Detroit city is stepping up its game to help homeless families after a mother lost two of her children to cold exposure earlier this month while living in a van, as a Christian charity provides the grieving mother with a new home.
A video shared on social media by the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries (DRMM), a nonprofit providing solutions to homelessness, hunger, and joblessness, shows Tateona Williams receiving the keys to a new home for her and her two surviving children.
“We were saddened by hearing about what had happened, and we decided to put things in action, not to talk about it,” DRMM CEO and President Chad Audi said, “so they don’t have to go one day with no food or being outside at all anymore.”
Audi said DRMM members helped to fix the house, putting in new windows, new floors, new furniture, and a new coat of paint.
The video also shows community members stocking the kitchen with food.
“We can’t do nothing to compensate for the loss of the kids, but it’s at least a good start to cope with the situation that’s he’s been through,” Audi said in another video posted by the City of Detroit on its Facebook page.
Williams had been homeless for several months when, on Feb. 9, she drove her van to the parking garage of a casino to get a night’s rest—a place to spend the night with access to restrooms. With her were her four children, another adult, and another child.
The group went to sleep with the car engine running, but sometime during the night, the vehicle ran out of gas and could no longer produce heat. When Williams woke up on the morning of Feb. 10, she found two of her children unresponsive and soon noticed they were not breathing.
Authorities later confirmed that 2-year-old Amillah Currie and 9-year-old Darnell Currie had likely died of hypothermia.
The minimum temperature in Detroit that night was around 11 degrees F, according to the National Weather Service.
During a somber press conference the day after the tragedy, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said Williams had contacted City Hall on Nov. 25 to seek help with housing, but she was not given any help.
“For whatever reason, this wasn’t deemed an emergency that caused an outreach worker to visit the family,” Duggan said.
He added that Williams never called back to request assistance a second time, and city staff did not contact her to inquire whether their distress was resolved.
Tragically, there were plenty of beds available at family shelters at the time the deaths occurred, Duggan said.
“This is something that’s going to be hard to accept for a long time, that we had the beds in place,” the mayor reiterated on Thursday when the city announced a 7-point plan to ensure families in need get the protection and shelter they need.
Key steps include personal outreach for every family with minor children, a special focus on families living in vehicles, a permanent housing helpline for urgent assistance, doubling the number of drop-in beds, and expanding street and night outreach teams.
The city said it would also be doubling the number of drop-in beds.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
