A Detroit family was gifted a new home after two of their children died from the cold when the van they were living in ran out of gas.
“It took my two kids to die for y’all to help me,” Tateona Williams, the mother of the kids, told WXYZ a few weeks ago. “It just don’t work like that. It hurt losing two kids in one night. I don’t wish this on nobody, and if you can get help, please go get help because I don’t want nobody else to go through what I’m feeling.”
Williams received the home Wednesday from the City of Detroit and Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, an organization that provides food, shelter and services to homeless people. The organization will regularly check in to help Williams “create a long-term housing plan,” the organization told NBC News. In three months, Williams has to transfer the home’s utilities in her name.
“DRMM will step in to help if she struggles, but we expect responsibility and accountability to build toward her independence,” the organization said, according to NBC News.
On Feb. 10, Williams, who was living in a van parked in a casino parking lot with her four kids, noticed her 9-year-old son wasn’t breathing. Williams called a friend, who took Williams and her son to the hospital. While they were at the hospital, the children’s grandmother called Williams to say that her 2-year-old daughter was also not breathing.
Amillah Currie and Darnell Currie Jr. were pronounced dead at the hospital. It is believed they froze to death.
“I lost the one who made me a mother,” Williams told WXYZ a few weeks ago. “I lost a 2-year-old. … My heart is breaking and I have two more kids to live for.”
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said in a Feb. 11 news conference that the deaths have to make the city “rethink everything” they are doing.
Duggan said Williams and her family reached out to Detroit’s homeless response team at least three times with the latest on Nov. 25. Duggan said “no resolution was reached” after the family asked for help. He added that the response team never proactively reached back out again either.
“We have to make sure that we do everything possible to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Duggan said.
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In a news conference on Thursday, Duggan presented a homelessness report and said the city set up an immediate shelter system in December, but Williams and her family didn’t know about it because no one on the outreach team followed up with her after her November call. In his presentation, Duggan introduced a seven-point plan to improve the city’s homelessness response, including giving special attention to finding families in vehicles and requiring site visits for all families with minor children.
Homeless families in Detroit waited an average of 133 days in December to be placed in a shelter, according to data from the Coordinated Assessment Model.