Authentically Detroit
Authentically Detroit is the leading podcast in the city for candid conversations, exchanging progressive ideas, and centering resident perspectives on current events.
Hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Sam Robinson.
Produced by Sarah Johnson and Engineered by Griffin Hutchings.
Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @AuthenticallyDetroit!
Authentically Detroit
From Data to Dignity: Detroit’s Housing Reality with Alex B. Hill and Kirsten Elliott
In this episode, Donna and Sam had a virtual sit down with Alex B. Hill for Detroit By The Numbers and Kirsten Elliott, the CEO and President of Community Housing Network. Together, they trace a clear line from protest and media narratives to the daily math of housing: water debt, fixed incomes, PSH funding, and what “affordable” actually costs.
Community Housing Network empowers people to live in affordable homes to help build thriving communities. They envision a future where everyone can achieve stability, dignity, and opportunity. They aim to create thriving communities with affordable homes, connect individuals and families to essential resources, and foster a supportive workplace for their employees.
Their work is rooted in the idea that decent, affordable, and stable housing is a necessary foundation for a healthy, successful life.
For more information on Community Housing Network and their work, click here.
FOR DETROIT BY THE NUMBERS WITH ALEX B. HILL:
- 4 District-wide school closures for snow or cold weather this month (DPSCD)
- 1,827 Households signed up for 5,000 spots in the Lifeline H2O water assistance program. (Outlier/DWSD)
- 50% Detroit Seniors spend 30%or more of income on housing costs (The Conversation)
- 6% Census estimates show Detroit’s population at ~637 k with a high citizenship rate (~96.7 %) and a relatively small foreign-born share (~5.9 %) — below the average of 13% for other large cities. (Census)
Up next, Authentically Detroit welcomes the president and CEO of Community Housing Network, Kirsten Elliott. But first, our segment with Alex B. Hill of Detroit Totography, Detroit by the Numbers. Keep it locked. Authentically Detroit starts after these messages.
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SPEAKER_01:Hey y'all, it's Orlando. We just want to let you know that the views and opinions expressed during this podcast episode are those of the co-hosts and guests and not their sponsoring institutions. Now, let's start the show.
SPEAKER_03:I'm Sam Robinson. And I'm Donna Givens Davidson. Thank you guys for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcasts on all platforms. Thanks to this weekend's weather emergency, we had to shift today's podcast recording to the virtual studio. Thank you all for being flexible. Uh, but what a better time to welcome today's guest, president and CEO of the Community Housing Network, Kirsten Elliott.
SPEAKER_04:Hi, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you for joining us today. We also have Alex B. Hill of Detroit Totography on the line for our monthly segment, Detroit by the Numbers. Hey, how's it going? How are you guys feeling today? It's a cold one, not as cold as it was last week. We're in the 20s, I think. Salt can or cannot be effective, is what I learned today, uh, this weekend on Twitter when I posted that driving shot. Sorry, Mari Manoogin and all the Democrats that voted to take the hands off the drive safe. Uh, my reporter tendencies just cannot stop recording while I am behind the wheel. I'm sorry, everyone.
Donna Givens Davidson:I'm sorry to I was hoping you were a passenger, but I have to say that this wink this weekend made one thing very clear. I hate ice, all of it. I hate physical ice, I hate the kind of ice that acts like slave catchers. So it's just a reminder, but um, you know, hats off to the people who stood out there anyway and protested ice on ice cold outside, and yet people showed up for human rights. I'm so proud of people for standing up for our community.
SPEAKER_03:They did on Saturday. Another person was killed by uh it's unclear right now if it's an ICE or uh customs and border patrol agent. Um, we do not have the name of this person yet. We do know the name of the officer that that killed the 37-year-old woman, Renee Good, a couple weeks ago is Jonathan Ross. He is an ICE agent. And so, you know, we have these uh really unfortunate uh deaths happening that seem totally preventable. Uh, you watch the video and it completely contradicts the DHS uh statement. And so, folks in Minneapolis, really across the country, I saw in Chicago, uh, even here in Detroit, outside the 36th district, they were uh protesting. And so, yeah, you know, despite these cold weather conditions, dangerous temperatures, really dangerous roads out there this weekend, uh, all the protesters that I saw uh passing by, uh, it was right around Ford Field down there. Um, you know, I I I didn't hear of anybody at the uh protest last week in Detroit that were paid. I I keep hearing uh you know this line from the Republican uh sort of uh uh uh podcast folks that are suggesting that these protesters are paid.
Donna Givens Davidson:They they certainly aren't their propaganda is so um transparent. Everything is propaganda, you know. Um we can see through all angles, although I didn't look at it because I don't watch snuff films online, but apparently people can see from all angles what happened when this man was murdered, um executed by ICE. And, you know, here you have a president and the head of Homeland Security telling you not to believe your lying eyes. And um, you know, it it in my opinion, we've got to stop even engaging in those conversations. Like I refuse to acknowledge or even fight that because it's so ridiculous that they want us actually debating whether or not things that we can see for ourselves did not happen. We know people who protest, and we know they're not paid to protest. The people that I know who protest are people who are probably some of the least paid people in our community, people who really do stand for justice and risk so much every single day to have their um sacrifice and the threats they take. I don't even want to walk to my car in that weather, and yet they're standing out there making a political point. So um hats off to them. I know that you're not being paid, but if you were being paid, you couldn't pay me to stand out there. Oh thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's been a really emotional coaster of uh a few weeks. I could only imagine all the folks in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Twin Cities out there. Uh some, you know, I my friend's uh reporter for the Star Tribune, Zoe Jackson. I want to give her a shout-out right now, everybody that's that's doing really good work um at that newspaper uh right now. Kudos to you because that's you know, quite honestly, how we're getting a lot of this information um really quickly. Um I just saw New York Times sort of, you know, they they frame by framed this snuff film uh essentially. And by all angles, you know, the the the DHS statement is completely you know a lie and a farce, which is unfortunate. We've gone so far from reality where we're you know, Republicans are able to tolerate their own colleagues lying to such a degree.
Donna Givens Davidson:Some of them are, some of them are. I mean, I see John Keith. For a governor in Minnesota. I uh want to take a minute to shout out a friend, and this is my like uh all of my life, Keith Ellison. You know, I grew up with him. Um, we're the same age. Um, we were so close growing up, and even though he's living in Minneapolis, we connect in so many ways, and I'm so proud of Keith to be there at a time such as this. Um, he's really putting a lot on the line. He's under so much attack. Um, and yet he continues to fight for us, and we have an attorney general who in Minnesota who's willing to go the distance. So hats off to Keith. He was always a good fighter now. He when he was a kid, he was before he was um diplomatic. He he was a brawler as a kid, and now he has sort of translated that or um you know channeled that into standing the ground of justice in Minneapolis, in in Minnesota.
SPEAKER_03:I want to I want to zoom in um to our monthly segment with Alex, uh Detroit by the numbers. We're highlighting significant data and numbers from the past month for Detroiters. We are here today with Alex B. Hill of Detroit, one of my favorite Twitter accounts and people altogether, one of my favorite local authors. Um he's also of the City of Detroit's Go Data Commission, which is a uh diverse group of stakeholders, including data experts, community leaders, representing uh representatives from various sectors. The commission is dedicated to ensuring that the city's open data initiative serves the needs of all residents and promote informed decision making. Sometimes there are numbers and data points in the news, but it's hard to know the context behind them sometimes. So we want to talk about them and let's dig in. So, what numbers do we have this month? We want to talk about the number three district school closures for snow or cold weather this month. Uh, a lot of folks are talking about Mary, Mary, Mary, give us a snow day. I see she's got her TikTok fan club already. You know, is Mary gonna give it and guys, I do not think Mary Sheffield is responsible for uh the snow day. So I just want to make that uh you know misinformation tidbit. I want to snuff that right in the bug. We can stop directing our snow day uh to the mayor. I do not think she is the one that makes that decision. I could be wrong. Uh I don't know. Maybe somebody here knows better than I, but I I don't think she's behind that.
Donna Givens Davidson:Well, you know what? Uh before we get into the numbers, um, let me give you a number. This is the first time the mayor of Detroit in um over a decade has stood up on the sidelines of justice when these types of things happened. We didn't have to wait for her or pressure her to stand with the people who are uh posing ice, she did. And I was really proud and happy to have our city, you know, connecting with another city that is dealing with this trauma. So, Alex, what other numbers do we have?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and well, I'm gonna jump to um uh another one that I think is relevant to the current conversation. That's six percent. Um and that's roughly uh well, that's the estimated number of our our foreign-born population. Um so in in our city we have you know 96.7 percent citizens of the United States. Um and that's below the national below the average for other large cities, um, which are generally around 13 percent. Um you know that question of of citizenship in cities is really prescient right now.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, it is, and especially when you look at um where you have the most immigrants. Um, you know, some people have pointed out that Texas has a lot more immigrants, Florida has a lot more immigrants than Minneapolis. And yet, ICE is in Minneapolis, um, and there is an assault on the Somali community. Um, and um, for those who are listening who don't understand, these are African people under assault. Um, some people say this is not a black issue, but it certainly is in um Minneapol in Minnesota. Detroit's um immigrants come from diverse backgrounds. Can you talk a little bit about that? Do we have those numbers or should we go on to the next?
SPEAKER_00:Uh we don't have the breakdowns, but we definitely do have some significant uh enclaves of um of racial ethnic groups in our city, um, and many for a very long time uh that got their start in the city and and have migrated out um to other suburbs and things like that. But um, you know, clearly we have southwest Detroit, um, a strong enclave of Mexican Americans and others, um, and then a large Bengali uh American community north of Hamtremock and inside Hamtremock. Um so I know the you know the major languages that the city looks to translate materials into are uh Arabic, Bengali, Spanish, uh, and I've heard in in some cases they're also translating Creole because there's a sizable Haitian population in some areas of the city.
Donna Givens Davidson:So about we used to talk about the Hmong population. The interesting thing is that we don't have a very large Latino population on the east side, but the um Begali population and the Hmong population typically are concentrated in the on the east side of Detroit, and those communities feel almost invisible in a lot of our dialogue about immigration and ICE.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And I I think for the most part, I'll have to check the recent census, but um the Hmong population in Detroit has largely moved into the northern suburbs. Um so there's a lot um a lot more Hmong people in in Warren and other suburbs north of the city now.
Donna Givens Davidson:Okay. Next number.
SPEAKER_00:Next we got 50%. Oh no, hold on. I'm gonna skip, I'm gonna go to 1,827. Um, and this is the number of households who've been signed up for uh the water department's new lifeline H2O water assistance program. Um so they've got 5,000 spots, but the only 1,800 signed up. Um and this is the new the new lifeline plan. The previous one um served 29,000 households. Uh and so there's this gap in in people being able to access and sign up um largely because if you have outstanding water debt, you can't sign up for the program.
Donna Givens Davidson:So let me ask a question. They were on this program before Lifeline, right? And then they that program expired and they can't re-enroll because of debt. Was there a period, a break between those two periods where yeah, it was about a two-month a two-month break.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so some people um and this this comes from outlier media um and reporter uh Brianna Rice. Um, and some folks that she talked to, you know, their water bill uh went$200 into debt just in those two months, and they weren't able to then sign on to the new lifeline plan.
Donna Givens Davidson:So if you really need the help because you couldn't afford to pay your bill, you can't get the help. You can only get the help if you could afford to pay your bill and you did. Because$200 in two months is a whole lot of water bill. Can we acknowledge that? I mean, you know, for people, some people,$100 a month is so significant. One of the stories I just read today is that Gleewa is looking at raising both water and sewage rates. And strangely, it's not in every newspaper, everybody's not covering it. I saw it in the Detroit News online, um, was looking for it in other news sources, but we need to have those conversations because um the combination of people being locked out of affordability programs through the you know, lifeline program and increased bills can only cause more pain and suffering, especially given other aspects of inflation. And you know, this it this is on the heels of increase in utility bills, gas and electric, that um that DTE simply cannot, you know, afford to pay off their stockholders unless they raise our rate, you know. Um, but we keep on seeing this. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Our our last number, I save this one uh for last because I think it'll be a good segue for Kristen. Um 50% uh of Detroit seniors are spending 30% or more of their income um on housing. Um and so that's another another one of those affordability uh topics that are really hitting our our senior community. Um and I should note um uh Mayor Sheffield announced a new a new effort to really focus on uh on seniors.
Donna Givens Davidson:Um senior living senior uh facilities. I mean senior, right? Yep, families, yeah. Yeah, that's excellent. And um long overdue, as a person who was on the housing um committee during the transition team, I actually co-chaired it. Um, the condition, existing condition of affordable units um has to be improved because people are living in substandard conditions right now. And think about all of the people who don't have heat or inadequate heat, how cold they must be this weekend. Um and again, the bills are already high. So um I'm happy to see that. I'm interested. Um, now that I am um, you know, a senior, I'm interested in what do we mean by seniors? Do we mean like 65 and older seniors, 75? You know, I mean like what is the category we're using here? Because I found out I was a senior when I turned 55. I was like, what?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so this is the 65 and older category.
Donna Givens Davidson:Thank you. All right. So um, you know, I think that there's reasons why housing is so expensive for those seniors. What are some of the reasons? I know um, Kirsten, you're on the call and we're gonna talk about the housing network, but I know you have to have mapped out all kinds of uh explanations.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, as I'm sitting here listening to you talk and I'm like, oh, the water issue. Of course they're making it really hard for people to access programs that will support them and they're putting those barriers because I find our society as a whole tends to demonize people who have needs as opposed to having the common compassion and having we we make it harder and harder for people to access the resources that they need. And that's one of the reasons why we have affordability. I'm just gonna say that. And then also the the sewer rates that alone will make housing so unaffordable. It is unbelievable. So between taxes and insurance, between taxes, insurance, and water and sewer, that could be more than somebody's mortgage, or if they already own the home outright, that just even makes it so much harder. So even if they've owned the home for 50 years, right, if you're aging in place, those tax, those, those rates go up and it's going to become unaffordable for them. Um, so going back to why are we saying A, we're seeing a lot more seniors, right? And we as a society, we're not ready for our senior population that's aging. Um, we're not ready with programs that will help people to age in place. And that includes not just the services and the help that they're gonna need, the transportation that they're gonna need, but it's also actual programs and funding to be able to do EMODs or environmental modifications so that people can safely live um independently in their homes that they own. Um, it's also the um we don't have enough housing for people, for older people. And like you were saying, there's so much that we do already have in stock is already is aging and it hasn't had the capital improvements to it. So investments from our federal government, from the state government. Um, we have known, I remember sitting during the recession and listening to data from Kurt Metzger talking about, okay, we know our senior population is aging. We know this is a time bomb happening. We need to do something to address it. There has been no kind of coordinated, massive approach to really addressing what our seniors are going to need. Um, and I'm gonna just say too that I think it's important to that we, when we're talking about our senior population, we're looking at it with dignity and we're not looking at saying, okay, let's just go warehouse everybody. Because seniors like people with disabilities, anybody, any vulnerable population, they deserve to live embedded in our community because that's what's gonna create quite honestly thriving communities. And so um, there are no scales and there has been a disinvestment in housing as a whole, which then creates because of that disinvestment, it creates housing um and affordability for everybody, right? Um, some people can handle it a little bit better. Most people, I mean, it's just really becoming so untenable for even regul for even just like a middle class family, let alone our seniors.
Donna Givens Davidson:You know, I think it's important to re also remember a few things. One, um, a lot of seniors are raising their grandchildren. And so senior poverty can translate into grandchild poverty. Um, seniors a lot of times have less earning power and harder times finding jobs when they get displaced. And so many seniors today are not retiring with the pensions that they did 10, 15 years ago. And so incomes can go down, and social security is not necessarily going to equalize that. So many things. And the final thing about housing is that housing, like humans, has to be cared for. Preventive care keeps housing alive just like people. If you have not taken care of and prevented, you know, problems with your roof, um, you're not changing your gutters, cleaning them all, the kind of stuff that we know you have to do, then you end up having relaks, you end up having things that um make your house more expensive to operate over time. Um, say if you're living in older housing, your gas bill is probably going to be higher, your electricity and even your water bill. So we got to do a really good job um thinking through how can we safely and humanely treat people who made everything that we have now possible. None of us would exist without seniors older than us, right? Um, and you know, this idea that you're on your own in our society right now, the the just the aggressive individualism has got to change. You know, enough healthcare workers, we don't have enough senior aides, we don't have enough people to provide even physical care, and it's going to get worse without investment.
SPEAKER_04:It it absolutely isn't and I think you hit the nail on the head. It's about that hyper-individualism that we have in our culture right now, and that we don't have, we we're not looking at housing as a common good, we're not looking at the infrastructure as an investment. It's not just an investment in that individual, it's about everybody, it's the whole community. And I will just say this is a thing about this is like my own little thing. We do not have respect for our elders in our community and we don't honor them. And I, you know, my next job, if once from Dunit Community Housing Network, I'm gonna do something with seniors because I'm like, it's the disrespect, is like you were saying, is just so appalling. And there's such a huge academic of loneliness and connection and community for our seniors, and we we just need to do better for all of our residents, all of our citizens. Um, but yeah, so and I think really another thing you brought up about the social security not keeping up and wages not keeping up, um, because that is clearly a connection, right? People and housing instability is directly connected with wages and how housing is a part of the ecosystem. And we we are it is not separated. You cannot separate housing outside of you know what's going on in the economy and the wages and the fact that we use housing as a market and it's a commodity instead of and considered a luxury at times, instead of just being a um fundamental need. Um, we do the same thing with healthcare, right? Um, we just as in our communities in our culture, we don't do enough to actually just support all of our citizens. Um, I will say, in this moment of time that we're at in our history and what we're facing in our country, and just the appalling, egregious greediness and grift and everything, I the hope that I have out of this is that people are their eyes are opening up to seeing the collective good matters more than the individual. You know what at the end of the day, it's gonna be all together.
Donna Givens Davidson:A hundred years ago, what was going on in this nation, right? 100 years ago we had Hooverfills, 100 years ago we had the Great Gatsby, and you had the celebration of extreme wealth, and then the bottom fell out, and that's how we ended up with social programs that are now being dismantled. But at some point, people get to a point as a community where they say enough. I don't know if we're there yet. Um, I'm optimistic enough to say we're going to get there, and hopefully it will not require um a catastrophe or loss at the scale of the Great Depression, at the scale of World War II to bring us out of this morass. But um, you know, if history repeats itself, we we always look at the Great Depression like there was only one, but in US history, there's been a few. And it it always seems to be that we go to this extreme level of greed and you know, and um and social injustice or what what is it, the the gap between the rich and the poor. And then somehow that triggers a reaction that I'm hoping we're gonna see because in my lifetime, all I've seen is the retrenchment of federal and state resources you know, over time. As a kid, public housing was just a thing, and now look at it. As a kid, everybody who received who needed the income could receive welfare benefits, you know, housing, monthly stipends, and not look at it. I think the last time I looked, only 13% of people are eligible are now receiving those benefits. Look at the number of people who don't receive um housing vouchers because we just don't produce enough. It's getting worse, and hopefully we're gonna hit a tipping point.
SPEAKER_04:I would hope so, because I mean, I'm asked often, you know, is homelessness inevitable? And it's not. It's a choice that we make as a as a society, right? We're choosing to have, you know, greed over being able to support all our people. We're we're we're choosing to have harshness and quite honestly, indignity over compassion and really supporting everybody. So, I mean, it is a choice we're making. We absolutely could be funding enough to have so that everybody would have housing vouchers that needed it, right?
Donna Givens Davidson:His other book, I can't remember the name of his other book, um, um, where he talked about the rental housing crisis. And that's the first place I read about the possibility of universal housing vouchers. So you make a good point, and he points out that poverty is a choice. It is, it is not inevitable. And we have chosen poverty and the myth that there's nothing you can do to stop it.
SPEAKER_04:It's just that people don't want to.
Donna Givens Davidson:And we're socialized to believe that it's a choice. Um, even some of our religions have um really blamed people for their poverty, you know. Um, if you were prayed up, you wouldn't be poor. This is God's punishment. And so when you don't acknowledge how the system is really structured, it's easy to be part of that problem.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I know a lot of times people say folks who are struggling with housing instability or homelessness, that it's a moral failing that they're in that situation. And it's not, it's the it's the system has has failed them. We have failed to provide enough of that structure for people to thrive. You know, and I mean, if you look at, for instance, you look at disability benefits, right? People who are, and I say this, my son, he has cerebral palsy. We've been on, he's been on social security disability since he was like two. Um, and you have to you have to be in poverty. You have to be, you know, you have to be able to not have any kind of resources and they force people into poverty. So you have one little thing that happens and it just throws an everybody off. And that's how you get people that who have disabilities that seem to be disproportionately into the in the homeless system. It's because we force that. We don't provide them with enough to support themselves. Um, and we don't have the house, the universal housing, we don't have the health care, we don't have, I mean, my son, he has to stay income eligible so he can stay on Medicaid, so that he can get the daily living supports that he needs to be able to live independently. So he will never be able to be out fully working full-time, because even if he could, you know, work full-time, he wouldn't make enough to be able to pay for the person to come in and help him get dressed in the morning, help him cook, help him clean his house. So I mean, it just kind of goes down. And when I and I know we're here to, I'm here to talk about housing, but housing is just like the foundation to help people thrive. And these are the things that pop up on top of it that make it impossible for people to stay housed or to get housed, or you know, and then for the most part, I'll be honest, at community housing network, we do work on the permanent solutions to housing, but some days I'm most of the time, it feels like we're like literally just running around feeling like putting our fingers in the dike, right? We are doing crisis response and it's only getting worse. Um it it it is just there is not enough resources um for the um for the amount of need that comes. I mean, our how so we have a housing resource center and we don't operate within the city of Detroit. So our housing resource center is very similar to the CAM, um, you know, with um I think hand is operating the CAM now in the Southwest. Um, so we operate the housing resource center, right? So people call in. Our call numbers year over year are up 57%.
Donna Givens Davidson:So we're gonna um come back to you and talk more about that. Um, but I think right now we'll take a break and um come back in a few minutes and learn more about Cam.
SPEAKER_02:Detroit 1 Million is a journalism project started by Sam Robinson that centers a generation of Michiganders growing up in a state without a city with one million people. Support the only independent reporter covering the 2025 Detroit mayoral race through the lens of young people. Good journalism costs. Visit Detroit1million.com to support black independent reporting.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome back, everyone. Community housing network empowers people to live in affordable homes to help build thrive communities. They envision a future where everyone can achieve stability, dignity, and opportunity. They aim to create thriving communities with affordable homes, connect individuals and families to essential resources, and foster a supportive workplace for their employees. You've just heard a little bit from Kirsten Elliott. Uh, she is the director and CEO of the Community Housing Network. Uh, I wanted to get into more about your background and more about what made you want to go into solving these very uh sort of thick and seemingly at times unsolvable issues. Does it ever seem like you can move from the hole in the wall to solving those? And I guess how do you sort the time when it seems like there's always a crisis happening versus the long-term strategy of envisioning?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right. Yeah, thank you for asking. So um I would say I didn't choose this job, it chose me. And I know that sounds strange. Um, so I grew up in affordable housing, I grew up in subsidized housing, Section 8 housing my whole life. Um, and as I mentioned, I have a son with a disability. Um, and so we kind of bounced around. I I lived for gosh, years in an apartment with no stove, no refrigerator, this really weird furnace from the 1930s and all of that, you know, plaster lath falling off the walls and everything. But I could afford it and it was in a location that was good for me, so I could still be by my family. It's because I needed the family support with my son. So those are the types of things. So I know housing and stability, and I know what it's like to live in affordable housing and to rely on all of these safety net programs. So I was at Wayne State. I was brought, I actually have a fine art in ceramics from Wayne State. Hello, Wayne State. Um, and I was running the ceramics studio before I started as CHN. And I just knew I needed to get a job with health insurance because I hadn't had health insurance in I don't know how long. And I needed just a little bit of stability for for us. So I got a job at so I I got this job at Community Housing Network because of my lived experience, because I have I'm a mom of a child with a disability. And as Mark Craig, who was the founder of Community Housing Network, said, I wasn't corrupted by the mental health system, but I had access and experience with it. So that's why I got the job that I got. So I was my job was to originally start the housing resource center and to help people navigate housing and to teach about housing. To how does a section eight work? Because I would, I was on the call line, right? People were calling me in and they were saying, Hey, I need a section eight, like that was going to be the golden ticket. That would be the thing. And for me to explain and to teach folks, a what a section eight is, how it works. The reality, and this is back in 2001, that there was a seven to 10 year waiting list. Here we are in 2026. It there's a seven to ten year waiting list. It hasn't changed like one bit.
Donna Givens Davidson:Um I have a question for you. You said earlier, you dropped the note that you do not operate inside of the city of Detroit. I do not. Where do you operate?
SPEAKER_04:So we operate in all of southeastern Michigan, and then we also do um like real estate development outstate, um, working with other local communities. So Oakland, Macomb, we started in Oakland County. We have services in Macomb, and then we also have some um stuff that we do in Outwain. Um, but working within the city of Detroit, we we have done some things in the city of Detroit, but I'm gonna be really honest, there are so many great nonprofits working in the city of Detroit already that it really doesn't make sense for us. And I will also say that the people that we work with, you know, poverty does not know geography.
Donna Givens Davidson:I was gonna say, you know, it's important for us to understand, you know, everybody's Detroit now. Now, um, are you a native Detroiter, Kirsten? I am not. I grew up in the suburbs. Okay. I mean, but in Detroit, Metro Detroit. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. And see, that's what I'm saying. Back when we were young, um, whenever you were young and I were, the the idea that you did not live in the city within the city limits meant you were not a Detroiter. We have younger people who live in the same places and say, I'm from Detroit. So we've changed. And the other thing that's changed over the years is um the African American population in the Detroit area has shifted outside of the city boundaries for the most part. There are more black people living outside of the city boundaries than living inside of the city boundaries, and yet there are fewer services for those who are struggling. So I think it's important that we really look at the big picture and how we connect with surrounding communities, understanding that people are pretty fluid. You know, they go back and forth and they're connected in ways they didn't used to be connected, and we have to figure out how to solve that. So, anyway, you are in the Metro Detroit area, and also you do some work out state. And you know, this is an important thing I also want to say before I get to my question. Housing is not an urban issue. It's not a suburban issue. It's urban, suburban, rural, exurban. We're all struggling with the same things. And the way that our government, you know, sort of pits us against each other to make it seem as though these people have what they need helps keep us in this position. Because um, maybe I'm not going to support what you do, and you're not going to want to support what I do because we see ourselves as representing different people when there is really, you know, we're we're dealing with the same stuff. Anyway, can you talk about the services, what um the um the community housing network does?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, for sure. So we are we provide an array of services. We do homeless path, we do everything from street homeless outreach um in Oakland and Macomb counties, and then we do all the way up to helping people buy their first home, and then we do a lot of real estate development and property management for people with disabilities. So we run, we do the homeless street outreach. We have we are the housing assessment and resource agency for Oakland County. So that's like the sister CAM. So CAM is the housing assessment resource agency in Detroit. So we do that in Oakland County. Um, and then our housing resource center also then helps other people um who are not homeless navigate housing. We do teaching about housing. Um, and then we also have um prevention, we have rapid rehousing, we do permanent supportive housing, which those are mainly HUD-funded programs, which are under attack right now, which is a whole other topic. Um, so we have we house about 700 families in our permanent supportive housing programs um through our HUD grants. Then we also do our real estate development and we do home ownership. Um, like I said, I don't talk about it a lot, but property management, which actually is a big part of our business and our the work that we do. Um yeah, um I'm also weirdly, right now I'm administering a grant for Mishta, which is to um to grant money for creating units of housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, which is a severely underfunded population for housing. Um, there is not really much dedicated funding for that. So MISHTA wanted to create a pilot program. So they asked us to go um coordinate that and to make sure that the supports and community integration are aligned with it. So we do a lot. Anything that has to do with how in a housing range, right? We're there. So and then we partner and we do the connection with all of our community partners because, like I said, it's an ecosystem.
Donna Givens Davidson:Right. Yeah, so um have things changed. I know a lot of people are really concerned about the changes um with the new administration and the big horrendous bill. Um have things changed? Have they gotten worse? Are they about the same, or are they getting any better?
SPEAKER_04:Um so right now, things what what has changed is not necessarily with the big horrendous bill. I like your name for that. Um not with that so far. What has because what's coming, those are those changes are coming. So Medicaid changes, work requirements, all of that, SNAP benefits, that has changed things. That is definitely straining our residents and our participants for sure. Um, on the housing side, what's changed is executive orders. Those things though, um, Trump signed an executive order back in July around um criminalizing homelessness and um wanting to um really support communities and encourage them to commit people who are homeless into institutions, um, which is a whole other thing. And then within that program, within that executive order was a um part about redirecting funding. The perm um it's called McKinney Vento or Continuum of Care Funding, which within our state, we get about 110 million million collectively in our state of annual funding for from McKinney Vento for homeless funding that supports permanent support of housing, transitional housing, rapid rehousing. The majority of it for the last 20 years, it's been permanent supportive housing, has been the policy and the direction and the drive of the federal government. It doesn't matter what administration. As a matter of fact, it was the Bush administration that first started this drive of creating of really driving everything towards permanent supportive housing. And the Trump administration wants to reverse that and literally take, so for instance, in the Oakland Continuum of Care, we get about$8.5,$9 million annually. And about 82, 85% of that is for permanent supportive housing. HUD, they released a NOFO where only 30% of it would be. So that would mean like the majority of our permanent supportive housing would go unfunded and have to go towards transitional housing. And what that would mean is all those families that we have housed are going to become there, we're homeless. Now they're on their path to stability, would become homeless. And it's that isn't happening quite yet because there's a big lawsuit. So thank you, Dana Nessel, for having the courage to participate in the lawsuits again to stop many of these egregious changes happening. And it's yeah, it's it's it's been a really, really stressful time. And um it's really dismantling work that we've been doing for decades. And it's wanting to go turn the clock back to how things were back in like the early 80s, mid-80s, and no evidence. They keep saying, you know, we have tons of evidence that shows permanent supportive housing with wraparound supports is what helps transition people from homelessness to stability. Right.
Donna Givens Davidson:And you know, I think that there's there's this mindset that we should only use government funds if we can transition people out of poverty. It's ridiculous. Um, there are people who are poor because they are disabled. There are people, whether it's a physical or a behavioral disability, um, because they are old, and because our system is structured in such a way that, you know, we always have to have people who will work for minimum wage in order to make our system go. And then, you know, a part of our economy is built on slave labor overseas or just, you know, immigrants who are treated like unwelcome guests. But um, our economy is structured to reproduce poverty, as we started off talking before. Um, there's no reason why a person who is disabled should have to become independent within six weeks or six months. That's a ridiculous thing.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
Donna Givens Davidson:Sam.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, I just think, you know, I look back to my own family situation. Uh, my mom is the legal guardian of my cousin, who is, you know, for the past 25 years, um collected you know, state and and federal money that now is being you know targeted by these cuts and people who have never before had to look up and say, you know, am I gonna be okay? Are are asking that. Um, Kirsten, I I really wanted to ask you something that um people ask me all the time, and I don't have the answer for them because I'm not a housing researcher, nor um am I uh this is my beat. I refer to people like Nishrod Rahman at the Free Press or Bridge or even JC Reidel at the Free Press, who's got experience covering housing development over his long career. Um what is affordable housing? Because when I go past this village and I see the new really nice, you know, vinyl floor, but it's nice and big. What are those called? I forget. Uh, right over there. The new affordable housing. And I look on Zillow and I see how much they are for a one-bedroom apartment. It's$1,350. And that's the I mean, that seems to be what the market rate is. I don't know if that's affordable. And I listen to stories from developers who are about to you know do this big announcement, and what stops the announcement from happening with you know one of these bigger uh development companies is the way that they style the affordable housing within the development itself, where these local smaller developers will want the affordable housing to be uh throughout the building on a number of floors, and then the larger companies say, no, no, we're gonna put four units on the in the basement. And so I guess there's a lot of talk right now at council and public commenters. I hear Renata Miller, the new D5 council member, tell me that she wants to bring truly affordable housing. So that's like a new catchphrase, I guess. But from your vantage, what is a properly affordable unit?
SPEAKER_04:That is such a good question. And it's so hard to define because you feel you could get lost in like, what is the funding mechanism in this? So truly affordable housing is where that individual or family is paying 30% of their adjusted gross income or their gross income, even let's just say I'd rather go with adjusted, but their gross income, right? So if my income, however, but when they're determining affordability on some of these levels, so like a tax credit development, which is with low-income housing tax credits, right? That's considered affordable housing because it's income restricted to families that are 60% and under the area median income, right? However, it isn't a 60% person is going it, it's it's affordable to if they were making the max 60%. And and it's a couple more things, yeah. It's so complicated. It's intent, it goes back to what I said earlier. It's intentionally complicated, yeah, and it's intentionally made high barrier for entry.
Donna Givens Davidson:Well, but it's it's it's also because we don't want to subsidize, okay? And it needs to be well, affordable housing for a person who is low income, who is making, you know,$12 an hour, um, working 20 hours a week, and they can't get more hours, affordable housing for them is going to be mean something different. However, when people are developing housing, and I know this because we're working on this right now in a lot of projects, you're trying to figure out can I afford to build this and make it affordable, given the cost of construction, given the cost of compliance and all of the things you have to do, it's really difficult. And so I think we need a new word because what's affordable for a single person who makes$50,000 a year, they would fit perhaps within that affordability guidelines of 80% of the area median income, which is what it's based on. Not the city median income, but the area median income. And this is federal, it's not city policy. So they will qualify based on that and then they'll get a studio apartment. A lot of what we're building that we're calling affordable, every time we have the ribbon cuttings and celebrations, we're talking about micro studios or studios which are appropriate for single individuals, but not families. We're not building in Detroit a lot of housing that is affordable to a family afford, even at the same income level. But I think the other challenge is that if you earn below 50% of the area median income, which is right now about$70,000 in um the Metro Detroit area, plus or minus a couple thousand, if you earn 80% of that, you're gonna earn what, about$50,000? Roughly. Yeah, roughly that. Okay. If you earn that, you can possibly at 80% afford what's being built. If you earn 50% of that, which is$35,000, it's you're gonna struggle to pay those things. And if you earn 40, 30, 20%, what they call deeply affordable is what many Detroiters consider to be middle class. And so I think there's just an invisibility of poverty where we are not building homes for poor people because we never get below 50, almost ever, in what we're building because developers can't afford it. Now, when I was first got in this game, we had home dollars we could use to help subsidize it. Yeah, and the home dollars would help cut the cost, and you know, then you were able to layer those on top of tax credits and other things. The other thing is instruction, construction costs have skyrocketed. And a lot of people don't want to acknowledge the correlation between mass deportation and Trump's first term, all of the Mexican construction workers who got pushed out of this country and the cost of um of building, as well as the cost of all of the building materials, which are also sometimes produced by people who are working, you know, under less than positive conditions. So I just think we need more money. You can't say we want to build truly affordable housing or whatever it is. We're you know, there's budget meetings going on at the city right now, and I want to see the budgets for that.
unknown:Right.
Donna Givens Davidson:And Rihanna Miller has not shown herself to be very progressive when it comes to many of these issues. So I hope that maybe as she has her eyes open, she'll have those conversations.
SPEAKER_04:And you really hit the nail on the head in order to create that true affordability, because as a developer, you do not only do you have to build it and be able to afford to build it, but it's also running it, right? Insurance, property taxes, even if you have a pilot, right? Water, we the water, the utilities. Like I like I cannot begin to explain to you. Like, yes. So for those truly affordable, they're gonna need a subsidy because in order for the property to be maintained properly and ran properly, there needs to be income coming in, right? To pay the bills. Um, and so it's you know, I don't know if, you know, that's where like NISHTA and the housing commissions and we need more vouchers to be able to put onto these properties to make those units truly affordable. And Sam, 100%. They need to make sure that those affordable units are scattered, are embedded throughout the community. They need to be able to have people with different life experiences need to be able to live next door to other people with different life experiences and not to be segregated to the basement or to that wing or where the people go back by and go, oh, that's where those people live. Right.
Donna Givens Davidson:That's not it. It what I've seen even more often is putting people in the basement is restricting the affordable unit to the smallest unit in the building. So we have studio apartments are affordable, but the one, two bedrooms, and to the extent they're even building three bedrooms in Detroit, those are all at market rate. And so again, that's restricting your customers. That's saying we don't want low-income or moderate income families living in this building with wealthy people, but we'll take a single individual, possibly somebody who recently graduated from college or recently retired to move into this because they don't really change the social dynamics of our spaces. Um, the challenge with inclusionary housing is the way we include people is we include them at a disadvantage. There was a time when we were building houses in neighborhoods for low-to-mider income people where they could live among family and friends and a lot of the amenities they want. Now we're saying, hey, you get to live where all these other people live. But there's a certain level of dishonesty there. Um and I think if we're going to be really honest, most of the people I've talked to who are looking for housing are not wanting to live in a brand new downtown development. They want a house.
unknown:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:They want to live in the neighborhoods where their people are. That's when we say inclusionary, I think what we probably could mean is that we're including them in our planning, not forcing them into these places where they're not wanted really.
SPEAKER_04:That's a really, really great point. I know we've done a lot of work in this in in Pontiac and creating single family homes, right? And that are we created them with tax credits long term, they turn to home ownership. And we created because we have so many families that we can't find housing for, those really large families. So we've got four bedrooms, homes, we're building four-bedroom townhouses, we're doing all of that kind of work because the families need to be, they want to have community, they want to have belonging, they want to have that, and having that kind of participatory planning and input. And one of the things that I'm super interested in, and and I think because we're gonna have to need a whole bunch of solutions, right? There's a there's a place for, you know, you know, senior housing that has, you know, one bedrooms or whatever, right? But there is a place, I believe, for how do we create pathways to home ownership so people can build wealth and equity? And how do we do it so it's thinking about it's not a one size fits all. I think there's a lot of work happening with community land trust. I think there's a lot of work happening with tenant kind of to ownership. I think that there's a lot of and there's a lot of opportunity there. And then also co-housing or intentional communities where or co-ops bringing, you know, co-ops used to be really big deal. And I think that those are opportunities for us to create community because you got to remember too, you can put somebody in a house, but if they don't have community and they don't have connection to the what's around them, it's not gonna thrive. It's not gonna, it's not gonna like become a neighborhood, right? Um, and we need and and how do you use that to create and that co-housing idea can create those third states?
Donna Givens Davidson:I am so excited about you that you brought up co-housing. I learned about co-housing like 20 years ago, and I was like, yes, let's do it, right? At that time, I had little kids, maybe it was like 25 years ago. I had little kids and I had to go home after work and cook every day, and I learned about co-housing, and there's like this share kitchen. I was like, yes, share babysitting, where you're creating community in a space where people can take care of each other, and that kind of you know, collective work um is cool. And a lot of the people who live in co-housing communities are actually upper income. Co-housing communities are in, you know, Northville, they're in places like Ann Arbor, but they're not in the hood where we could really benefit from some innovations. The other thing we're looking at is um what I'll call a beneficial land contract. Land contracts do not have to be exploitative any more than bank loans have to be predatory, right? So they they have this horrible name, and yet so many black people, perhaps the majority of black people in Detroit, at one time became homeowners through land contracts. With a land contract, you can bypass a bank and you can use your own determination to decide who gets to live here. Um bank interest compounds, and so you can have non-compounding interest on a land contract, meaning that people are the interest expense is less. And the you know, the time to have the house produce wealth or equity is shortened. And so we're doing a project like that at ECN. We're calling it Lake View Legacy Homes, with the goal of really um, let's try something different and let's try a whole lot of different things, right? Everything you mentioned, and then what we're doing.
SPEAKER_04:That's really interesting. And I would love to talk with you more about that. I have my first phase of homes in Unity Park coming to, I think in 2029. And so I'm right now, I just got a grant to help with my planning because we started that project so that we could raise the property values. So we started doing that work during the recession. And back then we were we were we had money through the neighborhood stabilization program. So we were building homes for about 200,000 or so and selling them, but they were only appraising for about 55. And there was a ton of um demolition in that neighborhood, and it had it was a tipping point neighborhood, but the recession just decimated it. So we had all of these vacant homes, all these vacant lots, and so we use tax credits to fit do infill housing and create these. And so I have my first 32 homes coming for sale in 2029, and I need to figure out how to sell these without to without hitting the property values, right? And how to sell them so for the individuals that are living there and the families that are living there right now, and how to do it in a way that helps them build equity. You know, we're we've been working with them, you know, building their credit and all of that, but it's a whole big project. But anyways, I would really love to talk with you, Donna, about your beneficial land contract.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. I think, you know, again, I think those of us who are working on the the front lines, let's get together. This is a time for imagination. I pointed out a hundred years ago, we had Hooverfields. 10 years later, we started building products, we started creating things where public housing came online, where Section 8 vouchers came online, the FHA was created, and then later, HUD. We don't have to look in the rearview mirror to figure out how to house people because we've never done a good job. Let's look forward and figure out um, you know, let's figure out how to do it and um and and work together. You know, I have so many ideas for how we can do things. I want to have people sharing homes. If you're about to lose your home and you can't afford a home, maybe you can live together. You know, that's how Detroit started, right? People moved here. They didn't rent an apartment or buy a home. They moved into somebody's home, a rooming house, or a place where somebody needed somebody to help them pay the bills. And then they moved out. Um, I I it it it feels to me as though part of the problem is government, and part of the problem is just a sheer lack of imagination and a willingness to try different things. The one thing I can say is that crisis is the motherhood of invention, and it's time for us to start inventing.
SPEAKER_04:It is, and we need to bring all of our innovation and creativity to this, and and it isn't gonna be a one size fits all, right? There's gonna be this is gonna work over here, this will work for this population, this will work over here, and we need to make sure that we have a whole continuum of opportunities and options. It's not gonna be, you know, one like again, one size fits all. I mean, we all survived the recession, right? We've all survived COVID. And I honestly, I'm like, I've been doing, I've been at CHN for 24 or 25 years. Now we're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. And I've the reason why I'm the CEO is because I'm the longest surviving. Um, and I'm like, great time to become the CEO. These are fun days. Um, I just but to that point though, because crisis is the mother of invention, and now we have, and I think that people's minds are opening up, and it goes back to that collective good too. We need to look housing, and this is not about it's not a luxury, it's like not a commodity. It's a it's a it's a it's a basic necessity.
Donna Givens Davidson:Human right. It's an absolute human right, and the minute the the sooner that we recognize that it is a human right, the sooner that we will treat it as such. Um, I you know I have one final thing. I know we have to break, but I have one final thing I just want to talk about, and that is um solidarity. When you watch the news and you see what's happening, we have two ways of responding. One with hate. And the other with love. Well, I guess three indifference, hate, or love. I choose love, right? We've got to come together across, you know, various, you know, demographics, whether it's Detroit versus the suburbs, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Arab, come together because we have a shared interest in justice. And not everybody does, but enough of us do that if we came together, we could, you know, constitute a majority. There is a value to people who want to control and harm us and keeping us separated. So I look forward to working with you, Kirsten. I really look forward to really building. I'm glad you reached out about coming on here and letting us know what you're doing. I know there are many wonderful people also doing work in Detroit, but you're our neighbors. And it's good to know that you're doing good things there as well. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Kirsten, I want to say I think it's you know interesting too. You bring up Unity Park, I think is really a commendable project. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's over a hundred uh houses.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, it is now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, which is quite impressive. We think about the houses built in Detroit over the last however many years, I think is the number is in the dozens. Um, it is hard to build family houses in Detroit for some reason. Uh leaders cite cost, um, but you know, looking at those creative ways to do it, seems like you guys have figured it out for some of those folks in in Pontiac, where a lot of the same issues uh you know exist.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, I just want to say something real quickly. In Detroit, the reason we have meant built since um um single family housing is not cost, it's policy. The previous mayor had a multifamily housing policy where the housing that the city was going to invest in was going to be multifamily, not single family. Prior to this mayor, a lot of single-family housing was being built in the city using tax credit dollars and other dollars. There was a policy decision. We have a new mayor now, and there is a survey that's going out, and hopefully people will fill it out and let the mayor know we want more single family housing in our neighborhoods because we can do what you do. I mean, I commend you for doing it in Pontiac. My husband grew up in Pontiac, so I have great love for the city, right? But we can do it here with the right policies and the right decision to invest.
SPEAKER_04:And I will say, doing the single family homes and this long-term kind of lease, like purchase, you know, rent to purchase, it's difficult. I'm not gonna lie. It's hard to run, it's hard, it's expensive to the the the like the regular annual operating cost. It's a lot more for a single for you to have 32 single family homes as opposed to a one apartment building, right? Um, but again, we're building equity, we're building wealth for folks. We stabilized those um property values in that neighborhood. I mean, one of my board members was one of the homeowners that both bought the home back in like 2011 or 12. And she refinanced her home and it was like it's it was 189,000. She bought it for 55.
SPEAKER_09:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:That's life-changing. That's change for her family, for her son, generational money, wealth there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Doing the right thing uh sometimes take requires more work.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and it's yeah, I mean, and I'm a nonprofit, I can do that. I don't have to have an I don't have to have like this thing coming out. I'm mission driven, I get to do this, which is great. And my board supports some of my crazy ideas.
Donna Givens Davidson:I mean, that's the importance of getting nonprofits involved, and that's just another reminder to our wonderful new mayor. Nonprofits want to be in on the game. We do things not for profit, but because of we have a mission, um, those of us who do it well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Kirsten Elliott is the CEO of the Community Housing Network. Uh, Kirsten, thank you for joining us today on Authentically Detroit. If you guys have topics that you want to hear us discuss, people you want to hear us talk to on Authentically Detroit, uh, send uh their names, uh, your ideas our way. Uh, thank you so much for listening. Um, we are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can email us at authenticallydetroit at gmail.com. Uh, Donna, I want to again reiterate my shout out to all of the Star Tribune staff. Shout out to all the journalists working these protest scenes. I've done it. I've been arrested at a protest, I've been maced at a protest by Proud Boys. I've been there, I've done that. And so kudos to everybody that's doing it now. Please stay safe.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yes. And um, I'll shout out the politicians, I'll shout out Keith Ellison, Stephanie Chang, Rashida Chalib, those others, um, the the even the Republican gubernatorial candidate who stepped up. I shout out to those people who are willing to stand up unafraid to say the right thing. Um, and shout out to our own Mary, Mary Sheffield for standing with them.
SPEAKER_04:Can I do a shout out? Absolutely. I want to shout out to the monks who are doing the peace walk. I cannot begin to explain when you talk about solidarity. I gain so much hope when I'm feeling I'm reading the news and I'm like, oh my gosh, what this is like, I'm feeling hopeless. I'm like, I look, I've been following them since they began their journey in Fort Worth, and the crowds are just growing and growing in places where I'm very surprised that they're coming out to see Buddhist monks. And it's about because people understand it's about peace, it's about love, and it's about compassion. And it really gives me hope. And I'm really grateful that they're going on this journey and taking and they're walking in the snow and the ice. So I'm really just want to give the shout out to the monks, reminding us of peace and love.
SPEAKER_03:All right, guys. It's another day, another nickel here in the city of Detroit. This is Authentically Detroit. Thanks for listening. We'll see you guys next week.
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