Research

2022

2020

• Poverty Alleviation through Entrepreneurship and Urban Microenterprise Development Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the number of microenterprise development and neighborhood entrepreneurship training programs in Detroit. The impetus of these programs is to stimulate urban economic development and neighborhood revitalization in the city's underserved communities.  The aim of this study is to evaluate these programs collectively with respect to…
• Special Delivery: A Community-Academic Partnership to Improve the Health of Low-Income Young Mothers and their Children The goal of this project is to assess the feasibility of using grocery delivery to strengthen services related to the special supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) by improving access to and use of food benefits during pregnancy. Grocery delivery, a well-established and inexpensive service, removes logistical barriers to obtaining healthy foods…
• The AfricanFuturist Greenhouse This proposal will combine the African traditions of generative economy with contemporary technology design to create an AfricanFuturist greenhouse. The greenhouse exterior will be designed by local artists from the African American community to provide aesthetic fit to the museum surroundings. The interior will be designed and prototyped by University of Michigan students, such that…

2019

• Michigan Evictions: Assessing Data Sources and Exploring Determinants The project: Each year, tens of thousands of Michigan households lose their homes as a result of court-ordered evictions, and Michigan cities have some of the highest eviction rates in the nation. The goal of this project is to analyze available data to better understand the prevalence, patterns, and causes of evictions in Michigan, and…
• Providing Opportunity, Not Punishment: Implementing A Pilot Functional Sentencing Program in Southeast Michigan The project: Over-criminalization and reliance on retributive punishment have resulted in a criminal justice system that entrenches poverty and harms those on the margins. By shifting the focus to healing, rather than punishment, the criminal justice system can simultaneously address the root causes of offending behavior and improve lives while enhancing public safety. In 2017,…
• Engaging Low-Income and Minority Communities in Prioritizing Community Health Benefits There are a variety of competing health needs in communities, particularly in minority and low-income communities, which often have worse health outcomes than other communities. This project, a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Friends of Parkside, a non-profit on Detroit's eastside, proposes a new approach to address health disparities by meaningfully engaging communities…
• Identifying the recipe for success: Can a new cooking class in a community health center increase participation in existing center programs and build core skills to decrease food insecurity among low-income patients? The project: Evidence suggests that teaching cooking skills can help people better manage food insecurity by teaching them how to better reduce food waste, budget and plan meals, and cook healthy meals with inexpensive ingredients. In this research partnership between Community Health and Social Services Center (CHASS) in Detroit, the University of Michigan Medical School and…

2018

• Overcoming the chilling effect: Identifying strategies for improving immigrant families’ acceptability and accessibility to health and social services that alleviate poverty The project: In March 2017, a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by two physicians called for research on the potential "chilling effect" that increased immigration enforcement under the new presidential administration would have on immigrant’s willingness to seek healthcare or government services. Given that the timely receipt of health and social…
• Supporting Economic Mobility through Community Mentorship The project: The Eastside Community Network in Detroit and the University of Michigan School of Information evaluated the impact of the Lower Eastside Economic Mobility (LEEM) program, which connects residents with low incomes with mentors from the community, with the goal of addressing known barriers to stable employment such as low self-efficacy and limited access…
• Breaking the Cycle: Refining the Trauma-Informed Clinical Ethnographic Narrative Interview (CENI) The project: In 2016, over 9,700 family households across Michigan, accounting for 24,766 people, entered an emergency shelter due to homelessness. The majority of these households were headed by a single female with one or two children under 11 years of age. Prior research has demonstrated that more than 90% of mothers who become homeless…
• Assessing the impact of intergenerational asset building programs on self‐efficacy, academic achievement and college going culture of low‐income Black and Latino girls In the fall of 2015, Alternatives for Girls successfully piloted a new "Asset Building" model to encourage middle school girls and their families to academically prepare for high school, career and college, and to save for future post‐secondary education and training expenses. The next phase of work will support up to 60 middle and high…

2017

• Helping a House Remain a Home The project: Each year, non-payment of property taxes causes thousands of Detroit residents to lose their homes to tax foreclosure. Detroit’s exceptionally high tax rate disproportionately burdens low-income residents, threatening their ability to maintain homeownership and attain long-term financial stability. Michigan law requires local governing bodies to make a Poverty Tax Exemption (PTE) available for…
• Barrier Busting in the HOPE Village Neighborhood Network The project: Sometimes small barriers, solvable with relatively minor amounts of funding, present major obstacles for those living in poverty. For many Detroit residents, these barriers prevent them from making progress toward their goals of economic self-sufficiency.Through a partnership between the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and Focus: HOPE, a nonprofit civil and…
• Preserving Low-Income Housing in Detroit The project: The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program is the nation's largest source of financing for building or rehabilitating affordable housing. The sale of the credits provides equity to help finance the production of decent affordable housing for low-income renters who are in or near poverty, many of whom are elderly or disabled or…
• Improving Health and Strengthening Communities The project: Health and poverty are inextricably linked. Health problems interfere with work and education, and poverty exacerbates health problems, producing a cycle of negative influence that maintains both poverty and ill-health. An effective approach to improve health is through community health workers (CHWs) recruited from and working in their home neighborhoods. Such positions also…