October
21

Every year, DRMM honors remarkable individuals and organizations whose work in the community proves them to be examples of empathy and compassion.

At this year’s 115th Anniversary and Graduation Celebration, six honorees were awarded in the areas of justice, advocacy, media excellence, and empowerment.

 

Judge Mariam Saad Bazzi -Pillar of Justice Award

Judge Mariam Saad Bazzi has served on the Third Circuit Court since 2017 where she currently serves in the Criminal Division. In addition to her regular duties, she oversees a Mental Health Court docket, she has served on the Court’s Executive Committee, and served on the Court’s Strategic Planning Team. She is currently the Judicial Sponsor of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for the Court. She also was appointed by the Michigan Supreme Court to serve on the Michigan Continuing Judicial Education Board. She has presented at judicial conferences and seminars both locally and internationally covering topics including felony criminal sentencings, domestic violence, conflict of interest rules for the judiciary, and diversity and inclusion initiatives for the court.
She currently serves as President of the Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities (LAHC) Board. Prior to her judicial appointment, she was elected to the Dearborn Board of Education and Henry Ford College Board of Trustees where she chaired both boards. She also previously served on Michigan’s Middle Eastern Affairs Commission, Michigan’s Environmental Justice Work Group, and as the President of the Arab American Political Action Committee.
Judge Bazzi holds a J.D. from Wayne State University Law School and a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is married to Abdul Bazzi and together, they have three children.

Michelle Davis- Pillar of Advocacy Award Recipient

Michelle Davis is a 27-year educational leader who is passionate about teaching and transforming the lives of students in and outside of the classroom. She is a lifelong Detroiter and a proud DPS graduate who attended Duffield Elementary, Miller Middle, and Murray Wright High School.
After graduating from DPS, Michelle attended Alabama State University. There she earned a degree in English Language Arts, before moving on to Marygrove College where she earned a Master’s in the Art of Teaching degree, and Oakland University where she earned an Education Specialist degree in Administration, giving her the skills to make a difference at a high level.
She is a 27-year activist, advocate and servant leader. Michelle’s vision for Davis Aerospace is to create a world class institution that will inspire and train students, and become a hub for innovation, creativity and academic excellence honoring the legacy of those who dare to envision an aviation school in DPS.

 

Renata Seals Evans-Pillar of Empowerment Recipient

Mrs. Renata Seals Evans is a passionate activist who is dedicated to empowering underserved communities through advocacy, exposure, engagement and grassroots organizing.

An avid art enthusiast, Mrs. Seals Evans serves as a member of the Detroit Institute of Arts Board of Directors, the Wayne County Art Institute Authority and The Society, Incorporated. Through this advocacy, she works to improve access for local artists, seniors and youth. She has helped launch notable community programs such as “Art in the Airport”, which showcases local art to travelers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport; and the Wayne County High School Art Exhibit, which gives local students the opportunity to premier their artwork at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Guardian Building in Downtown Detroit. She has recently partnered with the Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW) to create the Small Business Operations Arriving Ready (SOAR) program – a gateway initiative that provides minority businesses with entrepreneurial training and opportunities to showcase their products to thousands of travelers daily at the Warren C. Evans Terminal.

As an advocate for seniors, Seals-Evans launched a partnership with Hartford Village Apartments in Detroit to provide the “Sassy Seniors” program with vital resources, elder community information, and access to vending via fun “pop-up shopping” events. Seals-Evans is also the former owner of the Motor City Bisons, a travel youth football organization based in Detroit. For five years, Seals-Evans provided an opportunity for 120 youth football players and cheerleaders – ages 4-14 – to compete across the country, learning the importance of qualities like commitment, discipline, grit and teamwork, to benefit them later in life.
Mrs. Renata Seals Evans, wife of Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans, demonstrates dedication and an unwavering commitment to her community which makes her a respected and influential figure in the fight for social change.

 

Anthony Holt- Pillar of Justice Award Recipient

Anthony D. Holt, was promoted to Associate Vice President and Chief of Police at Wayne State University on August 1, 2008. Since joining the force as a police officer. Holt has held multiple positions within the university police department. He rose through the ranks to sergeant, lieutenant, captain and now chief during a career spanning more than 40 years.
Chief Holt serves as the University’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer with responsibility to plan, direct and oversee the strategic development and implementation of all aspect of campus and community security including Emergency Preparedness.
Chief Holt is a graduate of Wayne State University and has planned and participated in numerous advanced training sessions including more than 4,500 hours of advance and specialized training in case investigations, incident command training, managing high risk situations and homeland security. He is also the Co-Founder of the Public Safety and Youth Forum and is a frequent contributor to the Michigan Gang Research Project. Chief Holt a member of the University Crisis Team is the liaison between the University, Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies. Chief Holt serves on the Wayne County Community College Police Advisory Board, The Detroit Rescue Mission Advisory Board, Board of Directors of the Southeastern Michigan Association Chiefs of Police and the Detroit Crime Commission Advisory Board. Chief Holt is the past President of the Metro Detroit Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) and serves on the executive board.
Chief Holt is the director of Wayne State University Police Department National De-scalation Center.

Chuck Stokes-Pillar of Media Excellence Award Recipient

Chuck Stokes is the editorial/public affairs director for WXYZ-TV/Channel 7 in Detroit, Michigan. Additionally, he serves as moderator and producer of Spotlight on the News, Michigan’s longest-running weekly news and public affairs show created in 1965.
Before he became Channel 7’s editorial/public affairs director, Stokes worked as the station’s executive producer of special projects in news. Prior to joining WXYZ-TV, Stokes was employed at WTVF-TV in Nashville, Tennessee, as a producer and on-air reporter. He has also been a sports writer for the Washington Post.
He has accumulated a long list of personal awards and achievements including 12 Emmys for editorial reporting and two Emmys for documentary reporting. In 2001, Stokes received the “The Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is a past president of both the National Conference of Editorial Writers and its Foundation. In 2011, Stokes was inducted into the Michigan Association of Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame and in 2012 he received the “Life Membership Award” from the Association of Opinion Journalists (formerly called the National Conference of Editorial Writers). He is also a member of and an interview/discussion program award winner by the National Association of Black Journalists, past president of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters Foundation and the Historical Society of Michigan of which he has been honored with its History Hero Award. He is also a recipient of the Detroit Urban League’s Distinguished Warrior Award. In addition, he sits on the board of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
He is a Life Member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta and holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Stokes is married to video producer Trudy Gallant-Stokes, and has two daughters, two sons-in-law, and a grandson.

 

Raphael Washington-Pillar of Justice Award Recipient

Wayne County Sheriff Raphael Washington has four decades of dedicated service in Law Enforcement. In this role, Washington manages three jail facilities, a Road Patrol, a Marine Unit, a Mounted Division, and supplements law enforcement activities in collaboration with 43 cities and townships in his jurisdiction. Sheriff Washington also oversees the development activity of the new Wayne County Criminal Justice Center, which is nearing completion in the city of Detroit. As a lifelong resident of Wayne County, Sheriff Washington is very active in the community and serves on several community boards, including his roles as Director of Security for Greater Grace Temple and Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.

Sheriff Washington has been quoted as saying, “Law enforcement leaders must be discerning in their decision-making, yet compassionate when making decisions that affect staff, the inmate population, and the general public.” His background in law enforcement includes working in the jail and court operation supervision, inmate population management, policy development, compliance, and organizational functions.

Sheriff Washington is a proud graduate of the public school system and wholly encourages everyone to pursue higher learning and continuing education. He is a graduate of Cleary University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice Management. He is also a graduate of Eastern Michigan University’s School of Police Staff and Command.

Sheriff Washington is also a proud member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. Sheriff Washington is married to Keysha Washington; they have two children and four grandchildren.

 

Photos courtesy of Eric Hobson

October
14

From Crains Detroit Business
October 10, 2024 10:41 AM

Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries is putting in place a plan to work outside the current federally required system for homeless shelter referrals and plugging in millions of dollars in outside funding to do it.

The goal is to help those in need right away instead of having them wait weeks and even months for emergency shelter, as they do under the current referral system that is operating with a shortage of beds, said Chad Audi, the nonprofit’s president and CEO.

Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries plans by Nov. 1 to launch a 24-hour hotline for people experiencing homelessness and add 100 beds, triage services to get people referred to whatever services they need and two vans to transport those in need to shelter around the clock. It will operate all of those things for a projected $2 million annually, Audi said, outside of the existing Coordinated Assessment Model that takes shelter requests, prioritizes them based on the degree of need and makes referrals to area shelters with open beds.

“Every day I receive many emails from people I never heard of. They go to our (site) and send heartbreaking stories,” Audi said.

DRMM’s receptionist shares the phone number for the CAM hotline, which is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as a condition of receiving funding for homeless shelters and services. The people calling and emailing DRMM say they have called the hotline but get no answer or a runaround, Audi said.

“Some of it is true; some of it is not … But the truth is people out there are suffering and we need a solution. That’s the bottom line. If they have to be waiting, they can wait with us.”

The CAM call center operates 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday along with three in-person sites operated by Noah at Central, Cass Community Social Services and the John D. Dingell Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Detroit during weekday staggered hours. The CAM is operated by Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency as a subcontractee to the lead agency for the Detroit referral system, the Homeless Action Network of Detroit.

At all locations and call centers, Wayne Metro does an initial assessment, working with clients to find their best temporary or permanent housing option and assisting with things like bus tickets and Lyft rides to get to and from intake sites, shelters and friends’ and families’ homes, Wayne Metro CEO Louis Piszker said.

Wayne Metro strives to provide a robust approach to coordinated shelter entry and client care is of the utmost importance, Piszker said. As such, it focuses on keeping wait times low — less than seven and a half minutes in September, he said.

Audi said he’s asked the city why there isn’t a 24/7 CAM call center and has been told the contract doesn’t have enough money to fund that. Most cities have 24-hour call centers for people experiencing homelessness and do street outreach as part of their CAM system, Audi said. DRMM, Cass Social Services and NSO do outreach in Detroit, but they are not linked to CAM directly.

Extending the hours for the CAM hotline alone won’t solve everything because the number of homeless in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck is outpacing available beds, Homeless Action Network’s Executive Director Tasha Gray said.

The trend really took hold in 2022, with shelters shifting beds that served men to homeless women and families, the loss of overflow shelters that would provide cots or mats to additional people experiencing homelessness and a growing number of people seeking help after housing assistance issued during the COVID-19 pandemic expired, she said. All of that has led to longer wait times for a shelter placement.

The shortage of beds led HAND, in collaboration with Wayne Metro, the city and the Detroit Continuum of Care, to launch a shelter prioritization approach early this year. The model prioritizes shelter resources for those who are most vulnerable, Gray said. That could be someone who is fleeing domestic violence or sleeping outside or in a car vs. at a hotel or couch surfing at relatives’ houses.

CAM call center operators ask questions of callers to see if there are other options available to them, even providing bus tickets and other assistance to help them get to a family member’s house instead sending them to a shelter.

“In an ideal situation, we would have a line that operates 24/7, 365 and also have resources to be able to make referrals via that line,” Gray said.

HAND is working with the city of Detroit and the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, which are the funders of shelter beds in Detroit and have been working to bring more online, she said. “But we all see limitations in the funding available to be do that,” Gray said.

HAND’s current contract to fund CAM is $1.3 million for the year beginning Sept. 1, Gray said. That’s up from $959,000 last year.

Credit: CoStar Group Inc.
Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries operates eight shelters in Detroit, Highland Park and Port Huron.

By the numbers

Currently, there are 1,210 emergency shelter beds in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck, Gray said. That compares to 1,070 in 2023 and 1,279 the year before.

The point-in-time count that takes place each January, per HUD, counts the number of people touching the homeless system, from the streets to the shelters to supportive housing. This year, the count found 1,725 homeless people in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck, up from 1,280 last year, Gray said.

The annual count based on homeless clients entered into the area’s Homeless Information System found 6,221 people experiencing homelessness for the year in 2022. HAND has not yet released the annual count for 2023, but early indications are that it trended down.

Audi said he approached the city about funding support to establish the on-demand shelter beds and triage at Detroit Rescue Mission, with a 24-hour call center and transportation to the shelter and intake when police, fire and EMS officials need to drop someone experiencing homelessness off at a shelter.

The city’s Housing and Revitalization Department was very receptive to the idea, he said, and issued an RFP in early August for a contract of up to $1.14 million to operate a drop-in and/or triage center with overflow capacity to get people off the street while they are waiting for more resources to become available.

The center would help reduce the number of people sleeping outside, an action area the city identified in its five-year “Strategic System Improvement Plan for Detroit’s Homelessness Response System” plan it released in August.

Among other things, the 119-page plan identified the need for reduced referral times to housing through CAM and for another 275 emergency shelter beds to meet need on the front end and 870 permanent housing units for people moving out of the shelters.

The city did not comment directly on DRMM’s plan or the winning bidder(s) for the RFP in advance of Detroit City Council approving the contract.

“At the City of Detroit, we are steadfast in our commitment to transforming our approach to homelessness. This RFP reflects our dedication to providing not just immediate shelter, but a pathway toward stability and resilience,” Julie Schneider, the city’s director of housing and revitalization, said in an emailed statement. “By partnering with qualified organizations, we aim to ensure that homelessness is not just addressed, but actively prevented, allowing every Detroit resident the opportunity for a brighter future.”

DRMM, which is operating on a $22 million budget with about $2.6 million in reserves, already has 40 beds across its eight shelters in Detroit, Highland Park and Port Huron that aren’t in the CAM inventory system so it can hold to its mission of not turning anyone away, Audi said.

CAM won’t be able to refer people to the beds DRMM is adding, either, because they won’t be added to CAM’s inventory system. But DRMM is hopeful CAM officials will come to help make assessments for the people taking the incremental beds added at its two shelters, he said.

“We’re open to partnership, but we can’t continue to have a non-working system and have people being on the street in their cars and under the bridges,” Audi said. “We can’t tolerate that anymore. Even if we have to take it as DRM itself, we’re moving forward.”

Sherri Welch
By Sherri Welch

Sherri Welch is a senior reporter for Crain’s Detroit Business covering nonprofits, philanthropy, higher education and arts and culture. Before joining Crain’s in 2003, she covered automotive suppliers and tire makers for Crain’s Rubber & Plastics News.

October
11

Thanksgiving can be a challenging, even heartbreaking time when you’ve lost everything and have no one left to care. . .

At 62, Eddie was looking forward to retirement. He’d worked hard since the age of 16, when he dropped out of high school to help his family make ends meet.

But a layoff at the nursing home where Eddie worked plunged him into a downward spiral that soon had him teetering on the brink of homelessness.

“I’ve always had a job, all kinds of work including heavy machinery,” he says. But after the layoff none of his applications got any response.

“Things have gotten really tough because of my age, I guess. I never had this hard of a time. I’m used to walking in and filling out the application. They’ll say, ‘When can you start?’ And I’ll say, ‘Monday.’ Now, there is no work.”

With no income, Eddie lost his home and was facing life on the streets of Detroit.

Thankfully, God directed Eddie to DRMM where a meal, safe refuge, and other critical help can always be found.

Caring staff and volunteers welcomed Eddie and helped with everything from replacing his lost eyeglasses to navigating the challenges of online job applications.

Eddie’s heart is filled with hope this Thanksgiving, knowing that God loves him and friends like you care when a neighbor’s life is turned upside down.

Thank you for sharing a special gift today to provide meals, help, and hope to neighbors who are in great need during this special season! Every $2.47 meal you give could be a game changer, opening hearts to the programs and services that can change lives.

Prayers and partnership from many caring friends have made huge changes for Eddie! This Thanksgiving, he will be filled with gratitude that a life once dominated by homelessness, joblessness, and despair has been put on a different path.

October
11

Adopt A Family today to make the holidays special for neighbors in need

For hundreds of families in our community, Christmas will be just another day filled with hunger and worry unless friends like you commit now to fill their holiday with joy. Sign up now to adopt a family who is struggling to make ends meet. Your gifts of warm clothes, books, and other important items will help make Christmas merry!

For parents who are struggling to make ends meet, Christmas gifts for their children are out of reach. But last year’s Adopt A Family reached a record number of 8,000 local children with gifts they will never forget—warm clothes, books, and other important items. This year, with your help, we can share Christmas joy with every child and family who is in great need.

Sign up now to help a family in our community who is facing hardship. Your compassion and generosity will ensure their Christmas celebration is filled with wonder instead of worry!

To adopt a family in need, please contact Kisha Woods at kwoods@drmm.org or call 313.993.4700, x3930 by [November 15].

Our 2023 Adopt A Family reached 2000 families with gifts for boys and girls.
Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries was filled with gifts and the spirit of gratitude last Christmas when over 800 sponsors provided gifts for close to 8000 children!

September
6

Help Make a Difference This Holiday Season!

The Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries is seeking sponsors for our Adopt-A -Family Program.
Nearly 2,000 families in need are counting on your generosity!
We welcome support from businesses, churches, organizations, and individuals.
Sign up to sponsor a family by November 1st at  bit.ly/DRMMAdoptAFamilySponsor or scan the QR code
For more information, please contact Kisha Woods at 313-993-4700 x3930 or email kwoods@drmm.org.

Posted by: Chiara Clayton Tags: There is no tags

September 4

DRMM is a proud sponsor of Michigan Celebrate Recovery Walk & Rally

September is National Recovery Month and each year the annual Michigan Celebrate Recovery Walk & Rally is held where we celebrate that recovery is possible for everyone!
The walk is back in Detroit at Belle Isle to celebrate #recovery!
Friday, September 13, 2024
Detroit – Belle Isle, Scott Fountain
9am-Registration
11am-Walk
Featuring keynote speaker LUIS SHARPE, former professional football player, food, activities, community resources, and more!
All are welcome to this FREE friends & family event!

Get all the details at www.michigancelebraterecovery.com