Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's On the Ground Kalamazoo series. This series is funded by the Kalamazoo Community Foundation.

KALAMAZOO, MI — A lot of working people are just one medical bill, one missed rent payment, or one car repair bill from financial hardship, a new local leader says.
 
“I did a community health needs assessment of our area,” Arturo Puckerin says of the groundwork he did after being named executive director of the Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood Association last October.
 
CourtesyArturo Puckerin was named executive director of the Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood Association in October of 2024.Among other things, he looked at the top barriers to financial security and the most common needs expressed by neighborhood residents. Then he started surveying people who visited the association’s offices at 1301 E. Michigan Ave.
 
“I found that a lot of people are on the border,” says the 41-year-old native New Yorker who found his way to Michigan in 2013 to attend law school. “Some are working two jobs.”
 
They are working but struggling financially, yet they make enough so that they don’t qualify for food assistance, Medicaid, or other assistance. “So for many of them, if their vehicle was to break down, or they fall behind in daycare expenses – especially in the summer — they are on the border of being evicted or having other issues financially,” Puckerin says.
 
Those who are financially surviving, but just barely, are identified by the United Way as ALICE workers – Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, and Employed. They account for about 27 percent of all Michigan families, according to the United Way of South Central Michigan. An estimated 48 percent of all children in Kalamazoo live in households that struggle to cover their essential needs. They were the focus of a six-month pilot program that the Eastside Neighborhood Association conducted early this year to provide grants of up to $500 for vehicle repairs.
 
“The biggest piece about this is that it prevents poverty,” Puckerin says of the program, which ended May 1, 2025, after providing 70 families with funds to repair their cars and keep working. “And that’s always the goal. On all sides is the sense to protect the middle class and protect our folks who are working.”
 
Raising economic and social standards

Working to improve the quality of life for neighborhood residents is the mission of the Eastside Neighborhood Association and its executive director.  Puckerin fills a leadership role left open by the December 2023 retirement of Patricia Taylor. She served the community for more than 18 years. Why take the job?
 
“It’s honestly because of the grassroots component of the work and the designation within the city,” says Puckerin, who describes himself as a U.S. Army brat who has come to love West Michigan after living and working in several other states.

CourtesyExecutive Director Aruro Puckerin says the Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood Association's food distribution program is one of several programs that help financially struggling area residents.The Eastside Neighborhood is bordered on the south and west by the Kalamazoo River, on the north by part of Gull Road and Kalamazoo Township (Eastwood), on the east by Kalamazoo Township. It is home to about 2,140 people with a median annual household income of about $40,865 (compared to about $50,044 for all of Kalamazoo). According to U.S. Census data, its population is about 51 percent Black, 34 percent White, 11 percent Hispanic, and about 4 percent other races.

From East Coast to Third Coast

Puckerin was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. His mother is from Panama, and his father is from Barbados. His parents entered the military in the late 1980s and early 1990s to pay for their college educations.
 
“I lived in about five states growing up — out west, down south, and came to undergrad in Buffalo (N.Y.),” he says. 

But he started at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, where his second day of school was Sept. 11, 2001. Speaking of the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center that day, he said, “Right there in Brooklyn, we saw it all in the sky. Needless to say, the rest of the semester I took off and ended up finishing undergrad in Buffalo (at Buffalo State College), and that’s what got me to law school here in Michigan.”

Working at the community level
 
During his second year at Cooley Law School in Lansing, the college became affiliated with Western Michigan University, but Puckerin decided to change his academic focus. He started working in human services and pursued a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Strayer University. He worked as executive director of supportive services from September 2016 to December 2018 at Community Mental Health of Ottawa County. He was then named executive director of the Muskegon-Oceana Community Action Partnership, was president of Neighborhoods Inc. in Battle Creek from October 2020 to November 2022, and was executive director of the Jackson Housing Commission from September 2023 to August 2025.
 
In 2020, Puckerin was a candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives, seeking to represent Michigan’s 70th District as a Republican. The district is located in part of Genesee County. He lost in the Republican primary on Aug. 4, 2020.
 
CourtesyMichigan Sen. Sue Shink (D-Northfield) stands in April of 2024 with Arturo Puckerin, then executive director of the Jackson Housing Commission.Of his job trajectory, he says, “That’s really where I’ve been this past eight years, in human services and really working from the ground up in the community.”
 
In addition to his graduate degree, he has a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Buffalo State College. He also has a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice, obtained online from Liberty University.
 
On the Eastside: Tackling housing, food, and new development
 
Puckerin says he is excited to work at the grassroots level. Since joining the association in October of 2024, he says KENA is most focused on community development, specifically housing rehabilitation.
 
“A lot of folks have concerns about roofs,” he says. And in discussions he has had, he says, “A lot of the work that had been going on in prior years around housing rehab, people wanted to know what is the status of that?”
 
Courtesy KENAThe Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood Associationople are worried about whether neighborhoods will be able to secure federal funding that was to be channeled through the county. That includes the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, a pilot program administered through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Through it, KENA has been hoping to see a $400,000 grant, of which $200,000 could be used to rehab the association’s 1301 E. Main St. offices and meeting room. It would likely help the association fund a new roof, new windows, and other smart improvements, “as long as we’re making solar upgrades that are ‘green’ upgrades,” Puckerin says.
 
For qualified Eastside homeowners, he says the other $200,000 “would allow for property rehabs for homeowners. We would have the discretion to provide assistance for up to $20,000 per home, which we would obviously stratify to about 10 homes on the East Side. Of course, you’d have various amounts. But that would be the goal.”
 
In February, the Trump administration froze millions of dollars in EPA environmental and public health projects, saying environmental justice was no longer an agency priority. But in June, a federal judge agreed with the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative and two other administering organizations that the grant funding was authorized by Congress and the funds should not be frozen. The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative and others had filed suit in April. But discussions of when and how the funding will be allocated continue.
 
“We were in conversations to engage that allocation,” Puckerin says.
 
He says the grant money “would mean a true revitalization to the housing stock in our community. It would complement all the great work we have ongoing, and it would allow for a breath of fresh air. Much-needed new roofing, new facilities, new basements, walls, you name it.”
 
Boosting opportunities for new restaurants and good food
 
Puckerin says people are concerned about food affordability and seeing KENA reinitiate its food distributions, “which we did do.”
 
“Food affordability is truly, truly a national problem,” Puckerin says. “But I think really the bigger issue on the Eastside Neighborhood is food accessibility and walkability (to food markets). There’s a Harding’s (Friendly Market) up the way. But there’s a lot of concerns about lunch, breakfast, where to go to get coffee. Where to go to grab a sandwich. There’s not a whole lot of options to choose from to eat.”
 
Courtesy KENAThe Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood AssociationSo the association is excited about its purchase last March of three unused properties at 1203, 1209, and 1213 E. Main St. The first is a former Dairy Queen location at 1203 E. Main St. It includes an unused 1,100-square-foot building as well as land. The second is an adjacent plot of land with a 3,250-square-foot vacant laundromat building. The third is a vacant site at 1213 E. Main St.
 
The organization, which spent about $260,000 for the three properties, was also gifted a vacant lot at 1225 E. Michigan Ave., across the street from the DQ property.
 
Al JonesThe former Dairy Queen building at 120e E. Main St. Is soon to be redeveloped for another business use.“Our goal for the restaurant, the Dairy Queen, is definitely for it to be a food establishment again,” Puckerin says. “It’s got the perfect walk-in/drive-thru capabilities. And we’re still strategically planning on the second property.”
 
He says he would entertain the idea of bringing in a franchise or a new, unique business. But the neighborhood could use a provider of healthy and nutritious food. “Our intention is for it to be more of a breakfast/lunch kind of place. A walk-in/walk-out, fast-food kind of a place,” he says.
 
From laundromat to fresh food market

His hope for the former laundromat building is to renovate the space to create something similar to a farmer’s market. “It would be a fresh market. We would have pantry items through our contract with South Michigan Food Bank. But then there will also be an opportunity for actual groceries. Looking at how to work closer with access to healthy vegetables, fruits, dairy, and meats. Something small.”
 
Al JonesA former laundromat building at 1209 E. Main St. is to be redeveloped by the Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood Association.Before the end of the year, it plans to rehabilitate the old Dairy Queen and the old laundromat. It has to do more strategic planning for the laundromat building because “there’s a lot of other things involving plumbing, mold remediation, and the need for a new roof and other things,” Puckerin says. “… The goal would be to have it completed by next spring.”
 
KENA is garnering community input to plan for the properties, but it expects to have a more defined plan within the next few weeks.
 
“We plan on having another town hall meeting after we rehab the building through this fall,” Puckerin says.
 
Al Jonestated for other ises by the Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood Association.Along with programs and fundraising efforts, money for property acquisitions has been made available by the revenues generated by other KENA properties. The association leases space at previously acquired properties to such organizations as Trenches Community Church at 1003 Gayle Ave., the Loc’d in Royalty hair salon at 1802 E. Main St., and the Eastside Youth Strong youth development program at the KENA center, 1301 E. Main St.
 
New El Sol Elementary on Eastside expands possibilities
 
“We see the Eastside as a place for expansion,” Puckerin says. “And we actually are thinking that in the next five years, you’ll see businesses come back. But they’ll be a new kind of business.”
 
He says the association sees its efforts at the former Dairy Queen location as the start of that.
 
Arturo Puckerin, (second from right) with some of the neighborhood's staunch supporters.Among other positives, he sees the relocation of El Sol Elementary School into a newly constructed building on 12.1 acres of land at 1400 Baker Dr. The bilingual education school is being relocated from 604 W. Vine St. in the Vine Neighborhood in order to have more space to grow.
 
He says there is nothing to announce about what should happen along busy Riverview Drive, where there are a few vacant commercial properties, such as a former McDonald's and Walgreens. 

But he says, “We have faith that due to the inevitable lack of space in the City of Kalamazoo, that being on East Main Street right there on a public transportation line, right there at the beginning of downtown, it’s always going to be sought after and there will be community reinvestment forthcoming. And that perhaps this is a good time for us to be part of that planning.”

The ALICE Vehicle Repair program
 
KENA will apply this fall for an ALICE grant that will operate its Vehicle Repair Program for the next three years.
 
“Our goal is to reintroduce the vehicle-repair program as something permanent for the Eastside,” Puckerin says.
 
The six-month pilot program ran from Nov. 1, 2024, to May 1, 2025, and cost about $45,000, he says. It utilized discretionary funding from KENA and donations from sources locally and out-of-state, as well as a grant from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. A full-year program may be expected to require at least twice that amount.
 
Participants in the pilot program were required to be Kalamazoo residents. They were required to show proof of employment and provide a repair estimate from a licensed mechanic. Puckerin says the program helped local mechanics get new work while. “It also helped a lot of folks in Kalamazoo get to work,” he says, including some second- and third-shift workers who struggled to get to work without personal transportation.
 
Kalamazoo is a fast-growing city
 
Puckerin says he fell in love with Lake Michigan and has become familiar with Kalamazoo and West Michigan through his work with community agencies in Battle Creek and other communities. He and his wife, Brandy, are residents of Rockford, Mich., just north of Grand Rapids. Puckerin makes a daily commute.
They are the parents of five children: two daughters in high school, two boys ages 11 and 7, and a daughter aged 2. He is a coach for both of his sons’ Rocket football teams in Rockford.
 
CourtesyArturo Puckerin and his wife Brandy are the parents of five childrenAdmiring the positive impact that local colleges, The Kalamazoo Promise, companies like Stryker Corp., and good community reinvestment have on the area, Puckerin considers Kalamazoo the fastest-growing city in West Michigan. And that creates a favorable environment for property development.
 
“The overall idea behind property development is it’s reciprocal to all the good work we’re seeing on the North Side and around the Douglass (Community Association) and so much more,” Puckerin says. “We want to be more of a community hub, and we’re seeing opportunities for redevelopment in what I recognize as the fastest-growing city in West Michigan. There’s a lot of opportunity. There’s a lot of folks moving in. The population is growing.”
 
He says he expects property development in the East Side Neighborhood to be a key to preventing gentrification. By that, he says he means he wants to prevent a big shift in socio-economic demographics — in what is largely a low- to moderate-income neighborhood. That would be the case with an influx of higher-income residents and businesses. “That would lead to a displacement of our existing residents.”
 
He says, “We want to keep our people here. We want to improve the quality of life on the Eastside along with the City of Kalamazoo.”