DETROIT (MI)
News-Observer

By PATRICIA MONTEMURRI – Detroit Free Press

DETROIT — On the east side of Detroit, the Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church is the anchor of a neighborhood that has seen the addition of 14 new homes and a 62-unit senior center.

Joyce Anderson, an administrative assistant for the Wayne County, Mic., Prosecutor’s Office, moved into a new house two years ago, in part, because of Nativity’s outreach in the neighborhood.

Now Nativity is fighting a recommendation that calls for the parish, and three others on the east side, to close.

“The church is really the reason I’m here. They were building up the community,” said Anderson, 56, who is not Catholic. “If they closed, all the positive energy would go with them.”