GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Bobbie Butler is a force. After working for the housing commission in Grand Rapids for 45 years, she has never lost sight of her driving force: helping those without a place to call home.
"I always worked for human rights," said Butler.
Butler was appointed to the commission in 1977. She also served as the equal opportunity director. With her more than four decades of service, she is the longest serving housing commissioner in the city. She retires in March.
Her first couple major projects were working on the Ransom Tower downtown and housing at Brenton and Burton. That one, she remembers, was met with some controversy.
"Neighbors were concerned that there was going to be poor folks living in that neighborhood," said Butler, "All of us voting yes, we were going to designate the spot. So when we got there and the hearing started, there was two of the commissioners who then decided they were not supporting it. So, me being at the time, I was fairly young and dumb. I said, 'that's not what you said in the meeting.' I didn't know I wasn't supposed to call them out. But I did. so that really kept them kind of ticked off at me because I called them out publicly in a meeting."
The housing was built after that.
Butler said one of her biggest accomplishments, the project she is most proud of, was creating the Minority Business Enterprise Program.
"I was really concerned about that there was a minority contract association," said Butler, "Which was not getting any money from contractors. Contractors just didn't hire minorities or women."
She said she does not think she broke any glass ceilings, but that she did make a difference. She called being a woman on the commission in the 1970s "rough." Over time, she wrote a sexual harassment policy and helped open a transitional housing program for homeless women with children.
"I started basically demanding wherever I was that there was women involved," said Butler.
Butler also served as the City’s Community Relations Director from 1970 to 1976 and as the Director of the newly created Equal Opportunity Department from 1976 to 1988. She was responsible for creating the City’s first Affirmative Action Plan, first Contract Compliance Program, first Sexual Harassment Policy and the first municipal Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise program in the State of Michigan.
She knows there is still a lot of work to do, especially finding fair housing for everyone in Grand Rapids.
"We have 10,000 people on our waiting list," said Butler, "And when people get vouchers to go out, they can't find a place to live."
However, as she steps down, she's confident in executive director Lindsay Reams.
"It will be hard for anybody to go in and say, 'We are going to do this, we're going to do that,' because she knows who to contact, how to contact them and how to work through it," said Butler, "So, that makes me feel good in terms of leaving, because I don't think things will just go downhill."
SEE THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH BUTLER HERE:
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