Sixteen percent of Detroit residents in the labor force were unemployed as of March 2023, according to the latest survey from the University of Michigan’s Detroit Metro Area Communities Study. The latest unemployment estimate essentially holds steady from the previous DMACS estimate in August 2022. Detroit’s unemployment peaked at 43% at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and remains higher than the estimated pre-pandemic unemployment rate of 8%.

The Engage Detroit Workshops grant program will support eight teams of U-M faculty, staff, students, and community partners in organizing workshops that will strengthen partnerships between the University of Michigan and Detroit. The 2023 round of funding is supporting projects through August 2024. The projects range from one that helps parents become more involved in their children’s education to another that explores the range of fatherhood experiences.

Neesha Modi, who earned a dual MBA and Master’s of Science in 2012, is the director of programs and social investment operations at the Kresge Foundation. Modi forwards Kresge’s goals of building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America’s cities, and seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice.

“The responsiveness of the researchers was valuable. Not only did I reach out to the School of Information during the pandemic, I also reached out to Poverty Solutions for assistance with case management and they provided support. I reached out to the Medical School as a resource for residents with questions about COVID. In each case, there was a response, and with that response came hope.”

~ Zachary Rowe, executive director, Friends of Parkside

Street court exemplifies Street Democracy’s approach to functional sentencing, which envisions a legal system that coaches people to success rather than punishing them.

Eight new initiatives have been selected to receive funding from the 2023 Engage Detroit Workshops grant program. This is the second year of the program to promote the development of innovative projects that forge connections between U-M and the Detroit community.

Paul J. Draus, professor of sociology at UM-Dearborn, was named the new director of the University of Michigan’s Detroit Center. He will focus on building community engagement, boosting research initiatives, and fortifying the university’s relationship with the Detroit metropolitan area.

Among 5,600 single-family rental properties in Detroit where a tenant was approved for at least one rent relief payment between June 2021 and February 2022, 15% of landlords moved to evict tenants within six months of the last recorded CERA approval date. At least $8.2 million in CERA funds was spent at these properties.

“That Black agrarian history that has been supplanted in Detroit and physical amount of territory available, and the unapologetic politics around self-determination and Black power, have created beautiful storm of sorts where these things intersect where Black food sovereignty is a real possibility.”

~ Shakara Tyler