Detroit's lack of affordable housing pushes families to the edge
Kypros/Getty Images
As outside temperatures dropped to the low- to mid-teens Fahrenheit on Feb. 10, 2025, two children died of carbon monoxide toxicity in a family van parked in a Detroit casino parking garage.
We are political scientists who study urban and housing public policies, and in the months since this tragedy, we took a deep look at the trends in homelessness and housing policies that foreshadowed the events of that night.
One important trend is that the number of homeless children in the city reached a record high in 2024. This is true even though the overall numbers of people experiencing homelessness in the city is declining overall.
According to the Point-in-Time count, 455 children were experiencing homelessness in Detroit on Jan. 31, 2024, up from 312 the year before. The count captures data for one night each year.
Most of these children were unhoused but considered sheltered because they had a place to sleep in an emergency shelter or transitional housing, or were able to temporarily stay with family or friends.
Nineteen of the kids were unsheltered – meaning they were sleeping in places not designed for human habitation, like cars, parks or abandoned buildings.
A different set of data comes from the Detroit Public Schools. The district looked at the entire 2022-2023 school year and found that roughly 1 in 19 students were unhoused at some point during that nine-month period — more than double the number in the 2019-2020 school year.
The lack of adequate funding and staffing in the city's shelter system means unhoused people often struggle to access temporary shelter beds.
That includes kids. Even though the city prioritizes giving beds to the most vulnerable, the number of unsheltered children of school age has nearly tripled in three years, rising from an estimated 48 in the school year beginning in September 2019 to 142 in the school year beginning in September 2022. These figures align with the rise in unsheltered children recorded in the one-night Point-in-Time count, which increased from four in 2016 to 19 in 2024.
The end of COVID-era funding that prevented many evictions is likely to increase the need for shelter and put additional strain on Detroit's response to the crisis.
Children who experience housing insecurity are often caught in the middle of bureaucracy and failed regulation.
The mother of the children who died in February had reached out to the city in November 2024 when they were staying with a family member. The mother noted that she wanted to keep all five of her children together.
According to a report issued by the city, the Detroit Housing Authority did not follow up with her. Her situation was not considered an emergency at the time of contact since she was sheltered with family.
At the time of the call, the family was a Category 2: immediate risk of homelessness – in other words, not the highest priority under the emergency shelter grants guideline. If the city had deemed the situation an emergency, protocol would be to dispatch immediate support for the family.
The mother moved her family to the van after the request for help failed to provide a solution.
The Detroit mayor's office admitted that the family fell through the cracks and promised to expand available shelter beds and require homeless outreach employees to visit any unhoused families that call for help.
'We have to make sure that we do everything possible to make sure that this doesn't happen again,' Deputy Mayor Melia Howard told local media.
According to records from the Coordinated Assessment Model Detroit, the system responsible for connecting individuals to shelters, 82% of calls do not result in immediate help but rather being placed on a shelter waitlist. Similar to instances across the country, the wait time is long.
Families in Detroit face an average wait of 130 days, while unaccompanied youth typically wait around 50 days.
The long wait for shelter has contributed to the rise in people living on the streets or in their vehicles. The number of unsheltered individuals — including both adults and children — doubled from 151 in 2015 to 305 in 2024. This trend of increasing unsheltered homelessness contrasts with the overall decline in the total number of homeless people in the city, which is down from a peak of 2,597 in 2015.
Children need safety and security to thrive.
Their access to stable housing depends on their parents and what the adults in their life are able to provide. As rents increase in the city, some children are left vulnerable.
Over the past decade, Detroit, like many other U.S. cities, has experienced rising housing costs while wages fail to keep up, particularly for long-term residents.
Since 2021, the number of rentals in the city has increased by 51%.
Rents are also up. Since 2017, the average rent in Detroit has increased 55% for single-family homes and 43% for multifamily homes.
While inflation and increased maintenance costs contribute to this rise, stricter rental regulations like the heightened enforcement of housing codes, expanded tenant protections and higher compliance cost for landlords have played an important role.
Some landlords pass the expense of these regulations on to tenants, making housing less affordable. Others leave their properties vacant, pushing up prices by lessening the supply.
The current average fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Detroit is $1,314 per month. For the typical household in the city, this basic shelter cost, not including utilities, makes up 41% of the household income.
For the lowest-income households, any unexpected expense can disrupt a delicate financial balance and lead to eviction and homelessness. Children in these situations often face major instability, moving between shelters – or, as in the case of the children who died in February, sleeping in cars.
This kind of displacement disrupts education, strains mental health and increases exposure to danger.
Detroit's stricter housing regulations may have improved conditions for some renters, but a report by Outlier Media shows that only 8% of landlords are in compliance, leaving legacy residents in subpar rentals at higher prices.
And these new rules have victims who are too often ignored until tragedy strikes.
Meghan Wilson, Assistant Professor of American Politics and Public Policy, Michigan State University and John Kuk, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Used 'Disinformation' to Defend Change to Vaccine Schedule, Expert Says: Reports
The Department of Health and Human Services sent Congress a document that cited disputed studies and misrepresented other findings, according to NPR and KFF Health News The document was written in support of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to change federal COVID vaccine recommendations for healthy kids and pregnant women 'This is RFK Jr.'s playbook,' said Sean O'Leary, chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of PediatricsThe Department of Health and Human Services sent Congress a document to support Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to change federal vaccine recommendations that cited unpublished or disputed studies and misrepresented other findings, according to NPR and KFF Health News. In late May, Kennedy, who has a history of vaccine skepticism, announced on X that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed the COVID vaccine from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women, while touting President Trump's Make America Healthy Again agenda. "It is so far out of left field that I find it insulting to our members of Congress that they would actually give them something like this. Congress members are relying on these agencies to provide them with valid information, and it's just not there," Dr. Mark Turrentine, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine, told KFF Health News, the outlet that obtained the FAQ document. The outlet also reported that the document suggests a link between heart conditions like myocarditis or pericarditis and the COVID vaccine, but updated research suggests that connection has decreased with newer vaccine procedures. The document also left out multiple other peer-reviewed studies that show the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis is greater after getting sick with COVID for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated people than the risk of the same complications after vaccination alone, per KFF Health News. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "There is no distortion of the studies in this document. The underlying data speaks for itself, and it raises legitimate safety concerns. HHS will not ignore that evidence or downplay it. We will follow the data and the science," a HHS spokesperson told KFF Health News. 'This is RFK Jr.'s playbook,' Sean O'Leary, chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told KFF Health News. 'Either cherry-pick from good science or take junk science to support his premise — this has been his playbook for 20 years.' Read the original article on People
Hamilton Spectator
31 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
From Dunnville to Niagara: Innovation, personalized care key to Hauser's Pharmacy longevity
While it's not quite accurate to say Phil Hauser comes from a long line of pharmacists — unless you call second generation a long line — the profession is in his blood. 'I took my first steps in the back room of the pharmacy,' he said. That would be Hauser's Pharmacy. The Dunnville business was opened by his father Jim, who with his mother Bonnie took over a long-running pharmacy in 1980. Over the next 45 years, it has remained a fixture in that town. It gradually spread across southern Ontario — its first offshoot was in St. Catharines in 2014 when Hauser's opened in the new hospital. Last year, Hauser's opened its second location in the region, in the former CIBC building on Queen Street in Niagara Falls, a site it shares with a physician clinic. All the while, the pharmacy has maintained its independence and commitment to personalized care. 'We recognize every patient wants something different from their health-care provider,' said Hauser, who took over the family business in 2007 following his graduation from pharmacy school. 'Some people simply want their prescription filled fast and effectively, and we do that. Some people want more. Some people have a lot of questions about their conditions, some people want to question a lot of the information that they find online, and some people need that personal connection before discussing things that are otherwise very personal.' Hauser's Pharmacy current owner Phil Hauser in front of the prescription counter at the Dunnville store in 2021. At the time, Hauser's was preparing to administer COVID-19 vaccines. About the same time he took over the business, Hauser was elected to Ontario Pharmacists Association, for which he served six years. Among other things during that time, he advocated for an increased role of pharmacists in patient health care. Hauser's was one of 32 pharmacies involved in a pilot program in Ontario offering flu shots — something that has since been rolled out across the province. But the advocacy and innovation has been a constant thread in the family business, Hauser said. In the early 1980s, his mom called on the Health Ministry to have tobacco products removed from pharmacy shelves. 'Even though it was a significant source of income for pharmacies, it flew in the face of being a health-care provider, and providing something that we knew was poisonous or a detriment to people's health in the same breath,' Hauser said. Bonnie and Jim Hauser at a computer terminal in their Dunnville pharmacy. In the early 1980s, Hauser's Pharmacy was one of the first in Ontario to incorporate computerized patient prescription records. Also in the 1980s, Hauser's was also one of the first pharmacies to incorporate computer records to track patient prescriptions . 'It's something we take for granted today, but back then you were flipping through people's prescriptions and just making sure the refills were still valid,' he said. 'There wasn't the same level of continuous care that we're used to.' Hauser's launching a mobility and home health care division in 2014, Supper Services, its in-home private care division in 2021 and a remote dispensary operation for an underserved community in the Muskoka region in 2022. Hauser said this history of innovation and ability to provide a continuum of care for patients is what made the business an attractive choice for pharmacy partner with the now-named Marotta Family Hospital in St. Catharines. 'They recognized that our mission, our philosophy of bringing better patient care, was a key tenant that the NHS wanted to do, which was to guide the continuity of care for patients that were leaving outpatient clinics or were leaving the hospital altogether, and then making sure they had the proper transition into community care,' he said. This year, the pharmacy is marking its 45th anniversary at all nine of its stores with monthly giveaways, sales o throughout the year, children's colouring contests and rolling discounts. See its website, , to sign up to receive information or follow Hauser's on its social media channels. Hauser said their ability to remain independent lies in them striving to provide continual value for their patients. 'We want to provide the best level of health care,' he said. 'And I think that's not always something that's evident until you experience it. And when you experience it … my hope is when you come into a Hauser's Pharmacy and you notice a difference in the quality of care that that means something to you.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Why People Are Having Fewer Kids, Even If They Want Them
The global fertility rate has, on average, dropped to less than half what it was in the 1960s, according to the United Nations. Credit - Getty Images People across the world have been having fewer and fewer children, and it's not always because they don't want them. The global fertility rate has, on average, dropped to less than half what it was in the 1960s, the United Nations has found, falling below the 'replacement level' required to maintain the current population in the majority of countries. Amid that historic decline, nearly 20% of adults of reproductive age from 14 countries around the globe believe they won't be able to have the number of children they want to, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN's sexual and reproductive health and rights agency, said in a report released this week. For most of them, the report found it isn't infertility keeping them from doing so. They pointed to factors including financial limitations, barriers to fertility or pregnancy-related medical care, and fears of the state of the world that they say are hindering them from making their own fertility and reproductive choices. 'There are a lot of people out there who are willing to have children—and have more children than they have—if the conditions were right, and the government's obligation is to provide those measures of well-being, of welfare, which enable good work-life balance, secure employment, reduce the legal barriers, provide better health care and services,' says Shalini Randeria, the president of the Central European University in Vienna and the senior external advisor for the UNFPA report. But she says policies that some governments are implementing—such as cutting Medicaid in the U.S. and enforcing restrictions on reproductive health and autonomy—are both a step backward for people's rights and 'counterproductive from a demographic point of view.' Read more: Why So Many Women Are Waiting Longer to Have Kids For the report, UNFPA conducted a survey, in collaboration with YouGov, of people in 14 countries in Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Africa that, together, represent more than a third of the world's population. 'There is a gap between the number of children people would have liked to have had and the number they had,' Randeria says. 'For us, it was important to then figure out—by asking them—what it is that causes this gap.' The most significant barriers survey respondents identified to having the number of children they desired were economic: 39% cited financial limitations, 19% housing limitations, 12% lack of sufficient or quality childcare options, and 21% unemployment or job insecurity. The prices for all kinds of goods and services have climbed precipitously in recent years. Global inflation reached the highest level seen since the mid-1990s in July 2022, according to the World Bank Group. While it has declined since then, the current levels are still significantly above those seen before the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more: Why Affordable Childcare Is Out of Reach for So Many People Rising costs have hit both housing and childcare hard. In the U.S., for instance, the Treasury Department has found that housing costs have increased faster than incomes for the past two decades, surging about 65% since 2000 when adjusted for inflation. And research has found that the cost of child care in the U.S. has shot up in recent years, surpassing what many Americans pay for housing or college. The current housing crisis is impacting 'every region and country,' the United Nations Human Settlements Programme said in a report last year, estimating that between 1.6 billion and 3 billion people around the world do not have adequate housing. People cited other factors getting in the way of them having as many children as they want as well, including barriers to assisted reproduction and surrogacy. Several countries—including France, Spain, Germany, and Italy—have banned surrogacy. The UNFPA report also points out that many countries restrict or ban access to assisted reproduction and surrogacy for same-sex couples. In Europe, for instance, only 17 out of 49 countries allow medically-assisted insemination for people, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the report. The UNFPA notes that, as global fertility rates are declining, some governments are taking 'drastic measures to incentivize young people to make fertility decisions in line with national targets.' But the report argues that the 'real crisis' is 'a crisis in reproductive agency—in the ability of individuals to make their own free, informed and unfettered choices about everything from having sex to using contraception to starting a family.' According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, 40% of women of reproductive age around the world live under restrictive abortion laws. Many countries—including Brazil, the Philippines, and Poland, among others—have severely restricted abortion. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, striking down the constitutional right to abortion. Since then, more than a dozen states have enacted near-total bans or restricted abortion. There have been many reports of pregnant people being denied critical care because of state laws restricting abortions, and many women have said they don't feel safe being pregnant in states where abortion is banned. And while a growing share of women around the world are having their family planning needs met, around 164 million still were not as of 2021, the UN found in a report released in 2022. In addition to considering access to family planning a human right, the UN also notes that it is key to reducing poverty. About 14% of respondents in the UNFPA report said concerns about political or social situations, such as wars and pandemics, would lead or have already led to them having fewer children than they had wanted. And about 9% of respondents said concerns about climate change or environmental degradation would lead or had already led to them having fewer children than they had desired. Read more: Terrified of Climate Change? You Might Have Eco-Anxiety Violence and conflict have been on the rise around the globe in recent years. The period between 2021 and 2023 was the most violent since the end of the Cold War, according to the World Bank Group, and the numbers of both battle-deaths and violent conflicts have climbed over the past decade. That violence has contributed to years of rising displacement: More than 122 million people across the world have been forcibly displaced, the UN's refugee agency reported Thursday, nearly double the number recorded a decade ago. The impact of the global pandemic has been even more widely felt, and is unlikely to fade from anyone's memory any time soon as COVID-19 continues to spread, develop new variants, and take a toll on people whose recovery from the virus can take months, or even years. Even beyond COVID, outbreaks of infectious diseases are becoming more commonplace—and experts predict that, in the years ahead, the risk of those outbreaks escalating into epidemics and pandemics will only rise. In a 2024 UN Development Programme survey, which statistically represents about 87% of the global population, about 56% of respondents said they were thinking about climate change on a daily or weekly basis. About 53% of the respondents also said they were more concerned about climate change now than they were a year before. A third of respondents said that climate change is significantly affecting their major life decisions. 'I want children, but it's becoming more difficult as time passes by,' a 29-year-old woman from Mexico is quoted as saying in the report. 'It is impossible to buy or have affordable rent in my city. I also would not like to give birth to a child in war times and worsened planetary conditions if that means the baby would suffer because of it.' Contact us at letters@
