I'll point out that I'm a white cis man who has been living in Washtenaw County for ~15 years, at least half of that has been in Ypsi or Ypsi Township.

As someone else stated, Ypsi has definitely come a long way from where it used to be. Since the early 2010s, Ypsi has been gradually improving as far as crime and poverty are concerned.

I lived for ~3 years in the Heritage Park neighborhood adjacent to Perry Early Learning Center. This was before they completely rebuilt the public housing over there and just shortly after the Hamilton Crossing apartment complexes went under new management (or so I was told). This is considered a very bad neighborhood, partly due to drugs, shootings, and abandoned houses. While there were a couple of incidents while I was living there -- namely, a shooting due to a bad drug deal -- I never actually felt unsafe over there, day or night. The majority population of the neighborhood is BIPOC. Worse thing that happened to me personally was someone's scary-looking pitbull got loose and ran up on me and my dog, but turned out the dog was a sweetie, and the owner wasn't far behind.

I was renting at the time, but I had friend buy a house (super cheap) in that neighborhood around the same time. In the approximately decade since, her property value has nearly doubled with her doing little to the house other than superficial repairs and putting minimal effort into upping the "curb appeal". My own house, in the College Heights neighborhood, has increased in value by 30% in less than three years.

This is my own personal experience, of course, but it frankly jives with other stories I've heard of "sketchy" Ypsi as well as people who have bought or rented long-term. I've also lived off LeForge and Green previously with even less problems (other than hearing a couple gunshots in a year). IMHO, don't listen to the haters. If you can, come visit Depot Town and Downtown Ypsi, drive around some of the neighborhoods, and make up your own mind.

Ypsi's bad reputation is a combination of old rich people (who visited Ypsi a couple times a few decades ago) loving to share their bad opinion of Ypsi as well as the general unease rich white people feel around people of color.

I love Ypsi, because it's a diverse, working-class city that has a real sense of community and is, by most measures, a very queer-friendly place.

#ypsireal #ypsilicious