Yesterday. But I’m gonna mention it again today. And it starts with a video that speaks to the revitalization and the tearing down of homes in Gary, Gary, Indiana. That is. Shout out to Brittany. Shout out to Brittany. Let me show you what’s happening in Gary, Indiana. And that’s the mayor. This is the mayor of Gary, Indiana. All right. I want to show you what’s happening in Gary, and I’m gonna give you my thoughts.

Well, today, Gary, Indiana is breaking ground on a new neighborhood stabilization effort. The mayor will be speaking this morning, sharing his vision for redevelopment in the neighborhood. Joni joins us live with more details. Good morning. Well, the mayor has already put his words into action. There are construction trucks all around this neighborhood. We’re standing in knocking down vacant homes. They started with this one right here in the first district.

This is the Aetna neighborhood of Gary. And they started the demolition on this house. Nobody really knows just how long some of these buildings have been vacant. They’re estimating 20 to 30 years. But now they are paving the way for the new future of Gary, Indiana. Here’s some video we have of this house coming down. This is what’s going to be happening all over this neighborhood. They are going to be working on several homes.

They’ve got seven teams, construction teams, who volunteered their time to help knock down the vacant homes, remove the blight in Gary, address the blight, and make way for new development. Eight different companies volunteered. And then the person who started all this, his name is Jim Wiseman and he is with a road construction company. He told me everyone said, yes, let’s do it. They started now because it’s sort of winter.

Brittany, I know you in Fort Wayne, baby. I’m just saying that Indiana in general, honey, for a time when they’re usually slow, and so now they are actually doing it. This is a neighborhood where he grew up, and he wants it to be reborn into the beautiful neighborhood that he grew up in. Here’s mayor Eddie Melton talking about the project. In our 1st 100 days. We made sure that we reached out to our community partners.

Reith Riley was the first corporation that we sat down to have a conversation with and figured out how can we collaborate and address some long term issues that the city has. Let me give a shout out to Mayor Eddie Melton. Let me give you a round of applause. I want to start highlighting the people that are doing well in their cities. Mayor Gary, I’m sorry. Eddie Melton. Mayor Eddie Melton was born and raised in Gary, Indiana.

I know that he may not even know that I know who he is, but I am familiar with who he is because I know that he’s recently assumed the office of mayor in Gary, Indiana this year. And he’s a very educated, well spoken community advocate and a person that is absolutely suited, in my opinion, and best for the position. So in addition to holding these politicians accountable, because I do believe that we need to spend the majority of our time highlighting the solutions just as much.

We have to have a balance in highlighting the solutions and people that are doing well in addition to the people that need to get out of office, we need to remove the corruption and then also highlight and give acknowledgement to the people that are doing well. Because if we only spend our time on the negative and we not given just as much acknowledgement to the positive, then what incentive do people have to continue to do the right thing? Right? So I want to give a little bit of a props to Mayor Eddie Melton of Gary, Indiana.

I go and visit Gary. I visited Gary several times. I haven’t visited Gary since before the pandemic. But I do plan on making my way down there because I documented it and I highlighted some of the good things that was happening over in the city. I love the fact that they are taking initiative in charge and they’re not waiting for anybody to come and save them. Let me say that again.

They’re not waiting for anybody to come and save them. Let me go ahead and play the rest of this clip and then we gonna get into what my thoughts are on Gary, Indiana and the Midwest in general. We know we have a significant amount of blighted structures, and there’s only a couple of ways that we can address that. Number one is having the right finances to do that, in which we’re working with the state and the federal government, but also pulling some of our corporate partners to the table.

So we’re happy that all of these contractors have volunteered their services. So we’re going to demolish close to 40 homes today. They’re demolishing more than 40 blighted homes today. Let’s continue. The last time that I went to Gary, there was a significant amount of redevelopment that was happening in the city. But let’s continue. So they just restarted the work here. You know, they targeted 85 homes in this neighborhood alone for demolition.

And they went to the owners and some of the owners said, no, we would like to rehab our property. So they’re giving them the chance to do that. But at least 35 are going to come down this week here in the Aetna neighborhood. This is right next to Miller Beach. Miller beach is a beautiful area right along Lake Michigan. And they feel like this could be a beautiful neighborhood as well.

You’re watching the demolition of the first house here in the first district of Gary. Reporting live. Now, I know that this is not going to get any kind of visibility unless I leverage my platform and my visibility in order to do so. And I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that. That’s what we’ll do, right? We’ll take out the trash shortly. But I just want to make sure that I acknowledge these people.

And it kind of speaks to a bigger thing that I was talking about. Know, I was out and about yesterday in the city and it was, was. I don’t know if a lot of y’all seen the video that I dropped on the Anton Daniels channel. You probably didn’t. But it was absolutely thriving. It was a Sunday morning, afternoon, it was like 01:32 p. m. And it was construction going on and it was so many people and it was a melting pot.

And I was hearing conversations because I anticipated actually having a conversation and talking about something completely different, but I was hearing conversations from the people that was walking up and down the street. And it was like, oh my God, I can’t believe that Detroit is like this. But I’m going to just tell you, it’s not just Detroit. It’s a lot of places that’s starting to really thrive. And the thing that I was inspired to have a conversation about with you guys on camera yesterday, which I changed my message to speak more to that because I was right there in the middle of it.

And I myself have personally moved into downtown Detroit and I have never left my state or my city. And I’ve always had some sort of a residence or some sort of business here. And I’ve decided to live, work and play all in the same city and spend the majority of my time here. And I see so much change from when I was younger. And it’s incredible to see the amount of people that were so excited.

And it was full on a Sunday, it was full, every street was full, and it was full of traffic and people was having fun and it was ice skating and they were at the shops and stuff. And I was just like, I was so proud that I was a part of the fabric that never left, but instead decided to make sure that I became a part of the culture, a small part of the culture that happened in the city.

And it’s not just happening here. It’s happening in a lot of places. I see it happening in Cleveland. I see it happening in Cincinnati. I see it happening in Columbus. I see it happening in Pittsburgh. I see it happening in portions of Indiana. Milwaukee, believe it or not, Milwaukee is absolutely doing a thing. And it’s crazy. And the real conversation that we need to be having is why are we always culturally last? And we play me, too, when it comes to revitalizing or we waiting a couple different things and then we’re going to go into Fonny Willis.

We always want to wait for somebody to come and save us. Nobody is coming to save you. If you want different in your city, in your neighborhood, in your community, then you’re going to have to do the thing that’s different. Revitalize. Get the beam out of your own eye and stop running away from your problems. Because contrary to popular belief, you still take you with you. Let me say that again.

Contrary to popular belief, when you leave, you still take yourself with you. So everybody that ran from all of the places that they thought that they can get away from, they ran down to Atlanta, and they ruined that. Now they running down to Houston and they ruining that. They down there in Florida, and they say, we don’t want you in Florida. California’s is running away from the thing that they voted for in California.

San Francisco is dying. Oakland is dying. All of these places is starting to fall apart. But the money has already been invested in a lot of these places. And when you see what’s changed, because we don’t have any more blighted buildings here. We don’t have any more commercial real estate property in downtown Detroit for you to invest in anymore. It’s already bought. Is there still opportunities and stuff? Absolutely.

Pittsburgh was thriving. I went to Pittsburgh years ago when I started to love Pittsburgh. And I was telling people, I said, man, pittsburgh is awesome, how awesome Pittsburgh is. I was down in Cleveland. I went over to Milwaukee. I don’t just visit the popular places. If you want to see change, you know who’s selling crack in your communities, you know what’s happening in your cities, you know who the Jack boys are, you know what’s going on.

Oh, man, I’ma just run over here. Okay, so you gonna run over and you wanted the Jack boys now all of the scammers is down in Atlanta now. Good. Cause the minute that y’all all left, then that’s when we started to change and we revitalized the city. I’m driving down the street in my car because I was in a Porsche yesterday. And dude, like, oh, man, you remember me? I was.

I’m sorry, you know, because I was polite. I was sipping on my hot chocolate that I had just got from the local bakery that’s in downtown Detroit. And he said, oh, man, I’m such and such. I used to go to school with you. I left here, and I ran over to California. And so my first thing that I asked him, and this is the honest to God truth, I said, what you doing back here? Because I’ll be trying to understand.

I honestly be trying to know, like, if you left, why you here? What you doing back? You know, I’m thinking about coming back. And plus, I got family here and stuff. And it’s like, no, stay over. Where you was at in California? We good. We built from within, from the people that was already here, from the people that really wanted to be here. And so now we thriving, and we good.

It’s like, oh, now people want to run back. Oh, I left. I want to come back. No, you good. You good. What you doing here? Why you now feel the need to come and visit? Oh, you remember me. I don’t. I do remember the people that stayed and grind and hustled. I called my guy yesterday. I said, yo, you know that I moved back down into the city in the downtown.

He said, yeah, I’m coming back from Hawaii on Monday. Let’s link up. Let’s run it up. We gonna get money together. We cool. And you know the worst part about it? And then I’m gonna move over to Fawnie. The interesting thing about it is that everybody want to move to places that they can’t even afford to move to. That’s the interesting part about it. Why are y’all trying to run to California? You can’t afford to live there, and then you want to sit there and complain about inflation and affordability.

The place where you were supposed to be is the place where you was born and raised, and that’s not for everybody. I’m saying it’s okay for you to move and go and explore different things and see where it is that you want to go to. But what I’m saying is, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Don’t sit here and complain to me about the affordability of being able to live in places that you can’t afford to be in, but you just want to be a part of and then want to sit here and say, well, it’s the government’s fault.

No, it’s your fault. It’s your fault. You can’t afford to be down there in Miami. I’m being real with you. You can’t afford to be there. You can’t afford to be in the places that you want to live in, but you run into it and then you gonna live in the ghetto there they said, anton, you a big fish in a small pond. I’m cool with that. I’m cool with that.

Listen, I love my city. I love my city. I love it to my core. It’s people that I don’t even necessarily care for or right away get along with. But you can’t even get me to talk negatively about them. You know why? Because they’re from the city. And so any problem that I have with them, I can call them and solve for it offline than I can online.

It’s some popular people in the city that I wind up having to call offline in order to solve for a problem because I didn’t necessarily care about them. I’m not going to talk about them online. I’m not going to talk about the things that I love or the people that’s a part of the fabric of the city. Just because I may have a disagreement with them, I’m going to call them.

I’m cool with being okay and being relatively significant in my city. I don’t have to run out there. And I went and visited Miami, and I lived in Miami during the pandemic because it was open. But I’d rather spend more time focused on growing in my own culture, in my own city. And I can go and visit Miami. I’ll get a second place in certain places, but I’m not about to go and run to no place that ain’t raised me.

These are the places that my tax dollars are a part of. I’m a part of the fabric. I understand the city. I know what streets that’s significant. I’d rather invest in my own and be able to afford it. I can afford to comfortably live here and I have no problems whatsoever. And then we always last. And then ten years from now, ten years from now, 15 years from now, they go, oh, man, let’s go, it’s too late, it’s too late.

The property values have appreciated 3000%. It’s too late, it’s too late. You always last to the party, you always leave, get rid of, sell, let your grandparents and your parents property get dilapidated. Then you want to come back and move back and say, oh, man, look how they changed the neighborhood. They changed it because you left it and you made it available and cheap for them to take it and buy it up.

So now they’ve redeveloped it and profited off of it, and they gentrified it based off of. Not based off of their ability to gentrify it, but your willingness to give it up. And then you want to complain about it. You can’t complain about the thing that you’ve been a part of. You can’t complain about the thing that you left. Oh, man, I want to run over here and spend all of my money over here where people ain’t even checking for me.

Have y’all ever heard of the small city dilemma that’s happening over in LA? Y’all ain’t never heard of that? The small city dilemma over there in LA is this, you from a smaller city or you from a smaller town outside of Los Angeles, and Los Angeles is just similar in Miami and all of that, right? And so what happens was you was the man in your city, and usually it happens to women more than men.

You was the man in your city and then you ran off over into a completely different city. You ran to a different city or you ran over to LA because you was the man and you was like, oh, I’m the popular girl in school, I’m going to go to LA and be the one and be the model. And then you get over to LA and you realize you really a four in LA or Miami, you not what you was in your city.

You was good in your city, you was the man, homie, you a four. What you think is money over where they at? Listen, I’m cool. I take my little money, I’m good where I ain’t got. I ain’t trying to prove nothing to nobody. You go over to Miami, everybody got what you got. Your car is like an ultima in Miami. You go over to LA and you realize you just adjustable five in LA, because everybody in LA is clicked up and they got way better people that look way better than you.

And now you’re feeling lonely because you used to be the man where you were. Stop trying to run, to go and do things to impress people that ain’t got no interest in you. You ain’t even it. You’re going to be strung out, the streets is going to have its way with you. And you don’t realize that you asking for something that you’re not ready for. You asking for something that you’re not ready for.

You think that you’re ready to go out there, the streets is going to swallow you up. Stay home stay home. And this is not for everybody. I’m not speaking for everybody, but I got to speak to the majority. Not the minority. Stay home. That small city where the boy loved you and he was willing to marry you and he was a small town boy and he was going to be good for you.

You’re going to be just like that girl on Tyler Perry’s temptation. Somebody going to take you on a private jet, bust you down, give you HIV AIDS, and then you’re going to regret the fact that the small town pharmacist, the real pharmacist, not the one that’s selling drugs, the one that actually went to school for pharmacy, the small town pharmacist who was best for you, went and got married to somebody else.

That was your competition in high school. Stay out of that. That ain’t for you. You can’t afford to live there. You can’t afford to swim with the big fish. You won’t get swallowed up. Swallowed up dolphins, sharks and whales out there willing to wreck your life. And you so busy wanting to run. No, you good. .

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