Detroit Homecoming Welcomes Expats to Reconnect and Reinvest
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, Mayor Mike Duggan, and Detroit businessman Dan Gilbert set to speak.
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Officials in Detroit are hoping to reconnect with what they say is the city’s biggest untapped resource: its former residents. The second Detroit Homecoming is underway this week. It’s an event for more than 170 of the city’s most influential and successful expatriates. Co-director Jim Hayes says the event recognizes the city’s greatest export — its talent.
“It’s a celebration of their young lives in Detroit, it’s a reeducation about what’s going on in the city, it’s a connection of them to the city, and hopefully it’s inspirational enough to get them to do something either commercially or philanthropically for their old hometown.”
Jim Hayes, Co-director of Detroit Homecoming
Hayes says more than $230 million have been invested in the city as a result of last year’s event.