Family of kids who froze to death reached out at least 3 times to Detroit's homeless response team

DETROIT — A family facing homelessness reached out at least three times to Detroit's homeless response team, including as recently as late November, before two children froze to death in a van in a casino parking structure on Monday.

A day later, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan called for a review of city services for homelessness, the city's homeless call center and ways to make services more accessible after the children's deaths. They were ages two and nine.

"We have to make sure that we do everything possible to make sure that this doesn't happen again," Duggan said during a press conference Tuesday at Detroit police headquarters. "I'm not trying to talk about an individual employee. I'm talking about the system as a whole. Are we doing everything to make sure people in the city know how to access this critical care?"

Duggan said a preliminary review of city records shows the mother of five reached out at least three times, the last time being Nov. 25, 2024. The family said they'd been living with relatives but were told they'd need to find another place and would need somewhere to go.

"In the course of that conversation, there was no resolution reached on where they would go," Duggan said.

The mayor said what made Monday's tragedy even worse was that there was shelter space available for families that evening just a few miles from the Hollywood Casino parking structure in Greektown.

"It brings home the point that having services available doesn't mean very much if the residents who need them don't know how to access them," Duggan said.

Interim Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said a preliminary investigation shows the mom and her kids had been living out of her van for two to three months and staying in various casino parking lots. She allegedly parked in the Greektown structure around 1 a.m. Monday, parking on the ninth floor. At some point, her van ran out of gas or had a mechanical failure, Bettison said.

Bettison also said the mother and children would sometimes use the casino restrooms and had parked in other casino parking lots in the city.

"They moved around from various casino parking lots," the interim police chief said.

An autopsy hasn't been completed yet, but authorities believe the two children died of hypothermia. The mother noticed one of the children, the nine-year-old, wasn't breathing around noon on Monday and called a friend, who drove the child to Children's Hospital. The two-year-old also was later found not breathing. Both were later pronounced dead.

Bettison said the city received a 911 call from the mom around 12:12 p.m. Monday.

City officials on Tuesday urged those facing homelessness to seek services, but Duggan acknowledged that some don't always seek help. The mayor said he wants to create a policy that would require outreach workers to make in-person visits to families with children dealing with homelessness.

"We have got to do a better job of educating people that the service is there," Duggan said.

Bettison said no one is in police custody, but the mother and a grandmother have been questioned by police. He said the investigation is ongoing, and the department will present its findings to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, but he wouldn't confirm a criminal investigation is being pursued.

Three other children who were also in the van were evaluated at the hospital and are now staying with relatives, Bettison said. The children ranged in age from two to 13.

Mom sought help

According to Duggan, aside from reaching out last fall to the city's homeless response team, the mother involved in Monday's tragedy had also reached out earlier in the summer and back into the previous year.

The mayor said the city has outreach workers — two employed by Detroit and 32 from six other funded providers, including Cass Community Social Services and Neighborhood Services Organization — to help in emergency situations for those facing homelessness. But the housing situation of the mother and her five kids wasn't deemed an emergency.

"If it’s an emergency situation, we send out one of these outreach workers because when you’re on the phone, you have people with complicated problems, sometimes it’s hard to figure exactly what the circumstances are," Duggan said. "When a homeless outreach worker goes and lays eyes on the family and sees what’s going on, they know exactly what to do. For whatever reason, this wasn’t deemed an emergency that caused an outreach worker to visit the family."

Duggan said three weeks after the mom's late November call, the city opened a drop-in center on Dec. 16 for families in need of housing or a shelter.

"We were opening it to be ahead of the worst temperatures of the winter," he said. "At least as far as we’ve been able to determine so far, the family never called back for service. And as far as we’ve been able to tell, our homeless staff never proactively reached out to say, ‘What happened with your situation? Was it resolved?’ Or to indicate there might be room available."

When asked if other relatives knew the mother was living in her car with her kids, Bettison said he didn't want to speculate. But from what he was told, he said she had "a lot of pride."

"She loved her kids, and she wanted to keep the family together," Bettison said.

Duggan said he's asked Deputy Mayor Melia Howard and Julie Schneider, director of the city's housing and revitalization department, to come back in two weeks and go over the city's responses to the family involved.

Services available

Detroit has a Housing Resource HelpLine at (866) 313-2520, but it only operates Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.

Calls to that helpline Monday evening were answered with a recorded message indicating the office was closed for the Fourth of July holiday and would reopen July 5. Another call to the same hotline around 1 a.m. Tuesday indicated it was a homelessness hotline, but no one was available.

Duggan said he's heard times that people have called the HelpLine and "they came away confused." He said the hotline's hours have been extended occasionally during extreme weather, which they may do regularly.

"I want to make sure that when people call they get very clear options when that phone call is made," Duggan said. "And I'm asking them to put a policy in place that any time minors are involved, experiencing homelessness, that our outreach workers automatically do a site visit."

For those who need help after 6 p.m., Duggan encouraged people to go to their closest police precinct. He said officers work "hand in hand" with the city's homeless prevention team.

Detroit's shelters

Detroit has roughly 18 homeless shelters and warming centers, but not all of them accept families and children.

Chad Audi, the CEO of Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, said unequivocally the children's deaths should have been prevented. Though he was careful not to point a finger in any one direction, he said Detroit's system failed the family.

"Somebody asked for help. You did not give her the support, and now the result of it is you (lost) two innocent lives. That's not acceptable," Audi said.

Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries has about 650 beds for those in need between its shelters and warming centers. Of those, 25 warming center beds are for women and children, and 35 warming center beds are for men. The CEO said at least 460 shelter beds are for men.

Audi said numerous parts of Detroit's system of homelessness resources need to be changed. He said the centralized hotline should operate 24/7, and he has been vocal about the Rescue Mission's willingness to run such a helpline. He also wants the organization to have a van for outreach with a social worker who's trained to address behavioral health issues as well as homelessness.

He also said the current system of referring people to shelters, what's called the Coordinated Assessment Model, creates a barrier for shelters to take in people on the spot who don't have a referral. Having to wait hours or days for a referral doesn't reflect the reality of someone who needs help immediately, Audi said.

He said it should be easy for shelters to take someone in immediately and then, in the following days, figure out the best placement for them.

"Don't just stop me from helping someone when I can save their lives," Audi said.

Terra Linzner, the homelessness solutions director in Detroit's Housing and Revitalization Department, told The Detroit News in January that the newly opened drop-in center is available anytime to take people without a referral and can get connected with a shelter bed from there.

"That is a way to protect people that are out in the community (who) don't know about CAM; they don't have the ability to call; they're unsheltered," she said.

Next steps

Howard, the city's deputy mayor, said over the next two weeks, her team will do a complete "process review" of Monday's tragedy and the city's response.

"We will provide the mayor with that feedback and those actionable items," Howard said.

Schneider, director of the city's housing and revitalization department, said she would also conduct a review of services, how they were delivered and coordinated, and the history of the family affected by Monday's tragedy and their calls for services.

Just last month, the city conducted its Point In Time count to assess the city's homeless population. More than two dozen teams fanned out across the city to get an estimate of Detroit's unsheltered population.

Schneider said this winter has been colder than previous winters and highlights the need to provide homeless services. The city has added 400 shelter beds since December 2023; it's also added 100 drop-in shelter beds for residents sleeping outside or in cars.

"We've expanded the work of outreach teams. ... They're out every day, meeting with unsheltered households, working to connect them to services such as shelter, housing," Schneider said. "That work was expanded to 24-7 since last year."

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