A Bridge investigation found government aid is long gone for Detroit homes damaged by historic floods in 2014. Many of these homes were never even visited. One reason: A federal report says the state warned FEMA that Detroit was too perilous for the agency to conduct door-to-door interviews.
Children & Families
About 1 in 5 children in Michigan live in poverty. Bridge will explore the reasons behind this disturbing result and the ideas to address it.
Posted inChildren & Families
Businesses gain from stable child care, but what are they doing about it?
Quality child care for low-income workers benefits families, but also the businesses that parents work for. Yet only a small fraction of businesses subsidize child care and the Michigan Chamber says it is not pushing to increase state funding.
Posted inChildren & Families
State child-care program still reeling from claims of lax oversight
A federally funded program to help the poorest workers pay for child care used to serve 60,000 Michigan families, three times what it serves now. A 2008 audit exposed financial lapses, caregivers with criminal pasts, and possible fraud. The numbers have yet to recover.
Posted inChildren & Families
Michigan’s low investment in child care costs state and poor children alike
Michigan has one of the most restrictive policies in the nation on giving low-income families access to subsidized child care. Yet research shows investing in high-quality care can put more parents back to work and improves the odds for vulnerable children
Posted inChildren & Families
In Flint, questions about Legionnaires’ death toll
Bertie Marble’s death certificate points to pneumonia. But an attorney for her family, and her own medical records, raise questions about whether she was an uncounted victim of Legionnaires’ disease. Experts say toll may be far larger.
Posted inChildren & Families
Legionnaires’ disease timeline
Bertie Marble’s 2015 death coincided with a trio of emergencies in Genesee County: the Flint water crisis, an increase in pneumonia and flu deaths, and a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak
Posted inChildren & Families
Down and out in purest Michigan
In a U.P. forest, the “‘hood in the woods” has struggled to build a real community on an abandoned military base. The results so far are mixed
Posted inChildren & Families
PHOTO GALLERY: A U.P. town like no other
Sawyer is a community carved from a ghost town. More than 20 years after the U.S. Air Force left its base behind, it is an isolated Upper Peninsula outpost in need of jobs, transportation, a grocery store, laundromat, more activities for youth, as well as additional drug treatment for adults
Posted inChildren & Families
Human trafficking fight plagued by bad data, as well as bad guys
Sex and labor trafficking are problems. But the state is left to create laws with no reliable data on the scope of problem in Michigan, or even a common understanding of what constitutes trafficking. Too often, Hollywood fills the vacuum.
Posted inChildren & Families
Are prostitutes lawbreakers or trafficking victims?
A human trafficking court in Washtenaw County is dispensing with assembly line prosecution of prostitutes. Instead, the court identifies whether women have been coerced into the sex trade, and offers them services to begin a new life.