Glemie Singing the Blues, Westside, Detroit, 2011. Glemie, a retired truck driver and fifty-year resident of Detroit, is an accomplished blues singer, but he's also known for his small game hunting skills. Every fall he hunts an average of 150 raccoons, which he skins, dresses, and sells as food to clients. This extra income supplements his meager retirement benefits. © Dave Jordano
Semira Sleeping, Eastside, Detroit, 2012. The child of a homeless mother sleeps in Kat's bedroom. Kat will take anyone into her home that needs food or shelter. Often as many as eight people stay in her small two-bedroom house. When things get to crowded, she will often move across the street into an abandoned house so that others can be provided better living conditions. © Dave Jordano
Lynn, Heidelberg Street, Eastside, Detroit, 2010. Lynn sits on the front porch of his boyhood home. Lynn is the brother of Tyree Guyton, founder of the famed Heidelberg Project, Detroit's most well-known and visited social arts project that addresses urban blight issues plaguing the city. Go here for more information: www.heidelberg.org. © Dave Jordano
Derrick, Unemployed Auto Worker, Occupy Detroit 2011. © Dave Jordano
Deshawn, Midtown, Detroit 2010. Deshawn, like many Detroiters, in spite of the city's negative image, will admit he's proud of his city. The letter "D" of his "Detroit" tattoo is the logotype for the Detroit Tigers baseball team. © Dave Jordano
Shane with Turnips, Goldengate Street, Detroit 2012. Shane is from the East Coast. He left the corporate world in New York City in search of a more fulfilling life. His journey ended in Detroit, after he read an article about people in the city living off the grid. He admits that it is very difficult, but there isn't any stress in his life anymore and he's never been happier. © Dave Jordano
Woman Sleeping in a Parking Lot, Midtown, Detroit 2010. Homelessness plagues many cities across the world. In Detroit, there are shelters across the city, but many people can't or won't go for various reasons: mental illness, lack of trust, anti-social behavior. For some, living on the street becomes so ingrained that it becomes difficult to break the habit. © Dave Jordano
Melanie, Eastside, Detroit, 2011. Melanie is one of a number of white, drug-addicted prostitutes that live in Detroit. Because of the lack of police intervention, the easy access to drug houses, dealers, and Johns, these women often live for years working in specific neighborhoods around the city. © Dave Jordano
Jasmine, Eastside, Detroit 2014. © Dave Jordano
Micah, Northeast Side, Detroit 2013. © Dave Jordano
Mr. Rock & Roll, Midtown, Detroit 2011. Robert (Mr. Rock and Roll) has been fashioning this hand-made suit for the past thirty years. Made from cheap dimestore trickets, it weighs over 20 pounds. Robert let me try on the jacket—but it looked much better on him than it did on me. © Dave Jordano
Cornell, Lower Eastside, Detroit 2013. Cornell was living in an abandoned nursing home on East Grand Blvd. The building was originally a large, beautiful house built for a wealthy family but had been converted many years ago. He discovered that he could buy the house from the city for a dollar—so he did so, and now was cleaning it up. In fact, there are thousands of dollars of back taxes owed on the building, so Cornell may never truly own it. But at least in the meantime he has a roof over his head. © Dave Jordano
Terrance Selling Cherries and Pies, Eastside, Detroit 2014. © Dave Jordano
Rogue Sign, Eastside, Detroit 2011. © Dave Jordano
Police Cadet Riot Training, Eastside, Detroit 2012. © Dave Jordano
Donk Car, Eastside, Detroit 2010. Iconic Detroit machinery reengineered, repurposed, and culturally reborn. Donks, also known as hi-riders, are modified American-made cars (typically from General Motors) built during the seventies and eighties. Donks have gained popularity among middle-class blacks as symbols of economic prosperity. Originating in the south, they are now very much a part of the Detroit culture. For example, Donk gatherings are common on Belle Isle Park. © Dave Jordano
Mo, Birdman of Detroit, Detroit 2013. Mo loves pigeons and has been raising them ever since he was a young boy living in Iraq. In the past 50 years, he has raised more than 2,000 of them. He's built several makeshift pigeon coops that are either attached to his modest house or around his yard, and at any one time there could be over one hundred birds living on his property. His neighborhood is notorious for prostitution and his tenant Lori, a local hooker who has been living with him for the past two years, helps share in the living expenses of the household. Mo prefers not to know what Lori does and he will not let her bring customers into the house, but through their shared arrangement they have each found companionship and mutual support. © Dave Jordano
Tissheama, Jediah, Nirel, Anya, and Dah'Wu, Goldengate Street, Detroit 2013. A family working together to make a small flower garden in their yard. This family is one of of the only ones on Goldengate Street to own their house. Tissheama, the mother, is married to Dr. Bob, a local chiropractor who runs the Golden Gate Cafe. The "office" is both a vegetarian restaurant and an Innate Healing Arts and Ecological Center. © Dave Jordano
Black Bottom Cuts, Eastside, Detroit 2014. © Dave Jordano
Hakeem in His Room of Thoughts, Eastside, Detroit, 2012. Broke, divorced, and having recently lost his business, Hakeem found salvation through his Muslim faith. He scraped up $500 to purchase a run-down house on the north side of town and now repairs cars from an abandoned two-car garage across the street. Hakeem reserves a room in his house for meditation. There, he continuously writes phrases of wisdom, inspirational quotes, and factual tidbits on his walls that guide his moral and spiritual life. © Dave Jordano
Man Sitting at the Bar, Kovac's Tavern, Southwest Side, Detroit 2010. Kovac's has been in business for over 80 years and was once a thriving bar and restaurant for local factory workers from the neighboring Zug Island steel mill. When the mill put a ban on workers leaving the island for lunch, Kovac's business all but dried up. Now only a few patrons visit daily and they no longer serve food. Kovac's also sits directly in the path of the newly proposed international bridge to Canada whose fate is mired in the state's legislature. The present owner, hoping to retire, is unable to sell the building because of its uncertain future. He has since closed the tavern. © Dave Jordano
Young Boy in Skateboard Park, Eastside, Detroit 2013. This park was built with a $30,000 grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation. The foundation seeks to foster lasting improvements in society, with an emphasis on supporting and empowering youth in disadvantaged communities. © Dave Jordano
Makeshift BMX Course, Brewster-Douglass Projects, Eastside, Detroit 2013. A group of teenagers re-purposed an abandoned tennis court into a popular BMX course. The Brewster-Douglass Housing Project was built in 1935 and was the first federally funded public housing development for African Americans. Today, it has been long abandoned, but it was once home to such Motown legends as Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Smokey Robinson. © Dave Jordano
David and Juwan, Palmer Park, Detroit, 2011. Life-long friends, David and Juwan are on their way to hunt for snakes in nearby Palmer Park. © Dave Jordano
Tammy, Goldengate Street, Eastside, Detroit, 2013. Tammy is one of a number of white, drug-addicted prostitutes that live in Detroit. Because of the lack of police intervention, the easy access to drug houses, dealers, and Johns, these women often live for years working in specific neighborhoods around the city. © Dave Jordano
Arthur in His Shop, Westside, Detroit, 2014. Arthur, a felon who served time in prison for assault , opened this little convenience store two years ago with the help of his girlfriend because he couldn't find a job. The shop gives people in the neighborhood a place to go and hang out while providing basic, non-perishable necessities. © Dave Jordano
Diane Sleeping, Eastside, Detroit, 2013. Diane was homeless and staying at a friend's house temporarily. Thousands of people are homeless in Detroit but at least some, like Diane, are fortunate enough to be able to depend on friends for assistance. © Dave Jordano