June is National Homeownership month and DFC has been busy celebrating, uplifting, and advancing access to homeownership with its partners through a variety of events.

On June 8th, Detroit Future City partnered with MiSide, National Faith Homebuyers, and ProjectREACh Detroit in a homebuyer fair. The event focused on providing resources for potential homebuyers in the city of Detroit.

Then, on June 12th, Detroit Future City participated in the Michigan Department of Civil Rights’ Fair Housing Event. The event focused on promoting fair housing practices in Michigan. Detroit Future City CEO Anika Goss gave the closing plenary at the event, while other team members moderated and sat in on workshop panels and staffed a vendor table at the event.

On June 18th, Detroit Future City will host a joint Juneteenth and Homeownership Celebration in partnership with the Detroit Neighborhood Housing Compact. The event, which is open to the public, will celebrate Black liberation and wealth generation through homeownership. It features a panel discussion, tour of the Morningside and Osborn neighborhoods, live entertainment, and more.

“Homeownership helps Detroiters build wealth,” said Anika Goss, President and CEO of Detroit Future City, “It really is worth lifting up and recognizing what its done and what it can do for the residents of this great city.”

DFC has produced numerous reports and publications on homeownership in Detroit. They are available for free by clicking on this link.

Detroit Future City recently published the “State of Micro and Small Business in the Detroit Region.” This report, developed in collaboration with the New Economy Initiative, analyzes the results of their 2023 survey of small businesses. The survey provides insights into the outlooks, challenges, and goals of Detroit-region small businesses.

The survey data was completed by the New Economy Initiative and Invest Detroit’s Business Support Network Office in partnership with JFM Consulting. Survey ambassadors and Detroit’s small-business ecosystem worked to encourage business owners to respond to the survey.

Key findings included a generally positive outlook on the current business environment, continuing challenges with access to and cost of capital – especially among Black business owners, limited success with producing regular financial statements, and improved results from businesses more engaged with business support organizations.

“Some of the old challenges remain,” reported Ashley Williams Clark, Vice President and Director of the Center for Equity, Engagement, and Research at Detroit Future City. “Access to capital and a high cost of capital continue to challenge small businesses in Detroit, but we also see room for improvement by expanding awareness of and access to the many robust business support organizations that serve our community and are already helping many small businesses to overcome their challenges.”

Join us on June 25th to learn more about findings from DFC’s recently released State of Micro and Small Businesses in the Detroit Region report. The report lends insights into the perspectives, challenges, and goals of these businesses using findings from a recent survey by the New Economy Initiative and Invest Detroit’s Business Support Network Office.

During the webinar DFC will introduce the findings from the report and engage a panel of local leaders to explore actionable ideas, solutions, and innovations that can support the Detroit region’s small business ecosystem.

To register for the webinar, please click on this link.

As part of its work to expand access to emerging advanced mobility-sector jobs among historically excluded communities, Detroit Future City co-organized the, “Equity in Advanced Mobility Call to Action Symposium,” with the University of Michigan’s Employment Equity Action Lab. The event was held at Wayne State University on May 21, 2024.

This event brought together community members, including interested job seekers and leaders from the advanced mobility sector, to discuss strategies for connecting today’s workers – especially from traditionally underrepresented communities – with tomorrow’s advanced mobility jobs.

“We had originally planned to host 100 community members,” noted event organized Courtnie Squirewell, Senior Program Manager for Economic Inclusion at Detroit Future City. “We were blown away by the response from our community and, ultimately, were able to expand our capacity by fifty percent to more than 150 attendees.”

Event attendees were treated to a keynote speech from Justine Johnson, Michigan’s Chief Mobility Officer, and two panel discussions. One, moderated by Ramone Crow, Jr., the Aerospace Consultant and Community Outreach and Public Relations Manager for the Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport, explored centering worker voice in advanced mobility. Another, moderated by Cheryl Thompson, Founder and CEO of CADIA, which works to expand employment equity in the automotive field, explored promising practices for advancing equity in the mobility field.

Attendees had ample opportunity to network with one another. Many signed up to stay involved as Detroit Future City continues its efforts to expand employment equity and access among historically excluded communities within the advanced mobility field.

The Century Foundation and Urban Manufacturing Alliance recently announced the addition of Detroit Future City to their Industry and Inclusion Coalition. The program is a first of its kind initiative to increase diversity and inclusion in manufacturing. “We are so honored to be selected to participate in this work alongside some really impactful organizations,” said Anika Goss, President and CEO of Detroit Future City. “We believe that this program’s connections and content will go a long way towards improving diversity and inclusion in the manufacturing sector in Detroit.”

The Industry and Inclusion Coalition aims to grow inclusion in the manufacturing space by reducing racial disparities in student outcomes, including enrollment, depth of learning, and credential attainment. Previous participants in the program have been mostly community colleges; with the addition of Detroit Future City, the program aims to create more regional influence.

For more information about this program and the work it aims to do, please click on this link.

DFC President and CEO Anika Goss attended the Detroit Regional Chamber’s annual Mackinac Policy Conference earlier this month and participated in a panel discussion about the power of place.

The discussion was hosted by The Kresge Foundation and moderated by Stephen Henderson, Executive Advisor to BridgeDetroit and host of Detroit Today and American Black Journal.

Panelists included Ms. Goss, Wendy Lewis Jackson, Managing Director of the Detroit Program at The Kresge Foundation, Valerie Jarrett, Chief Executive Officer of the The Barack Obama Foundation, and Andre M. Perry, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute.

A full recording of the discussion is available here.