Artist Gina Reichert and designer Mitch Cope bought a foreclosed home and turned it into both an experiment in operating off the power grid and a centre to link artists and the local community (CBC)

A Detroit couple are attempting to rebuild a neighbourhood in their recession-ravaged city by attracting artists to snap up its cheap housing stock and turn it into something better.

As the auto industry crumbles, a wave of foreclosures has swept over Detroit, leaving whole streets abandoned.

Artist Gina Reichert and designer Mitch Cope weren't content to let that happen to the city where they live.

They bought a foreclosed home for $1,900 US last year and turned it into both an experiment in operating off the power grid and a centre to link artists and the local community.

"We really like to think that art is a catalyst and a bridge between all sorts of people and places," Reichert told CBC News.

"So the goal is the house acts as a forum to attract artists and designers and architects from other places to come and see the positive things about Detroit. It's really easy to find the negatives, but underneath all of that there's a really active culture and active community."

Houses have been sitting vacant, many stripped by thieves or vandalized. Some are going for as little as $100 US.

That's a price even artists can afford. And Reichert is wooing fellow artists from all over the world to look for opportunities in Detroit housing through the website powerhouseproject.com.

She doesn't advise people to buy sight unseen, but to choose houses where they can experiment with design. Much of the housing stock is out of date and she and Cope see that as an opportunity to redesign more self-sustaining homes.

Reichert admits the area, with its high crime rate and joblessness of close to 23 per cent, can be hard to live in, but said the benefit is a rich network of artists across the city.

"It's where we live, we bought our first house there three years ago and this is our second house. This is more an experiment in housing and arts in the community," she said, speaking from Windsor.

Solar and wind power

They've called it the Power House because they've been able to take it off the electrical grid, Cope said.

"When we got it it was already off the grid because thieves had stolen all the wires, so we decided to take that idea and keep it, meaning we would add solar panels, wind turbines and anything else we could think of to keep it off the grid electrically," he said.

Cope and Reichart have little money and did all the design and much of the labour themselves, eventually investing about $60,000 US.

The process of changing the house got the neighbours, many of them poor and black, interested in the project.

"As we work on the house, people come up to us and ask us what we're doing, because it might be a little strange or odd, so we start talking and ask them what they do and if they would help," Cope said.

"People get really interested in the idea of art. Everybody understands that art and creativity is something positive, even if they don't know too much about art."

People of the neighbourhood are very keen to get people back into houses, with the hope that it will discourage drug traffickers and help reduce crime levels, he said.

Cope said he hopes to "develop a model for how you can change neighbourhoods, not just in Detroit but other neighbourhoods, by using artists, by using the skills of the neighbourhood."

Neighbourhoods can shift and change with the creativity of artists, he said.

Cope plans to turn the first floor of the Power House into a neighbourhood art centre and to lure artists to size up the neighbourhood by providing a bedroom for visitors on the second floor.