This is not just a tragedy. It is a glaring indictment of how we, as a community, have allowed homelessness to persist as if shelter were a privilege instead of a fundamental right. The city is reeling from these heartbreaking losses, but what comes next? How many more lives have to be lost before we recognize that access to warmth, security, and shelter is not a luxury—it is survival.
“We have isolated homelessness to an issue that is just to be solved by the homeless resolve system,” Tash Gray, executive director of the Homeless Action Network of Detroit (HAND) told the Michigan Chronicle. “Homelessness is a community solution issue. The school system is impacted and the community. As a neighborhood we should embrace this as a community issue. We need more people engaged and involved with this. The homeless response system has a part to play but federal government has a role to play due to funding, state and local government has a role to play as far as informing the general public and creating those resources but as a community, there’s a vital role to play as well.”
In 2022, Detroit saw a total of 6,221 people experiencing homelessness, a 9% increase from 2021. This follows three years of decreasing numbers since 2019. More alarmingly, the number of women and families that were unhoused or homeless rose 18% and 14%, respectively. These statistics are not merely numbers; they represent real people—mothers, fathers, children—struggling to find a safe place to sleep at night.
The mayor has now tasked Deputy Mayor Melia Howard and Housing & Revitalization Department Director Julie Schneider with reviewing the city’s approach to homelessness. Over the next two weeks, their mission is to reassess how resources are being delivered and whether people in desperate situations actually know about and can access the help they need. The mayor says outreach will expand dramatically. But let’s be clear: outreach should not require the loss of life to become a priority.
“Over the next 14 days we are going to investigate what happened and dig into the process of intake all the way down to placement,” Howard told the Michigan Chronicle. “I am floored by this situation – these are children. When a phone call is made with the severity of cases like this, we must get someone out to the location ASAP. It’s not about you coming in, it’s about us coming out. Howard told the Michigan Chronicle. “How can we, not just streamline but make those human touches.”
“We have to put eyes on these families experiencing homelessness with our professional outreach workers. We have to get them physically there and get an immediate response,” said Mayor Duggan. His words acknowledge the urgency of the crisis, but urgency after the fact is not enough. Detroit has seen this before. And yet, two children just froze to death in the shadow of buildings warmed by artificial heat, in a city that had open shelter beds just miles away. This cannot continue.
“We have to get the word out more, there were shelter beds that were available not too far from the incident with those children, there was a drop in center near as well,” Gray said. “The general public must know that there are resources available. There is an opportunity for the city to get that information out, not just through press releases.”
It does not matter how or why one has fallen on hard times and is forced into homelessness. Their efforts or lack thereof do not give a free ride to tragedy due to lack of basic human necessities such as water, food, warmth, and shelter. Is that too much to ask for? As we rejuvenate our downtown areas, as we grow our city and state, as we look forward to the new developments coming to town, what we should not do is misplace this excitement with the lack of attention to our most vulnerable communities. Money and new development of a city is vital, but so are the lives of the people that occupy the space.
“This is not transactional we must stop and provide the whole context,” Howard said. “You can’t understand someone if you’re not standing in front of them, I live by that. We cannot operate in silos. You can’t talk about community if you’re not inside the community. If we aren’t talking to each other, we are not doing anything.”
The mayor called this a “terrible day in Detroit,” made worse by the fact that the family had been in touch with the city about their housing instability as recently as November. No resolution was reached. Then communication stopped. The city failed to track their needs, to follow up, to ensure this family wasn’t left to fend for themselves as temperatures dropped to deadly levels. And now, two young lives have been lost.
“It brings home the point that having services available doesn’t mean much if residents that need them don’t know how to access them,” Duggan said. That truth is both evident and painful. Detroit recently expanded its shelter system, adding 400 beds and opening a drop-in center with 100 more, but those numbers don’t matter when people in crisis don’t know where to turn. The assumption that people living on the edge of survival will naturally navigate a complex system for assistance is flawed. It ignores the daily struggle of homelessness—the exhaustion, the trauma, the constant barriers. People need help finding help. That is the city’s responsibility. Having resources in theory is one thing. Ensuring those resources reach the people who need them in time is something else entirely.
“Detroit poverty helped those children freeze to death. If we can patrol streets in freezing weather ticketing cars we can patrol parking lots asking people if they need help,” said Detroit City Council Member At-Large Mary Waters. “We helped develop and get funds specifically for the Ca’Mya Davis Family Resource Center which is set up to provide crisis housing for families like those five children that apparently were living in a van parked at a damn casino. Of course I am angry. You ought to be angry and fight to address issues of poverty, homelessness, health challenges, school instability and not be so anxious to criminalize poverty. We must aggressively inform the poor, homeless and anyone in need of shelter that help is immediately available. Detroiters who are facing homelessness or housing insecurity can call the city of Detroit’s Ca’Mya Davis Housing Resource Help Line at 866-313-2520. The Ca’Mya Davis Family Resource Center is at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. The office’s home is named after Ca’Mya Davis, an eleven-month-old baby girl who tragically drowned in Detroit in 2018 when she fell through a hole in the floor of an abandoned house in which her mother sought shelter because she had nowhere else to go. We have a sacred duty to protect our babies.
Detroit has warming centers open throughout the day. The Detroit Housing Network provides a hotline connecting people to emergency housing and other support services. Those needing help can call 866-313-2520 until 6 p.m., but after that, the city says to call the local police precinct. This is where reality clashes with policy. By 6 p.m., the temperature is already dropping. Why isn’t there a more direct, accessible emergency response in place for people experiencing homelessness after hours? And why do so many families still fall through the cracks?
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years and when I first began there was a network of churches where they would rotate and open their doors, especially during the wintertime,” said Gray. “They provided meals, shelter, and they pitched in and helped out. We all must make sure that everyone in our community has basic amenities like housing. It is our duty.”
The mayor says the city will “dramatically expand” outreach visits to encampments and known gathering places for the unhoused. That’s a start, but this isn’t just about finding people—it’s about making sure they never reach the point of having to survive outdoors in the first place. Prevention requires real investment, not just reactionary measures after tragedy strikes.
Saunteel Jenkins, former CEO of The Heat and Warmth foundation (THAW) worked directly with individuals facing energy insecurity through the organization, and have seen firsthand the challenges of securing stable housing for those in recovery at Mariners Inn, told the Michigan Chronicle, “Right now, the focus needs to be on solutions for this mother and family who has already been traumatized to ensure that she is not further traumatized by a system that failed her and her kids. There are so many gaps in the system starting with the lack of affordable housing and the homeless coordination system. It doesn’t matter what kind of coordination system you set up if there are not enough spaces to be referred to. We must offer long-term solutions to families. Our system of assessment and triage has to be comprehensive, and we have to make sure we are providing safe places for people, especially during the cold winter days and nights.”
Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries (DRMM) took a step in late 2024, creating a plan to operate outside the current federally required system for homeless shelter referrals. With millions of dollars in outside funding, DRMM aimed to bypass the bureaucratic wait times that often leave people without shelter for weeks or even months. The goal was clear: provide immediate help instead of forcing people to navigate an overwhelmed system with a critical shortage of beds.
In November 2024, DRMM set out to launch a 24-hour hotline for people experiencing homelessness, adding 100 emergency shelter beds, triage services, and two vans for round-the-clock transportation to shelters. Unlike the existing Coordinated Assessment Model (CAM), which operates on a priority-based referral system and limited hours, DRMM’s initiative was designed to work independently with an estimated $2 million annual budget. Meanwhile, the CAM system—run by Wayne Metro in partnership with the Homeless Action Network of Detroit—continued to operate under weekday limitations, further complicating access to immediate shelter. Despite efforts to expand services, Detroit’s homeless population continues to outgrow available resources. By early 2024, there were only 1,210 emergency shelter beds across Detroit, Highland Park, and Hamtramck—an increase from 1,070 in 2023 but still below previous years. The annual point-in-time count in January, required by HUD, revealed a significant spike, with 1,725 people experiencing homelessness in the metro area—up from 1,280 the previous year. The city, alongside HAND and the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, continues to push for expanded shelter funding, but the growing demand far exceeds the pace of new resources.
The scale of Detroit’s homelessness crisis demands more than words and delayed action. Nationwide, Black Americans are disproportionately affected by homelessness. We make up 13% of the U.S. population, yet over 40% of those experiencing homelessness. In Detroit, a majority-Black city, this crisis is hitting our community hardest. The city added beds. That’s not enough. The city has outreach teams. That’s not enough. The system must work before people freeze to death, not as a response to it. It should not take loss of life for this to be a priority. Two children have died. That should be enough to shake the city into action. But for how long? The political cycle moves fast. Public attention shifts. What happens when the headlines fade? Detroit cannot afford to keep playing this game of delayed accountability. Outreach must be consistent, intentional, and effective. Families struggling with housing insecurity must receive follow-ups, real support, and pathways to stability that do not require them to navigate bureaucratic red tape alone.
Winter is not done with Detroit. The temperatures will continue to drop, and the city’s most vulnerable will continue to be at risk. The time to act was yesterday. The question now is whether we will finally treat this crisis like the emergency it is. If not now, when? How many more children have to die before the value of Black life—of every life—becomes more than just a talking point? Detroit, what are we waiting for?
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