DETROIT – A mother had called for help a few months before her two children likely died from hypothermia while sleeping in a van at a Detroit casino parking garage. Now, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is calling for an extensive review of the city’s homeless services.
Detroit police and the mayor released further details surrounding the circumstances of the situation on Tuesday.
Car runs out of gas
At around 1 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 10, a van pulled into the Hollywood Casino parking garage in Detroit.
A mother and her five kids went up to the ninth floor of the garage, and at some point, while they were sleeping, the car ran out of gas.
Before the mother realized her children weren’t breathing, she called a family friend to help because the vehicle wasn’t running, according to Interim Chief Todd Bettison.
That family friend arrived at the garage and was trying to help the mother determine if the car stopped due to a mechanical failure or for some other reason.
Mom realizes children aren’t breathing
As they were figuring this out, the mother realized her 9-year-old son wasn’t breathing.
She called 911 for help at around noon on Monday, but the family friend immediately took the boy to Children’s Hospital.
The call taker was given little information and had called the mom back multiple times.
After that, the mother called the friend again after she realized her 2-year-old daughter also wasn’t breathing.
The whole family got into the vehicle and went to the hospital.
Police say at 12:47 p.m. they received a call from the hospital saying the two children had been pronounced dead.
The cause of death appears to be hypothermia, but they are still waiting for the official cause of death from the medical examiner.
On Monday night, police said the mother had been detained, but during the update on Tuesday Bettison said no one is currently detained.
The other three children are OK and with other family members. When asked if family members weren’t aware of the situation Bettison said, “The Mother had a lot of pride, she loved her kids and she wanted to keep the family together.”
He also said the family had been in the car without heat for many hours, and said investigators learned that the family had been living in their vehicle for the past two to three months.
They parked in various casino parking lots and investigators learned that this was because it was free to do so, it provided an aspect of safety and they could go inside the casino to use the restrooms.
Mom called for help in November
Duggan said that they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the situation and preliminary information shows that the mother had called the city’s homeless response team on Nov. 25, 2024.
The family had also reached out for help in the summer of 2024 and the previous year.
When they called on Nov. 25, they said they had been living with a family and couldn’t keep living with them, and needed someplace to go.
Throughout the conversation with the call taker, no resolution was reached, according to Duggan. The family had been living in the vehicle for the last two to three months.
When a situation is deemed an emergency, they’ll send an outreach worker to the site, but for whatever reason, this situation hadn’t been deemed as an emergency at the time.
Duggan says the mother never called back after that, and the homeless services staff never followed up with the family.
Duggan wants extensive review of homeless services
Due to the circumstances of this heartbreaking situation, Duggan has called for a review of the city’s homeless services to determine what needs to be done to prevent this from happening again.
“Are we doing everything to make sure that people in this city know how to access this critical care,” Duggan said.
He said there were shelter beds available not far from where the family was while they were at the garage, and just three weeks after that call the city opened a family drop-in center on Dec. 16.
Since December 2023, the city has made 400 more shelter beds more than 100 drop-in beds available, and Duggan said the city needs to do a better job of getting that information to people that need it. Despite there being extensive media coverage about it, Duggan says they need to find a way to get this information to people experiencing homelessness who may not have easy access to television or social media.
He said over the next two weeks he’s called for a complete review of the call center and housing specialists so they can establish a new plan for addressing situations like this.
The mayor also already put a new policy in place and said that anytime minors are involved and experiencing homelessness, an outreach worker must automatically do a site visit to identify the situation and resolve it.
Resources
If you ever find yourself without shelter during cold temperatures, you can call the Detroit Housing Assistance Hotline at 866-313-2520.
If you need help after 6 p.m., Duggan said that the best option is for someone to go to their police precinct for help.
A list of warming centers available in Detroit can be found on the city’s website.
