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A new video posted on YouTube provides a glimpse into a small, counter-culture group in northwest Detroit called Fireweed Universe-City. The group, comprised of about 15 core members, is living in more than a half dozen homes around Goldengate Street in a blighted neighborhood near 7 Mile Road and Woodward, and its goal is to upgrade the area while living a communal life style free of the corporate world.
Some members have purchased the homes. Others are squatting for now. Most hail from Michigan, but some are from out-of-state including Washington, D.C. and Indiana. Outside of the core group, there are other who help with projects.
Arjen Bosma who is featured in the video
The video, which was created by a film company Overlander.tv, features one of the group's projects called the "Intentional House."
This past spring, the group converted the once-abandoned house on Robinwood Street into a place for domestic and international travelers to stay for free. Poets, artists, cyclists and others often come through for a day or two or more, Arjen Bosma, 34, a member of the group who runs the five-bedroom house, tells Deadline Detroit. Some people come from places like France. Some folks stick around to work on projects.
"Intentional House" comes from the term "intentional," which in this case means a community based on social cohesiveness and teamwork.
At present, the group is technically squatting at the Intentional House. But Bosma, who is featured in the video, says there are plans to buy the house when the city puts it up for auction. Meanwhile, there's no running water or electricity. So they bring in their own water and use kerosene lanterns, candles, flashlights and a wood stove to heat the house. They also use outhouses.
From the video, it looks as if the house is still a work in progress. Nonetheless, there are sections of the house that do have a homey look about it.
"We're trying to create a community where we're learning how to live peacefully but independent from the corporate world," Bosma, a Kalamazoo native, said in a phone interview.
The group's website describes its mission as a "grassroots, not-for-profit movement to transform a devastated, burned-out Detroit city neighborhood into a sustainable, eco-friendly, intentional community that will be the grounds for urban farming, residential and creative space for artists, healers, musicians, and like-minded, forward-thinking, progressive individuals, families, small businesses, and the surrounding community already in place."
In November 2013, John Carlisle of the Detroit Free Press did a lengthy feature on the group, which settled into the area a couple years before. They started taking over abandoned homes, painting them in wild colors and planting vegetable gardens, Carlisle wrote. They also started a bicycle coop.
He wrote that there were cultural clashes with the area residents, some whom saw the new settlers as easy targets for robbery. When Occupy Detroit took place, people came and stayed in the vacant homes, Carlisle writes. He wrote that not everybody shared the same communal ideals.
Some folks showed up drunk or high and started fights, stole things. And one woman was nearly raped in the driveway by a stranger who'd spent a month there doing chores and fixing houses, he wrote.
He wrote in the 2013 article:
The freeloaders have gone away, as they do every winter, leaving behind a core of believers who -- even in the face of ill will and hardship and odds -- remain hopeful about establishing a new kind of community in an unwelcoming place.
Bosma grew up in the Kalamazoo area and earned a degree in social psychology from Western Michigan University. After graduating he worked with people with mental challenges in the Kalamazoo area, then traveled around. He helped in New Orleans with disaster relief and went to California for a while. About four months ago, he joined the Fireweed Universe-City community in Detroit, attracted by the opportunities in the city, affordable living and the counter-culture life style.
The group runs other projects in the neighborhood besides the Intentional House. Up until last month, it ran the Red Planet Bicycle COOP out of an abandoned storefront on Goldengate Street. People donated bikes. The group fixed them up and gave them away to people in the neighborhood, and also taught folks how to repair bikes.
But last month they ran into problems. The owner of the building kicked them out, demanding $82,000 for the structure, according to Bosma. He says they still have bikes to give away, but no storefront.
The group just recently started renting a commercial building on John R and Montana with the intent of hosting events and creating space for artists. And they've been working to convert other abandoned homes in the area into livable spaces.
He said people in the group grow plants and share organic food. He says he goes weekly to his mother's farm in the Kalamazoo area and gets eggs to distribute to the members.
Some members earn money fixing up buildings, doing odd jobs in the neighborhood and working at a coffee shop and restaurant on Woodward near 7 Mile Road called the Goldengate Cafe. The cafe is part of the Innate Healing Art Center which offers alternative and holistic health and chiropractic treatment, and is run by chiropractor Robert Pizzimenti.
Bosma said the life in his neighborhood is not without some potential danger. There is crime, prostitutes, drug dealers and homeless people. Members of his community have to be careful. But he says, so far, nothing too bad has happened since he's been there.
He said when they first moved into the Intentional House, someone came barging in around 6:30 a.m. The guy wanted to use the house to have sex with a prostitute, who was waiting in the driveway. Bosma says he explained to the guy that people lived there. He said the man was apologetic, saying he thought the house was still abandoned.
Despite little incidents like that, he says, there's been plenty reward in living in the Fireweed community.
"People who have a lot of dreams and aspirations want to come down here. It's been a pretty amazing experience," he says. "I'm learning a lot about do-it-yourself culture."
