About a decade ago, a flight of stairs was enemy territory to Kimiko Adolph. She was all too fond of fast food. Her favorite refuge: Sleep and the living room couch. At 268 pounds, this single mother of three realized she could change – or die. “I was having breathing problems,” Adolph recalled. “I had […]
Wayne County
Posted inChildren & Families
Starfish group leads charge for Inkster families
Helping vulnerable children all across Metro Detroit is the goal of Starfish Family Services, but the Inkster-based nonprofit decidedly recent it needed to go local with its work – like right outside the door local. Of Inkster’s 26,000 residents, about 1,500 children under the age of 5 are considered high-risk, according to an assessment done […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Join school discussions in Wayne County, online
Detroit and Wayne County residents concerned about the future of K-12 education in Michigan are encouraged to attend the next Center for Michigan Community Conversation, to be held at The Children’s Center of Wayne County on Saturday, Aug. 4. The session, co-sponsored by Michigan Radio and The Children’s Center, will be a town hall format, […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Get the mentally ill out of prisons, jails
Michigan taxpayers could save millions of dollars every year, not suffer any hardship and do humanity a service. How? Simply by shifting treatment of the mentally ill from state prisons and local jails to a system of outpatient treatment and mental health courts. This shift also would reverse a past mistake of epic proportions. Over […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Cuts don't fall evenly across Michigan
A welfare recipient in Flint is four times more likely to be kicked off cash assistance next month than a welfare recipient in bucolic Luce County — even though the Upper Peninsula county has a higher poverty rate. In rural northern Lake County, 36 percent of children lived below the poverty threshold, the highest rate […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man” — William Penn, founder of the colony of Pennsylvania, and the ultimate cause of many incorrect answers on grammar-school spelling exams. * More worries from local government leaders about their finances if Gov. Rick Snyder and allies in the Legislature engineer a repeal of the personal property […]
Posted inChildren & Families
100,000 Michigan kids still lack health insurance
(Originally published Aug. 18, 2011) Imagine a city somewhere between the size of Lansing (114,000) and Sterling Heights (129,000). Imagine this city is populated only by children. Imagine every single one of these children lacks basic health insurance. That’s the reality in Michigan, says a health expert engaged in a campaign to get tens of […]