot box to vote for progressive candidates. You’re proving that it is possible—to paraphrase the legendary Patti Smith—to redeem the work of the fools running our government.

And as we head into 2026, I promise that The Nation will fight like never before for justice, humanity, and dignity in these United States. 

At a time when most news organizations are either cutting budgets or cozying up to Trump by bringing in right-wing propagandists, The Nation’s writers, editors, copy editors, fact-checkers, and illustrators confront head-on the administration’s deadly abuses of power, blatant corruption, and deconstruction of both government and civil society. 

We couldn’t do this crucial work without you.

Through the end of the year, a generous donor is matching all donations to The Nation’s independent journalism up to $75,000. But the end of the year is now only days away. 

Time is running out to have your gift doubled. Don’t wait—donate now to ensure that our newsroom has the full $150,000 to start the new year. 

Another world really is possible. Together, we can and will win it!

Love and Solidarity,

John Nichols 

Executive Editor, The Nation

Ad Policy
x