Working Homes / Working Families (WHWF) helps restore home occupancy and ownership to working families experiencing homelessness — often due to job loss, rental scam, or health setback — by refurbishing empty or abandoned homes in need of repairs.
Recipient families are selected and counseled through social services partners and internal programs, while WHWF works with community partners — like Humble Design, GM, Cooper Standard, and Gardner White — to refurbish and furnish houses and rebuild parks and green spaces.
The initiative works with one home, one family, and one neighborhood at a time. In 2015, WHWF embarked on a collaborative effort to begin an extensive rebuild of a half-dozen homes in an east side neighborhood near Courville and Mack called Morningside. It has since strategically increasing investment in the Osborn neighborhood that surrounds the SAY Detroit Play Center to help ensure students have a stable and consistent environment away from the center.
Since October 2011, more than 50 families have received a fully-refurbished Detroit house through the program.
Affordable housing and safe neighborhoods are the cornerstones of strong families and thriving communities
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