Yep, the railway terminal was bought by Ford a few years ago and is well on it's way to being renovated into a brand new conference/office/events centre type deal - that project alone has kickstarted a lot of rejuvenation work in the surrounding area as it's the sort of deal which has given investors confidence that things are changing.
Detroit is a weird place with a homelessness problem but it's not as bad as you might think, owing to the fact that in vast tracts of the city there really isn't any population at all. They are around, mainly in the areas closer to downtown, and do take shelter in some buildings but for the most part you don't see anybody at all inside these places - whats even weirder is the general lack of explorers, you'd think in a city overrun with derelict buildings there would be loads but there really aren't that many people who actually set out to explore in Detroit. On the lovely warm weekend we were here we ran into the one group in this Church and then one other small group at another church later that day, but that was it. I honestly don't know why it is that way, maybe it's the perception of Detroit being so dangerous nobody wants to make the trip, maybe there's some other factors.
thats interesting & yes it always appears a dangerous place, but of course Iv never been thats just the media impression you get.