Click on www.MiForeclosureResponse.org.

The new website was announced Monday in Lansing at a conference of 1,500 affordable housing builders, financiers and advocates.

It’s called the Community Foreclosure Response Tool Kit.

The tool kit is meant to help people increase savings and decrease debt. Charter One Bank paid for it.

Sandra Pierce is the CEO of Charter One Bank in Michigan and Indiana. Pierce predicts the state’s unemployment rate will drop below the national average. Pierce grew up in Detroit and graduated from Wayne State University. She speaks with passion about keeping neighborhoods intact.

She wants Michiganders to have accessible information and not give up hope.

“It’s up to all of us to stabilize neighborhoods and then make them vital again and have them thrive again. Every single one of us needs to get involved. That’s how our state is going to survive and thrive,” Pierce said.

The Royal Bank of Scotland owns Citizens Financial Group out of Providence, Rhode Island. That entity then owns Charter One Financial in Cleveland. They then own Charter One Banks across the Midwest.

Pierce said her bank had only 200 new foreclosures in Michigan in 2011. So she believes the trend is being reversed.

In 2008, journalists kept returning to the number $700 billion. That’s what the Bush Administration provided in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP. But on December 5, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank gave Wall Street banks $1.2 trillion dollars. Bloomberg News reported this in November last year. They tallied the total cost to taxpayers to be $7.7 trillion.  Some estimates since then have risen to $12 trillion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html

“The media and foundations and elected officials often times in the last couple years have been asleep because they’ve been numbed by the crisis,” said Neeta Delaney, the co-director of the Michigan Foreclosure task force. The task force is supported by the Community Economic Development association of Michigan (CEDAM) and The Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA).

“There are some real opportunities that we’re being presented with,” Delaney said, “to think about redeveloping our communities in different ways as a result of all of a sudden having vacant properties.”

CEDAM and the Community Research Institute from the Johnson Center at Grand Valley State University published a study called the Michigan Historical Residential Foreclosure Data Project. That was in February 2012. The study says that between 2005 and 2010 “foreclosures began on over 416,000 loans, which is 9% of the housing stock.”

Arab-American Stories was shown at a premiere party over the weekend in Dearborn. Alicia Sams directed the documentary series. Arab-Americans have been profiled as terrorists. So Sams looked for people using humor to ease the pressure.

“The kind of light side of being Arab-American. The not having to justify, not having to explain. The one guy, Omar Offendum says you know, we spent so much time after September 11 telling people what we aren’t that we never got a chance to tell people what we are. That was the goal in this was to let people say who we are.”

Alicia Sams shows a physics teacher in California and the owners of Gold Star Chili in Cincinnati. Radio host Diane Rehm tells of her Syrian roots and NPR’s Neda Ulaby is the narrator of the series.

Saturday night, about 200 people, many dressed in black, came to the museum to see the preview.

Every Monday night at 730, for the next 13 weeks, PBS in Detroit will tell stories of restaurant owners, artists, teachers and more. Alicia Sams has roots in Lebanon and Flint. She wanted all Americans to see the hard work and patriotism shown in the Arab community. And yet the premiere in Dearborn was unique because the community is big and sophisticated. Any factual errors or misinterpretation and this crowd could criticize her. Sams said:

“I guess I was nervous that in trying so hard to speak to the American community I would lose the Arab-American community. But I didn’t. So I was happy to see that.”

Dima Suki flew in from Houston to attend the event. This is what Dima says she wants viewers in Texas to have:

“I guess more acceptance of us Arabs as part of the fabric of the society. We’re like everyone else that makes American and we’re proud of it.”

Dima’s husband Rabih Suki added:

“I guess more acceptance of us Arabs as part of the fabric of the society. We’re like everyone else that makes American and we’re proud of it. You know we don’t want to be different. We want to be a part of that fabric. It doesn’t have to stick out.”

Several of the 39 stories are about Michigan people. There is tile designer and business owner Nawal Motawi, artist Adnan Charara, DJ Ace Montaser, Father Shalhoub, Social entrepreneur Moose Scheib, and Maha Freij, deputy director of Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services in Dearborn.

First of all, what is placemaking? Sounds fake doesn’t it? Urban planners and some city officials will tell you that Michigan needs placemaking. Car culture damaged the places that grew up organically. So, groups like the Michigan Municipal League try to undo the damage.

“So we’re standing alongside the river in downtown Lansing.”

Sarah Szurpicki is organizing the “It’s About Place,” contest.

“We’re on a lovely trail. There’s people jogging, walking, biking. It’s a beautiful day so there’s a lot of people out.”

Human beings have settled next to water for thousands of years. It’s used to drink, get food, transport goods, generate power and provide recreation.

‘Wow. Was that a fish? It was an enormous splashing sound.”

“That wasn’t some one throwing something out of a building….. I don’t think so no.”

In the last decade, the City of Lansing has begun to reclaim the Grand River. One on side, the convention center, got new patios and cabanas. On the other side, is the old electric power station.  It’s art deco bricks reach 170 feet in the air. They almost got torn down. Now they’re an insurance company headquarters with its own terraces and walkways by the river. The “It’s About Place” contest is asking citizens to try this on a teeny scale.

“It’s about place is our placemaking contest. What we’re trying to do is use just a little bit of money to leverage creativity in a lot of our communities to create more welcoming and inviting spaces like this.”

These are spaces where you won’t get hit by a car. You might have live music or a little league sports event. Sarah Szurpicki says,

“Whatever you can do with a couple thousand dollars. So it could be one little patio area. It could be one vacant lot. It could be one alley.”

There’s an alley on Saginaw’s west side. It’s next to the Old Town Skate shop. Someone recently painted a mural on the alley wall. It’s a man with a vested suit and hat, 1920′s style. He’s painted 10 feet tall in black and white. Skateboarders do manouevres in front of him.

The “It’s About Place” contest is for public spaces. You can try the river that runs through your town. Michigan is filled with them. The Grand River starts south of Jackson, then cuts through Lansing on its way to Lake Michigan.

“The Grand River is one of the landmarks of our city. The city is called Grand Rapids.”

Tim Mroz works at the Right Place. It’s a non-profit group that promotes economic development.

“Having a major river like this running through downtown, having a river that is fishable. You  know we’re looking across the river and we see15 fishermen there right now. And in a couple years from now we’re gonna have the rapids back in the river and you can kayak down the river, that all adds to quality of life.”

There’s that river again. An easy target for placemaking. But dry land, even concrete, can work too. It takes dirty hands. If you’re trying to beautify an abandoned park, you can’t avoid picking up trash and used tires. But the strength of a community is found in different layers of people and groups. Tim Mroz explains the Grand Rapids version.

“The term public/private partnership gets thrown around a lot. And in Grand Rapids it really works. It works at the higher levels with the philanthropists and angel investors. It works at the lower level like the downtown urban market. So it’s really the community working together. And when you come to Grand Rapids you can feel that. You can feel that heartbeat of the city.”

So what place touches your heart that’s neglected right now?  It’s scuffed up or blocked off. Take another cue from Sarah Szurpicki. She grew up in the suburbs. Went to Harvard University and then moved to Lafayette Park, a couple minutes from the Detroit River.

“You need to come up with an idea… a space where you want to build a project and your plan for that. You need to submit a letter of intent to my email which is Sarah at Letssavemichigan.com by April 6.”

That’s Sarah with an h at letssavemichigan.com.

For Michigannow I’m Chris McCarus.

Aubrey McClendon owns 330 acres on the north side of the Kalamazoo River. He bought them 6 years ago. He wants to put up 100 houses, a marina, a hotel, a nine-hole golf course and horse riding stables. He has sued the community to change the zoning. The community has spent $420,000 to protect itself. Then last year, the township told McClendon, OK. But in November, a federal judge refused to let the township give away their authority. So the resort complex is blocked for the moment. Marcia Perry is with the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance.

“This isn’t a little bit. This is basically erasing the current zoning and taking it from the least developed to some of the most intensely developed property in the entire area. When it has been for years and years singled out as the area most important to preserving our community’s identity which is essential to our livelihoods.”

As far back as the 1950′s, locals have passed zoning to keep out big stores, fast food and subdivisions. The area has rare plant and animal life and steep dunes that lead down to a quaint village with shops and restaurants. The McClendon property would have been exempt from zoning forever. The judge’s ruling was rare, like the species on the property that Marcia Perry loves:

“Bird watchers can come here and see endangered prairie warblers when they won’t be able to see them other places. I see that in the future it will continue to grow and attract the tourists that have been feeding all of us for a century now.”

Aubrey McClendon is part owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA. He’s married to a cousin of Congressman Fred Upton. They’re hiers to the Whirlpool Appliance fortune. McClendon rarely comes to Saugatuck. Same for his top lawyer and fellow investor Stephen Neumer. Their lawsuit complains of “spot zoning” and “wrongful taking….of private property.” Neumer says the community is mistaken.

“The ecology is going to be completely respected in the process. We’ve identified all of the wetlands, the emerging wetlands. The endangered species, the emerging endangered species, the flood plains.”

Neumer and McClendon’s complex would stand 90 feet tall, higher than anything ever built between Chicago and Mackinaw.

“It’s a piece of ground that can in fact have human beings living there very carefully placed, very respectful to the ground and at the same time preserve the beautiful nature that the people of Saugatuck care about and so does Saugatuck LLC.”

Saugatuck LLC is one of the companies created by Neumer and McClendon to represent their Michigan real estate. McClendon made his money speculating on oil and gas in the south. He owns 70,000 acres in his native Oklahoma. Forbes Magazine calls him the 1,075 richest person in the world.

Photo Courtesy of Erin Wilkinson

The Waxies filled the cavernous structure built in 1925 with fiddles, flutes, strings, beers and fine foods.

Proceeds from the sale of tickets are going to the St. Patrick’s Parade Association and The Friends of Celtic Culture. The Great Lakes Bay Regional Wellness Alliance sponsored the event.

Here’s a description on the Waxies website:

Waxies History

In 19th-Century Dublin, a union of cobblers (known as “waxies” for their waterproofing wax) watched a caravan of rich townsfolk leave for their annual picnic on the River Dargle, and they got an idea. They loaded cart after cart with family and friends, carried them off to a grassy plane outside the city, and had a party of their own. The annual bash grew famous among the commonfolk as the Waxies’ Dargle, inspiring the popular Irish pub song of the same name.

Then, in 21st-Century Grand Rapids, a new incarnation of The Waxies got together to share the same spirit of fun. An Irish folk lineup combined with modern punk-rock energy make for a knock-down, drag-out, hell-of-a-good-time show. Though the lineup has changed often since The Waxies’ birth in 2007, their continued success is ensured by their enthusiasm for good music and good times, their loyal West Michigan fanbase, and their niche in the indie-folk genre growing in popularity.

In 2009, The Waxies were named “Best Celtic Rock Band in Michigan” at the Ionia Free Fair Celtic Battle of the Bands (judged by audience enthusiasm and hosted by Waxies godfather Liam the XL Leprechaun) and in 2011, voters from all over Michigan awarded The Waxies a Shammy Award for “Favorite Irish Rock Act in Michigan.”

With St. Paddy’s Day right around the corner and their second studio album Wasted Saints near completion, The Waxies show no sign of slowing down.

In the last 30 years, the air has gotten a degree and a half
warmer. In the next 40 years, precipitation will increase by 6 inches. This is
according to Dr. David Lusch from Michigan State University’s Department of
Geography and the Institute of Water Research.

“You’re gonna see that it’s the timing of the precipitation and
whether the result of the precipitation is being stored for longer term use by infiltrating
and building our ground water or whether it’s being lost for immediate use by
run off.”

Dr. Lusch is part of the chorus of experts who’re charting
climate change. More fertilizer from farms and  suburban lawns will drain faster and harder
into rivers and out into the Great Lakes. They’ll choke the lakes with algae. Evaporation
will lower lake levels. Says Lusch:

“We’re anticipating a decline in the duration and thickness
of winter ice. Duh. Did anybody get out ice fishing this year? It was hazardous
at best.”

And climate change is affecting agriculture, Michigan’s
second largest industry.

“Warmer temperatures, if you’re in the livestock industry,
warmer temperatures are likely going to suppress your livestock’s appetites,
decrease their weight gain and if you’re in the dairy industry, extreme heat
also diminishes productivity of dairy cattle. We’re thinking that this part of
Michigan will feel like southern Ohio by mid-century.”

So if you’re raising, chickens, hogs or cows they might need
air-conditioning. That means, the price of food will go up. The speakers today
are sounding alarm bells. But they don’t say the situation is hopeless. Every
citizen can help fight climate change. You can start by reducing your use of
fossil fuels.

Michigan has between 15 and 19,000 black bears. Most are in the U.P. The Department of Natural Resources is studying their reproduction and migration. They’ve put radio collars on 5 bears in the lower peninsula. This sonar device is tracking a female in Oscoda County.

“They choose their own location. We just find them wherever they are. Whatever it takes.”

Mark Boersen is a biologist from the DNR Roscommon office. He’s keeping his voice down so the mother bear and a cub don’t wake up. He takes a dart gun from his truck and walks into the woods. 30 minutes later, DNR staffers drag a sled with bedrolls and medical supplies. They wave at journalists who trudge behind them in the February snow.

Mark Boersen tranquilized the mother and her son while standing 10 feet away.

“The little guy is still hanging on a little bit. He’s not fully out yet. He’s teetering on the edge. So just be really quiet. The darts are in the bears right where I placed them. Where I shot them. And there’s some other equipment, oxygen and other stuff there as well. I have the head of the young one propped up so he doesn’t put his head down in the dirt and suffocate. So that’s why that stick is in there under his chin.”

In the dead of winter, black bear live without eating, drinking or passing waste. They’re in a groggy state. They’re not true hibernators. So the DNR needs to drug them to be safe. Veteran DNR bear man Dan Moran points to the den–a 5 foot bowl in the ground, only 2 feet deep with a few branches over it.

“Yeah, walk up take a look. She’s excavated that out. Dug that out. It’s a nest in there. She’s lined it with bark and wood chips she’s chewed off the edge of the tree. She’s just curled up. And there you go.”

Dan Moran and others drag the bears onto mats so they won’t get chilled by snow touching their fur. Moran says if they woke up they’d run away.

“They have no urge to fight with us.”

The DNR called in the chief veterinarian from Potter Park Zoo in Lansing. She checked the bears  heart rate, lungs, joints, abdomen….teeth. Mom weighs 150 pounds and her son weighs 50. These bears are healthy says the vet. But we journalists ask is global warming affecting the bear population? DNR staffer Steve Griffith said:

“I think the unusual weather we had this fall was probably the factor that we were seeing bears active right up until new year’s eve. So I can see that having potential consequences.”

In longer winters, bears can hibernate between October and May. This year, hibernation could be reduced to just January, February and March. More time awake might not mean more food.

“Climate change yeah that is a concern. It’s one of the newer areas that the department’s trying to focus on. And it does have changing weather patterns…it will have an effect on a lot of animals species as well as their habitat. Plants and trees that they rely on for food and cover.”

So global warming could be changing bear habitat. Then humans destroy it, says the DNR’s Mike Kowalski.

“There is a lot of interaction. More and more now there’s people living out in the woods.”

Last year, Kowalski corralled a 400 pound bear in downtown Traverse City.

“Cuz he’s a nuisance bear. Again there’s a hazing thing involved. You get him to be scared of people. He’ll remember. Last time I was around people I ended up with a tattoo, a sore mouth and a pain in my rear end. So hopefully that works and we won’t see him again.”

But mainly, Kowalski says, bears are suffering from Michiganders desire to live out in the country. Bears look for food around people’s houses.  Kowalski explains the DNR’s policy on it.

“If you do get a bird feeder that’s knocked down and destroyed take it down. Leave it down for a while. The bear will move on. He’ll find some other food source. Then you can put it up a little bit later.”

Dan Moran has tracked bears hundreds of times. He predicts what will happen when these two leave the den.

“Probably once they come out of the den, April May, she will move him off or he will disperse on his own. Breeding season is in June and July. She doesn’t want a boy around. So he’ll have to find his own niche in the environment. He could move 20 miles. He could move 100 miles. It just depends on where he finds a spot where no one will pick on him.”

The whole bear den check lasts about 2 hours. Then the DNR team returns them to the den. One official says sweet dreams. And a journalist asks Dan Moran how he feels.

“No good night kiss. Nope.”

Black bears are getting tough love from the DNR. That means limiting the harm done to them by the rest of us.

The law allows an appointed person to cut teachers, police and firemen and sell off public assets. About 300 people denounced the law at Central United Methodist Church across from the state capitol. Pastor David Bullock was one of them.

“Joe Harris in Benton Harbor closed down the public radio stations. Stole the park from the people….still has a budget deficit in the city. So not only is it anti-democratic. But this public policy doesn’t work.”

Bullock and others carried 226,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office. That’s enough for repeal of the emergency manager law to get on the ballot in the November. If the Secretary of State approves the signatures, Public Act number 4 will be suspended until then at least.

The secretary of state has 60 days to respond. But petition organizers believe that they’ll all decide on exact ballot language much sooner than that.

Michigan has almost 7 million eligible voters. So 51% of those who show up, perhaps about 1.6 million, will be needed to overturn the law.

Both Pastor Bullock and fellow organizer Brandon Jessup said the issue should not be framed in terms of black versus white or even city versus suburb. They said Traverse City and Ann Arbor provided a lot signatures. They said the issue is about the powerful versus the powerless.

Dr. Janine Sinno attended the conference. She is a human ecologist working for the Ingham County Health Department. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus interviewed her inside an auditorium with adults and teens in the background.

Sinno is excited about Complete Streets. It is a set of laws enacted by the State of Michigan in 2010. They allow local governments to make streets narrower and sidewalks and bike paths wider. Complete Streets advocates believe that a variety of transportation choices makes people happier and healthier.

Greenation’s founder is Reverend David Bullock, a charismatic speaker who knows that a movement for social and environmental justice can’t be built just around a man like him, as many civil rights organizations were in the 1960′s. The philosopher Grace Lee Boggs makes this point in her new book The Next American Revolution.

The first day of the conference took place at a community center near the state capitol. It used to be a school. It’s called the Black Child & Family Institute. BCFI has survived white flight and the drug wars in that neighborhood during the 1980′s and ‘90′s. Lansing police veterans are quick to tell these stories. Many of them moved to Dewitt Township, a collection of farms paved over for subdivisions.

BCFI is once again at risk. It symbolizes what’s happening to the families that live in Michigan’s old cities.  The building will be closed by November 15. The non-profit that runs it leases it from the Lansing School District for $1 a year. But neither organization says it has the money to repair the broken boiler. The heat doesn’t work. Conference participants were cold.

CONVERSATION BETWEEN CHRIS MCCARUS AND DR. JANINE SINNO:

JS: We need to organize communities at all levels in order to focus our issues and our priorities before going to policymakers and making change happen. So learning how to organize and learning how to empower leadership is very important.

CMC: Does this mean that knocking on doors and making flyers and pamphlets is a skill that needs to be obtained?

JS: It’s not as much knocking on doors and pamphlets and flyers. It’s targeting leaders who have already gathered the critical mass around them, and knowing how to go to them and empower them to focus their issues and go to political decision-makers.  Once they are on board they can rally the crowd behind them without necessarily going door to door and spending time with pamphlets.

CMC: Dr. Sinno you live and work in Lansing. What would you want to do to organize with other people in other parts of the state? What subjects? What places?

JS: My position at the health department is around building healthy communities, tackling obesity and chronic disease from a policy and environmental change level. It entails working with leaders and communities to educate them about the issues around them that prevent adopting a healthy lifestyle.

CMC: What are you seeing in Ingham County or around Michigan about these issues?

JS: I’m very happy about what I’m seeing around Ingham County. Ingham County had the first Complete Streets ordinance in the City of Lansing in Michigan. That was in 2009 and Ingham County had the first Complete Streets ordinance at the township level in 2011.

CMC: Dr. Sinno you’re talking about childhood obesity. How would the general public know that Complete Streets have anything to do with obesity and child health?

JS: Complete Streets facilitate access and walkability and bikeability and streets for people of all abilities to use, and not streets for just cars. So it goes hand in hand. You are allowing facilitating walking to school, walking to the bus stop and walking to the grocery store.

CMC: How important is walking to childhood health?

JS: Not everybody is able to afford going to a club to exercise. And we know how much schools are cutting down on physical education programs. So you need to make it as natural as possible, as embedded in the workday to be active and making that easier and safer. This is one policy that I’m very happy about.

CMC: I would guess that you would want other communities to do Complete Streets like Ingham County?

JS: We have three more in Ingham County: City of Leslie, Meridian Township and Delhi Township.

CMC: How about other counties in other parts of the state?

JS: Now there are more and more counties adopting this. The state of Michigan now is tied with California for the number of Complete Streets ordinances and resolutions passed.

CMC: And yet we are still so car dependent.

JS: You have to put those things in the books, in the ordinances first before you go to implementation. They have to be somewhere in the books and enforceable ordinances. We’re very happy that Horizon Elementary, I work with them on a safe routes to school program. Their level of walking to school has increased from 28 kids per day to over 130 kids per day over the past two years. If that’s not progress I don’t know what is.   That’s a school in Holt. They’ve gained national attention. They were able to partner with Delhi Township to get a federal grant to build more sidewalks and make their streets safer. They established a walking school bus. And their principal is a champion. Now three more schools want to do this. They cut down their bus usage in Holt from 5-6 buses to 1-2 buses. That’s a success in physical activity.

As for nutrition and food access, we’re also organizing food access in the revisions of the master plan for the City of Lansing. We are starting with MSU Extension and Randy Bell to organize the food system work group. That’s the food policy council at the local level. This group has worked on this project. So all the community gardens they’ve organized and embraced. Neighborhoods and farmers markets have been able to accept EBT’s (Food Stamps). That’s partly funded by the Healthy Communities program.

CMC: A cynic might say that a few local gardens and a couple farmer’s markets are no match for the Walmart, Meijer and Kroger that everyone goes to everyday.

JS: That’s true in a sense. But they build communities. They reinvigorate community capacity to interact with each other. There’s this side of it.  It’s something that you plant. The kids learn up front. When we started this we surveyed kids in 3rd grade and some didn’t even know what a tomato looked like. They’ve eaten a tomato on a pizza. But they didn’t know what it looked like. And how sad is that?

So it’s bringing kids early on when they’re young and seeing that the land is rich. What we have is rich. Rather than going to the aisles of a grocery store and looking at the prices and seeing it’s forbidden, here we look at the land and see it’s giving to us. It’s a whole different concept of feeling: “Yes, I can do that.”  I’m empowered if I can just plant and take care of my own place.

(NOTE: This story was originally broadcast in 2008 with an introduction different than this one above.)

David Hochstetler is 32. He wears a black top hat, a beard wrapping around his chin and no moustache. He’s Amish. He lives with his wife and four kids where two dirt roads cross, near Vermontville.

“We had ten children in our family and my dad, he was a farmer and he always did good in farming and tried to teach us don’t go deeper into debt than what you can pay off. And far as interest is what will eat you up. And for interest, if that’s all you can pay you’re really not gaining anything.”

Hochstetler says loans usually cost you money instead of make you money. Earlier this week, he had just finished grinding corn for the winter. Then the rain came. He talked about finances. Though he hasn’t heard much about the crisis on Wall Street.

“See we don’t have television so I’ve just heard that some banks closed in New York City. And that’s just about all we know.”

Hochstetler isn’t worried about the credit crunch. He’s less connected to Wall Street than most Americans.

“I don’t think as a rule the Amish are as quick to borrow money. We don’t have cars and we don’t have insurance either.”

General Motors had to sell half its stake in GMAC.. Ford Motor Credit is itself $1 billion in debt. Earlier in September, AIG insurance went bankrupt. The Federal government had to bail it out. David Hochstetler’s Amish view of credit is similar to what past generations of Americans preached.

“Just start out small. Buy used equipment. And start little and work your way up instead of trying to buy everything new and getting this huge bill and into debt before you even get started where you can’t even see any daylight.”

Hochstetler has followed his father’s advice on money management and what kind of job to do.

“The Lord has blessed us. We’ve had good years and we actually own these 80 acres. And we had about $30,000 in savings and made a down payment. And in the next 8 years we actually bought this property.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says Wall Street’s problems come from the home mortgage crisis. This is strange to many Amish.

“So far I’ve never actually in my years seen where an Amish guy lost his house or anything. But we do have a case now where there is a guy who is in debt. A couple hundred thousand in debt. And he just didn’t have any way out. He was a carpenter. People would pay him but he wasn’t getting his bills paid at the lumber yard. And finally has set three men to help him, they formed a committee. They help him manage his money. He can’t have his own check book. He can’t write out a check without their consent. He’s just helpless.”

This doesn’t sound as bad what’s happening right now in more modern America.  No one wants to be helpless. And farmer David Hochstetler and his family have made sure they’re not.

For Michigan Now, I’m Chris McCarus in Vermontville, in Eaton County.