Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is looking to community groups to help curb shootings and homicides in the city, and he plans to provide them financial incentives. The city's contracting and procurement department will issue a Request for Proposals on Wednesday seeking plans to reduce gun violence in defined areas from local organizations known for intervening and mediating situations involving public safety, Duggan said at his 10th State of the City address Tuesday, held at the Michigan Central Station. The $10 million program, funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, will provide $700,000 per year to organizations in a two-year contract and groups that show success will receive an additional $700,000 per year to expand their services. Duggan, while touting recently approved pay raises for Detroit Police officers , said more is needed to address crime. "Some community groups say, 'ShotSpotter is great but we need more. ’ … Is it possible to get community groups to be shot stoppers?" Duggan said, referencing the controversial gunfire-tracking technology already at use in the city. "I don’t know if it’s going to work but we’re going to try to do this by holding these groups accountable. " Watch replay: Mayor Mike Duggan delivers 10th State of the City More: Mayor Duggan to launch gun violence prevention program at State of the City District 7 Councilman Fred Durhal III, who chairs the city's gun violence task force, sees the community group program as an asset to reduce fatal and nonfatal shootings in the community. "One life saved is priceless," Durhal told the Free Press. "If you can stop retaliation . . . if you can stop someone from shooting somebody, that’s success in itself. " Duggan kicked off his speech recalling the history of the Michigan Central Station, a longtime abandoned eyesore that City Council looked to demolish in 2009 until the Moroun family agreed to clean up the building and install new windows. "Nobody who is here will forget July 18, 2013. It was the day the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy. This is the picture that went out across the country, the abandoned train station," Duggan said, showing an old image of the building. "This July, this city is going to be inviting everybody back" to see the updated and renovated train station. Since purchasing the property, Ford Motor Co. announced plans to devote several floors to office space, event space and hospitality, and build an innovation district around the campus just west of downtown. The city aims to improve public spaces surrounding the train station and add 600 units of new affordable housing in Corktown. Demolishing and renovating abandoned homes for sale is another success story for the city, Duggan said. The Detroit Land Bank Authority in 2014 had 47,000 vacant houses. This year, 7,000 houses remain. The city, selling at least 200 a month, demolished 24,000 and restored and sold 16,000. Last year, the city rehabbed more than it demolished, Duggan said. Detroit now is shifting toward addressing privately owned abandoned houses. The city plans to demolish at least 5,000 of them and is taking legal action on those that can be salvaged. Detroit has a "goal of getting every vacant house out of this city by the end of 2025," Duggan said. Cleaning up 1,000 alleys and conducting weekly garbage pickup, as opposed to biweekly, in an effort to eliminate curbside trash is taking priority this year. The city is also fixing broken sidewalks and expanding the Neighborhood Beautification Program with $500 to $15,000 grants to improve Land Bank properties. The city is also addressing illegal dumping by turning 27 miles of "some of the worst" sites into the Joe Louis Greenway recreational pathway, Duggan said. Lowering Detroit's unemployment rate has been a longtime goal for the mayor, who touted the city reaching 7%, which marks its lowest rate in more than 20 years. Duggan also said the city is at its lowest poverty rate in 17 years. The mayor praised companies like Jeep, GM, Amazon, financial services and auto suppliers for bringing thousands of jobs to the city. Duggan noted the city provides several employment programs for the thousands of still-unemployed residents, such as Detroit at Work and JumpStart scholarships for those seeking training and career building opportunities. Several of the programs will pay Detroiters to complete them. More: Detroit billionaires seeking breaks battle their own unfinished business Addressing recent construction plans that have drawn some criticism for financial incentives, Duggan argued tax breaks for large-scale projects have led to transformations of abandoned properties to new developments, and without them, the city would have more blight. He pointed to projects such as the Hudson's site ; District Detroit , which includes offices, hotels and housing around Little Caesars Arena; the Cadillac Stamping Plant and transforming Marlborough Apartments into affordable housing. "Here's what the businesses are facing. There is a reason why Detroit was not succeeding for so long. You hear people say, 'They’ve got money to give the billionaires, why don’t they put money in this neighborhood?' That’s not true, we don’t give any money. A tax abatement is a discount. We just give you a discount out of the new taxes you pay," Duggan said. More: $1. 5B District Detroit buildout snags a key vote On District Detroit's $1. 5-billion development, Duggan said the partnership between the Ilitch family's Olympia Development and Stephen Ross' Related Companies will transform the "vacant parking lots everybody is complaining about and it’s going to turn them into four new office buildings, two new hotels, and 695 apartments …that are going to accept Section 8 vouchers. " The city is also improving and expanding several recreational centers across neighborhoods. The Detroit Department of Transportation will also see more funding toward bus driver pay hikes, lost fare revenues and increased services. Duggan also touted City Council President Pro Tem James Tate's initiative to kick off recreational marijuana sales in Detroit and Council President Mary Sheffield's Right to Counsel program, which provides free lawyers to those facing eviction. Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact Dana: dafana@freepress. com or 313-635-3491. Follow her on Twitter: @DanaAfana . .