The Kresge Foundation

On Tuesday, Detroit sculptor Austen Brantley and leaders of the Coleman A. Young Foundation (CAYF) unveiled a preliminary model of a statue of Coleman A. Young at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Young was Detroit’s first Black mayor and its longest-serving one, and his statue will represent Michigan in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection. A companion statue for Detroit’s downtown riverfront is also being commissioned. The Coleman A. Young Statue Initiative, which Kresge supports, has raised more than $1.2 million. Continued fundraising will go toward scholarships and youth programs for young Detroiters. At the celebration, CAYF Executive Director Khary K. Turner described the campaign’s two objectives simply: “Honor the past, finance the future.” #Detroit #ColemanYoung Photos by Kresge's Tracey Lynn Pearson and Annistique Photography, Kennette Lamar / The Coleman A. Young Foundation

In New Orleans East, the Vietnamese American community that resettled there in 1975 has rebuilt after Katrina, organized through the BP oil spill and is now getting ready for the next storm on its own terms. In our latest PathBreakers podcast episode, Tap Bui, co-executive director of Song Community Development Corporation, talks about helping residents change their relationship to water. Paid “water leaders” design green infrastructure like the bioswale the community built in New Orleans East, and a long-held neighborhood vision in Algiers is becoming a heritage garden with a stormwater pond and a fishing pier. Watch or listen to our award-winning video podcast for urban changemakers. #PathBreaekrs #NewOrleans #greeninfrastructure

The Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) has built something in its neighborhood high schools worth paying attention to: a suite of health hubs that has positively affected school attendance, student health, and family stability. The School at Marygrove Health Hub that opened in 2023 was launched with a $300,000 grant from The Kresge Foundation two years earlier. That early support subsequently leveraged in the Skillman Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Ballmer Group, which now anchors the District’s health hubs at roughly $3 million annually. The idea of locating health services in schools isnt new but DPSCD has taken the model further by introducing in each of the District’s neighborhood high schools a health service hub that serves the entire family – not just the students during school hours. Each of these health hubs is built around five components: co-located physical and behavioral health care; a food and basic-needs resource center; on-site and referred services from legal aid to housing counseling; coordination with after-school programming; and a navigator who holds it all together for each family. The results have been unambiguously positive: • More than 10,000 families have been served. • Thousands of referrals have connected families to housing and immigration support they wouldnt otherwise have found. • Chronic absenteeism — a genuine crisis in the District, with more than 60% of students chronically absent last school year — has fallen nine percentage points over six years, well ahead of the statewide trend. • Hundreds of children have gotten glasses they needed. What strikes me most, though, is how the Hubs have become something larger than their original design: neighborhood infrastructure that flexes under pressure: • As immigration enforcement has intensified, they have become a place where families can get trustworthy legal guidance from navigators they already know. • When SNAP benefits were paused late last year, our Detroit and Human Services programs worked together to help Hubs open their doors beyond DPSCD families entirely, turning them into holiday food distribution sites for whole neighborhoods. • In Southwest Detroit, the Hub at Western High School has become a literal node in a social navigation platform — built with United Way — that closes the loop between schools, childcare providers, and community development organizations. The health hubs are, in essence, part and parcel of a larger argument we are seeking to make about the Marygrove campus generally: that a place can be built to hold and fortify a communitys whole life, not just one dimension of it. https://lnkd.in/efYssyHr

Earlier this month, Develop Detroit opened The Hive on Russell, a $23.9 million development project that brings new affordable housing to a previously vacant site between Eastern Market and Lafayette Park. Develop Detroit, led by President and CEO Sonya S. Mays, kept the project's affordable housing focus intact through every change. The result is 78 rent-restricted apartments for households earning between 30% and 60% of area median income, from studios to two-bedrooms, made possible with support from the City of Detroit, PNC Bank, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority and Cinnaire. For Kresge, a longstanding partner of Develop Detroit, the opening advances a priority central to its work in its hometown: helping residents share in the city’s growth. “Detroit’s growth should expand the choices available to Detroiters, including the opportunity to live in affordable homes near the places and neighborhoods that connect our city,” said Kresge Program Officer Adena Hill, JD, MSW Adena Hill. #Detroit #AffordableHousing #EasternMarket https://lnkd.in/e5DwySUA

Sprout is a New Orleans-based organization that provides technical and social support to established and developing small-scale farmers, community gardeners, and farm workers in Louisiana. Their vision is a community food system rooted in equity — one that increases access to jobs, food, and land, particularly for farmers and growers who are Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, people of color, and women. In our latest episode of our PathBreakers New Orleans series, Mina Seck, community food director at Sprout, describes food as both nourishment and a communal practice in New Orleans. She offers advice on sustaining food justice work, building community spaces, responding quickly to a crisis and more. #PathBreakers #NewOrleans #foodjustice

Michigan Central recently released a fascinating report on the impact that the restoration project has had on the city of Detroit generally, and on the Corktown neighborhood specifically. The report is a powerful indicator that the project has spun off remarkable results by generating "$5.2 billion in cumulative economic impact, with every direct job supporting an additional 3.1 jobs across Michigan.” Even more compelling are the observations of Ford Motor Company Board Chair Bill Ford. He wrote: "More than 240 companies from more than 60 industries call Michigan Central home. More than 40% relocated from outside Michigan, bringing new talent and investment with them. Since 2023, more than 3,000 young people and adults have taken part in Michigan Central’s talent and workforce programs, connecting Detroiters directly to emerging industries." That is extraordinary. And indeed, the Michigan Central renovation tells only part of the story, as Bill Ford suggests; the project is less a single building project than it is a multi-faceted, neighborhood-scale investment. Consider: • The Book Depository and Newlab. Newlab Detroit is the mobility/EV infrastructure startup incubator in which many of those businesses tenants, researchers, and workers Ford mentions are located. • The Corktown Neighborhood. A surge in foot traffic, new restaurants, and rising property values has made Detroit's oldest neighborhood a national symbol of the city's turnaround. All of that comes with very tangible risk: rising rents and property taxes have put pressure on long-time residents and small, independent businesses — which the city has addressed through a Choice Neighborhoods Implementation grant (a program of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development) that it is using to construct new affordable housing throughout Historic and North Corktown. • Parks and Open Spaces. Roosevelt Park is the formal civic park facing the building's main façade – the Station’s front-yard. The renovation and redesign of the space introduced upgraded lighting, new landscaping, pedestrian pathways, and flexible open space for public use. An extraordinary asset that is helping shape the city’s future. #MichiganCentral #Detroit Photo by Alejandro Herrera, The Kresge Foundation

Sweeping federal changes to #Medicaid including work requirements, semi-annual renewals and new verification rules take effect in 2027, putting between 171,000 and 355,000 Michiganders at risk of losing coverage. The Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA) has launched a statewide Medicaid Community Support Network to help nonprofits guide residents through these changes. Kresge has joined the Michigan Health Endowment Fund and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in committing $1.4 million to support the network and equip nonprofits with resources, training, and coordination to help their communities navigate the transition and keep eligible residents covered. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eHZMxQX4 https://lnkd.in/g93ytBM8

Our John Holdsclaw IV (jhiv) joined Elizabeth Davidson of The Kresge Foundation on this must-read blog post, "What the community finance sector needs to stabilize small CDFIs carrying the hardest work." #smallcdfismatter https://lnkd.in/g7AmqM27

New episode of PathBreakers out today featuring Mina Seck of Sprout NOLA. Mina talks about farming for food sovereignty in a place familiar with climate change, and the power of food to bring together community. It's part two of our series featuring New Orleans leaders When climate disaster strikes and roads go down, how do families in New Orleans get food? For Mina Seck, community food director at Sprout, the answer starts with small-scale local farms. Sprout provides technical and social support to farmers, community gardeners and farm workers across Louisiana, working toward a community food system rooted in equity. On this week’s PathBreakers episode, Seck shares how she got nearly $100,000 worth of locally grown food into food banks in less than two months when residents suddenly lost SNAP benefits. She also explains how Sprout ran a $500,000 reparations program for 10 Black and Indigenous farmers, and how its farm can serve as a community safety hub during climate crises. Watch or listen to our award-winning video podcast for urban changemakers.