Families & Community

Verdell and Julie Franklin had visited their friends on Zukey Lake in Hamburg Township many times over the last ten years, and when a house on the same lake came on the market in September, they were eager to see the property.

It was after their experience viewing the house that they decided to file a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan. Julie is white and Verdell is Black. The lawsuit alleges housing discrimination, and that the real estate agents involved purposefully misled and prevented the Franklins from making an offer on the house because of race, in violation of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The lawsuit was filed on Friday.

Kent County shelters are seeing more families experiencing homelessness as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Family Promise in Grand Rapids usually houses 30 to 40 families a night during the winter. This year, they're providing shelter to twice that amount. The families are staying in hotels, with many people working and going to school remotely.

This is not only the first day of 2021. It’s also the final day of Kwanzaa.

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History had to move its observance of the seven days of Kwanzaa online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yolanda Jack is the director of the museum’s Kwanzaa program. She believes Kwanzaa’s emphasis on faith, self-determination and unity have been important for many people during a tumultuous 2020.

Bills waiting for Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s signature would send fewer people to jail for minor infractions such as driving on a suspended license or a technical violation of a probation order.

The bills were recommended by a task force co-chaired by Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack.

She says the current system punishes people who don’t pose a threat to public safety, and makes it less likely they’ll get their lives in order.

Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon has died after contracting COVID-19.

Napoleon was 65 years old.  He was admitted to the hospital on November 21, and died several weeks after being placed on a ventilator.

Napoleon was appointed sheriff in 2009, and he was elected to the position in 2012, and reelected every four years since then. 

They stood on cold concrete at dusk, in masks and heavy coats, just around the corner from the hospital where every day more patients succumb to the virus.

A new emergency shelter will soon open in downtown Grand Rapids, with up to 100 beds.

The shelter will be in an old retail space in the Heartside neighborhood downtown. Two existing shelters – Mel Trotter Ministries and Guiding Light, are working together to open up the space, along with the building’s owner.

Dennis Van Kampen, head of Mel Trotter Ministries, says demand for shelter has increased since the start of the pandemic, even as the shelter space has declined.

The small city of Portage is playing a big role in getting out Pfizer’s new COVID-19 vaccine.

Pfizer is manufacturing the vaccine at its 1,300 acre factory site in Portage, and distributing throughout the U.S.

Patricia Randall is mayor of Portage. She says everyone in town knows someone who works at the plant

“They have offered hope to the world,” Randall says. “I mean we have been unified in the world with suffering. And this has gone on for nine months. And it’s definitely a miracle. It’s a gift that we’ve all been waiting for.”

Michigan groups that provide meals for people who need them for Thanksgiving are having to make some changes this year due to COVID-19.

In Midland, Open Door executive director Renee Pettinger says her agency will be serving special Thanksgiving meals to hundreds of people.
  
She says because Open Door is not serving meals indoors, her agency is having added expenses.

A line of candles on a concrete porch. A white teddy bear. Her face, shining through in photographs. Balloons, purple and silver, let loose into the night sky.

Her name filling the air.

“Honestie!”

“Long live Honestie, my baby!”

“I love you monster!”

“We love you!”

Fourteen year old Honestie Hodges passed away Sunday, from complications of COVID-19. Friends and family held a vigil Monday night.

Jerry Zeiger tested positive for COVID on a Tuesday.

The next day, the hulking former engineer with late-stage Alzheimer’s is tucked under a soft brown blanket at Sue’s Loving Care, an adult foster home in Kalamazoo.

He is 73. Outside his screened window, the woman he shared truckstop coffee with on their first date teeters on a step ladder on a raw November day.

A 14-year legal battle over child welfare reform in Michigan still isn’t done.

A monitoring report released Tuesday in federal court found the state only met 13 of the 52 performance standards it needs to meet before the child welfare system can be released from court oversight.  

The report period covered the second half of 2019, months before 16-year-old Cornelius Fredrick died following a restraint at a residential facility in Kalamazoo.

The state had dozens of investigations into the facility in the years before Fredrick died, yet it remained open.  

Rev. Robert Teszlewicz was doing everything right. In the spring, he was off work, and followed the stay-at-home orders.

Nearly three-quarters of Ann Arbor voters said “yes” on Tuesday to a 20-year millage that will help low and moderate income people find places to live in the city. 

Teresa Gillotti is Director of the Washtenaw County Office of Community and Economic Development. She says the millage will help construct, acquire or subsidize up to 1,500 housing units for people making 60% or less of the median area income.

Homeless shelters are gearing up for their first full winter during a pandemic.

Laurel Burchfield, Associate Director of the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness, says last spring, most shelters swiftly located additional places to house homeless people so they could physically distance.

Shelter residents were frequently tested, and the most medically vulnerable were put up in hotels. Burchfield say the measures prevented big COVID-19 outbreaks among homeless people in most cities.

The Michigan Department of Corrections is rolling out video visitation for inmates during the pandemic.

It's hoped that will help inmates stay connected with loved ones they can no longer see in person.   

MDOC spokesman Chris Gautz says it could be a long time before in-person visits start up again, especially as cases on the outside begin to rise.