Contact: Lauren Slagter, [email protected]
Jared Wadley, [email protected]

Black History Month, celebrated annually in February, highlights the experiences and honors the accomplishments of Black Americans throughout history. Poverty Solutions from the University of Michigan highlights key data from its research relating to Black Michiganders.

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59%

The percentage of black people in Detroit who wore masks at the start of the pandemic (March-April 2020). A representative survey of UM’s Metro Detroit Communities Study demonstrates that black Detroit residents adopted these safety measures earlier than other groups. While 59% of black residents were wearing masks at this point in the pandemic, only 38% of white residents and 35% of Latino residents were doing so. This difference was no longer apparent by early May 2020, when widespread mask use was more common among all ethno-racial groups.

In June 2021, however, this ethno-racial gap in the use of protective measures reappeared. Black Detroits (81%) were more than twice as likely as white Detroits (38%) to report wearing masks all the time when out in public to protect themselves from COVID-19. Latino Detroiters (77%) reported wearing masks all the time in public at a similar rate to their black neighbors.

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80.14%

Percentage of Detroit residents who voted yes on Proposition R in favor of the Detroit City Council establishing a reparations task force “to make recommendations for housing and economic development programs that address historic discrimination against Detroit’s black community” in the November 2021 elections in Detroit.

The proposal stemmed from the work of Lauren Hood, community fellow for a research project led by UM’s Center for Social Solutions with support from Poverty Solutions and other university departments. This project, titledBuilding Democratic Futures: Situating Colleges and Universities in Community Restorative Solutionswill leverage institutional and community partnerships to explore localized restorative solutions for African Americans and select Native American communities across the country.

UM is supporting three community members to facilitate restorative conversations in Michigan communities: Hood in Detroit, Alize Asberry Payne in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, and Asa Zuccaro in Flint.

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30,000

The estimated number of Black American fugitives from slavery who found refuge in Canada before 1865. In the mid-1830s, the Detroit River was the busiest transit point for people seeking freedom along the entire Canada-US border. David Porteraffiliated with the faculty of Poverty Solutions and professor of English and Comparative Literature at UM, helped launch the Detroit River History Lab at support narrative infrastructure projects along the Detroit River Corridor. They use the term “narrative infrastructure” to refer to the fabric of shared stories that binds a community together. Investing in narrative infrastructure therefore means elevating and celebrating community histories – especially traditionally marginalized ones – and supporting projects that integrate them into the way people understand and connect with places.

The Detroit River Story Lab focuses on three overlapping components of storytelling infrastructure: place-based education, community heritage, and nonprofit journalism. In each of these areas, researchers are working alongside partner organizations to help collect, contextualize, and share river-related stories in ways that align with community priorities and activate riverside locations as connection, stewardship and healing sites.

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941

The average number of land contracts or memorandums of contract filed each year with the Wayne County Deeds Registry between 2009 and 2017, according to the faculty affiliate of Poverty Solutions Joshua Akersassociate professor of geography and urban studies at UM-Dearborn, and colleague Eric Seymour at Rutgers University.

In the wake of the Great Recession, land contracts have re-emerged in Detroit and across the country as a prominent alternative route to homeownership for households with limited access to capital and loans. A form of seller financing, a land contract is a legal agreement in which a buyer purchases a home through installment payments made directly to a seller; the buyer does not gain equity in the house until the contract is paid in full. Historically, land contracts have carried high interest rates, resulted in high eviction rates, and landlords have used them to exploit black communities, in part because federal regulations and mortgage lenders have excluded black people from traditional lending opportunities for much of the 20th century.

However, some mission-oriented organizations in Detroit and Southeast Michigan—including nonprofits, community development organizations, and other community development practitioners—have used an alternative type of ground contact. . These organizations use land contracts as a community development tool that offers credit-strapped buyers a viable alternative route to home ownership, with fair sale prices, clear terms and conditions, and buyer support. In a 2021 dissertation on the use of land contracts in Detroit, Karen Kling, senior strategic projects manager at Poverty Solutions, and Evelyn Zwiebachdirector of state and local policy for Enterprise Community Partners, draws on extensive literature review and qualitative data gathered through interviews and survey research to describe best practices, interventions and key reforms common sense that would make land contracts a safer and more effective property tool.

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$5,500

The average auto insurance premium in 2019 for the 37 Michigan zip codes in which more than 50% of residents are black. That’s more than $2,000 more than the $3,100 average annual premium for all Michigan zip codes.

Michigan’s new auto insurance law went into effect in July 2020. Between 2019 and 2020, estimated average rates fell 18% statewide, the steepest drop in the country during this period . Despite this dramatic drop, Michigan auto insurance rates remain among the highest in the country. In Detroit, in particular, the average rate remains twice the state average, according to an analysis by Poverty Solutions summarized in a December 2021 policy brief titled “Building on the Insurance Reform Act.” Michigan Automobile”. While this data is preliminary and we may see rates drop more dramatically next year, it appears the new law does not go far enough to protect non-white, low-income people from discrimination in the marketplace. insurance.

To address persistent racial disparities in car insurance rates, Poverty Solutions researchers Amanda Nothaft and Patrick COONEY recommend greater regulation of the factors used to set rates by establishing mandatory driving-related factors that must have some weight in the calculation. The 2019 reform banned the use of certain non-driving factors, but insurance companies can still use proxies for these factors — like “territories” instead of zip code and insurance ratings which include a credit rating element — which reinforce insurance redlining.