Michigan

Biannual count of homeless people to bring federal funds to southeast Michigan

Published

2 years ago

February 4, 2024

Biannual count of homeless people to bring federal funds to southeast Michigan

Detroit — Despite freezing temperatures that made it hard to locate people living on the streets, advocates for the homeless searched southeast Michigan communities last month in an effort to count those in need to draw in critical federal funds.

Volunteers joined the Homeless Action Network of Detroit for the point-in-time count on Wednesday night in Detroit. About 120 volunteers, fanned out across the Motor City, spreading out in teams, canvassing several neighborhoods to survey people facing homelessness, leaders said.

Volunteer Ronnika Harris of Detroit is careful about approaching homeless people too stridently to seek information about their situations. She wants them to trust that she has their interests in mind.

“Just being welcoming, being open and not judgy,” Harris said of her approach. “Explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing and giving them as much information that we can to get them to open up. It’s not always easy, but people see and feel your heart, so if you display the right heart, usually they will share their stories.”

Braving the cold in 2021 to find unsheltered people was worth it, Harris said, even though her team of three only found two people. This year she hopes for better results with the Homeless Action Network of Detroit.

“The first time I participated was two years ago and it was still during COVID-19…and we didn’t find a lot of people outside,” Harris said of the four-hour search. “So I’m just hoping to be able to engage more people this year and see if we can get them in shelter.”

The bi-annual count, a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is designed to collect information to draw federal funding for Michigan’s largest city. It takes place the last 10 days of January.

Street outreach workers, homeless service providers and volunteers collected information about those living on the streets, including their stories, and offered to provide them with shelter, leaders said. Volunteers carried new winter hats and scarves, thermal blankets, gloves and mittens, socks and personal hygiene kits and handed them out.

“Ultimately, this is data we report to HUD, and it helps all communities across the country, which are doing the point-in-time count this month,” said Amanda Sternberg, a performance management analyst for Homeless Action Network of Detroit. “HUD uses this data from across the country to report to Congress, to set funding levels, so it’s really data that the federal government uses to drive funding allocations.”

Sternberg said the information helps local governments and organizations in Detroit to understand such needs as mental health and substance abuse services, or affordable housing.

In a 2021 report, the Homeless Action Network of Detroit and the Detroit Continuum of Care, a year-round planning body of stakeholders working to end homelessness in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park, found more than 5,600 people facing homelessness in Detroit.

The count, Sternberg said, happens at night because they’ve found someone in the streets at night during the winter likely has no place to go.

“The one thing that I hear often from our street outreach workers is it takes a lot of time to build trust with people who have been staying unsheltered for a long time,” she said. “So we have staff day-in-and-out doing this hard work every day, building trust with folks and getting them to engage in services.”

In Detroit, the weather on Wednesday was warmer compared to past count periods, which volunteers were hoping would affect their ability to spot unsheltered populations. Temperatures on Wednesday were above average around 41, according to National Weather Service records.

Richard Monocchio, principal deputy assistant secretary at HUD, said every year, housing programs are awarded funds and resources from the federal government based on innovative programs that seek to serve homeless populations.

Programs are those that “build permanent supportive housing … build transitional housing for the homeless, they run shelter and food programs for homeless people, they run job training and placement programs … and critically provide rental assistance,” Monocchio said.

HUD announced in October that it allocated 70,000 housing vouchers to local public housing authorities through the Emergency Housing Voucher program to help individuals and families who are homeless, at-risk of homelessness and other destabilizing situations, according to its website.

The Biden administration awarded $3.16 billion in homelessness assistance to communities across the nation, according to a news release HUD on Monday.

“This Point-in-Time Count is sort of symbolic and important for everything we do at HUD in the homeless space,” Monocchio said, adding that 400 counts occurred throughout the nation in January. In Michigan, 20 communities participated in the count, he said.

Meanwhile, in Macomb County, the state’s third most populous county, dozens of volunteers conducted a count on Jan. 28 with Macomb Community Action, a member of a national network of organizations that helps people move from poverty to economic stability.

Volunteers were assigned ZIP codes and “hot spots” such as parks and bus stops to gather information, including gender, race, ethnicity, veteran status, age and disabilities. Volunteers sought to identify if a person was “chronically homeless” or was experiencing homelessness due to domestic violence or substance use, leaders said.

Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel described the count as essential.

“It provides support to individuals in our society that sometimes get left behind,” Hackel said last month.

Food, hand warmers, winter clothing, hygiene kits, blankets, fast-food gift cards and bus tickets were handed out, Macomb Community Action leaders said. Local charities donated the items.

Kristin DeFranco, program coordinator for housing resources at Macomb Community Action, said in 2021, the numbers stayed stagnant from the previous count of those experiencing homeless.

“The pandemic time was difficult because a lot more people were becoming homeless due to evictions and job loss,” DeFranco said. “Macomb County in particular, the numbers haven’t changed. If anything we need more resources for the homeless.”

jaimery@detroitnews.com

X: @wordsbyjakkar

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Michigan

Bullough’s back: Ex-linebacker to be Michigan State co-defensive coordinator

Published

4 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Bullough’s back: Ex-linebacker to be Michigan State co-defensive coordinator

A fan-favorite Spartan is coming back as an assistant coach.Max Bullough, a former MSU linebacker who has spent the past two seasons coaching linebackers at Notre Dame, is coming back to East Lansing to be a co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, Bullough confirmed in a biography change on X (formerly Twitter).

The move is a promotion for Bullough, who was a linebackers coach at Notre Dame the past two seasons. Bullough will serve alongside incumbent MSU defensive coordinator Joe Rossi, who The Detroit News confirmed last week is staying on Pat Fitzgerald’s first staff in East Lansing. Fitzgerald replaced Jonathan Smith, who went 5-19, 4-14 Big Ten in two seasons.Bullough, 33, played for Michigan State from 2010 to 2013, under head coach Mark Dantonio and defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi. He played immediately as a freshman and appeared in 53 college games, logging 284 tackles, eight sacks and three interceptions.

He missed his final game — the 100th Rose Bowl against Stanford in 2013 — because of an unspecified violation of team rules. He never spoke publicly on the issue, though he was asked at the NFL Combine.Michigan State went 42-12 in Bullough’s four seasons with the Spartans, and 25-7 in Big Ten play, including the conference title in 2010 and 2013.After a brief NFL career with the Houston Texans and, in 2018, a stint on the Cleveland Browns’ practice squad, Bullough got into coaching. He served as grad assistant for Cincinnati in 2019 under Luke Fickell, Alabama from 2020 to 2022 under Nick Saban (winning the College Football Playoff in his first year) and Notre Dame under Marcus Freeman in 2023. Freeman kept Bullough on as his linebackers coach last year, a season in which the Irish made it to the national championship game before losing to Ohio State.

Earlier this season, Bullough went viral in August for a video of him describing his detail-oriented approach during fall camp, citing knee bend and square tackling “when the s—‘s hard.”

Notre Dame finished the season 10-2, on a 10-game win streak, when it was left just outside the College Football Playoff bracket. Freeman and his team opted out of a bowl game, after terse words on the snub from AD Pete Bevacqua.Bullough coached a number of NFL draft picks in his career, including Dallas Turner (Minnesota Vikings), Christian Harris (Houston Texans), Henry To’oTo’o (Houston), Drew Sanders (Denver Broncos) and Jack Kiser (Jacksonville Jaguars).

Bullough won’t be the first in his family to coach at Michigan State. His grandfather, Hank, was an MSU guard and linebacker who won a national championship in 1952. Hank was also a well-regarded assistant coach on Duffy Daugherty’s staff from 1959 to 1969, including the national title teams in 1965 and 1966. He then went onto a pro coaching career that included stops with seven teams, including a head coaching tenure with the Buffalo Bills from 1985 to 1986.

After a year as the Detroit Lions’ defensive coordinator in 1993, he finished his coaching career with a homecoming to Michigan State, where he was an assistant on George Perles’ final team. He died in 2019.

cearegood@detroitnews.com

@ConnorEaregood

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Greg McElroy reveals two coaches for Michigan search if Kalen DeBoer turns down job

Published

16 hours ago

December 11, 2025

Press Room

Greg McElroy reveals two coaches for Michigan search if Kalen DeBoer turns down job

With what transpired yesterday regarding Sherrone Moore, the latest opening on the coaching carousel now belongs to Michigan. Now, several names once thought to no longer be candidates elsewhere could be again with this availability as of yesterday in Ann Arbor.

Greg McElroy also discussed possible names who could be hires for the Wolverines in appearing on ‘SportsCenter’ on Thursday morning. That began with him addressing the candidacy of Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, whose name has reportedly come up to an extent this cycle, but certainly so after yesterday in this search specifically, depending on how he may feel about his future with the Crimson Tide.

“I’d start with Kalen DeBoer,” McElroy said. “You gotta wonder, though, is Kalen DeBoer really interested, and what do the optics look like? Kalen DeBoer is the ultimate competitor. Would he leave Alabama? It would look like he was running? I don’t know if he’s truly going to consider it, but it is Michigan. It’s a great job, and you have to listen to what they’re proposing.”

Through two seasons in Tuscaloosa, DeBoer is 19-7 (.731), including being 10-3 this season in making the SEC Championship and returning the Crimson Tide to the College Football Playoff. That’s not to mention all the successes he has had elsewhere coaching in college, namely as a head coach at Sioux Falls, Fresno State, and Washington, in which he led the Huskies all the way to an appearance in the national title game against, ironically, Michigan. However, despite some of his successes at ‘Bama, DeBoer did have his name come up to some point in rumors during the search at Penn State, and is seeing it come up even further now in this new one at Michigan.

From there, McElroy named three other possible candidates for the maize & blue. He first said two other college options in Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, who’s 27-12 (.692) the past three seasons with the Cardinals, and Washington’s Jedd Fisch, who’s 14-11 (.560) the past two seasons with the Huskies while also having ties to the program having spent two years on the offensive staff for the Wolverines. He then also named another option with connections to the program in Jesse Minter, who was their defensive coordinator for two seasons under Jim Harbaugh and is still with him now with the Los Angeles Chargers, but with McElroy noting that it may be time for Michigan to move on from those involved in or connected to their past two tenures.

“Ultimately, I think this will come down to either Jeff Brohm at Louisville or Jedd Fisch at Washington. I think those are probably the two best candidates,” said McElroy. “They have an elite quarterback in Bryce Underwood. They want someone that has a history of developing that position. Both Jedd Fisch and, if you look at what Jeff Brohm’s done in (his) career? They’ve done a great job.”

“And Jesse Minter is the other name to keep an eye on, the defensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Chargers,” McElroy added. “But, like what Paul (Finebaum) just said, I think distancing themselves from the Harbaugh era? That’s what many Michigan people want at this point, given some of the hurdles that they’ve had the last two years in the court of public opinion.”

We’re less than day since this job even came open, although, based on the details, it may have been trending this way for some time, at Michigan. That leaves a lot to still unfold, including more major names like some of these ones, who could become targets in the coming time for the Wolverines.

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Michigan Senate votes to block pursuit of COVID jobless aid overpayments

Published

1 day ago

December 11, 2025

Press Room

Michigan Senate votes to block pursuit of COVID jobless aid overpayments

Lansing — The Michigan Senate voted unanimously this week in favor of a bill that would prevent the state’s Unemployment Insurance Agency from continuing to try to recoup jobless aid overpayments that were made during the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting as many as 350,000 people.

Many lawmakers have reported receiving a deluge of calls from constituents, in recent weeks, after the agency began sending out letters, wanting money back from people whom state officials believe received more assistance than they should have during the pandemic. The messages came after the settlement of a three-year court battle over the repayment effort, which allowed the agency to resume collections.

Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, contended that the Unemployment Insurance Agency was demanding money back from low-income and gig workers who were simply trying to access a financial support system that was available to them in 2020.

“Somewhere along the line, in the maze of boxes that they have to check every week to stay compliant, there was one box that was unchecked,” Irwin said. “And now, the UIA comes after them alleging fraud, turning their life upside down, sending them threatening letters.”

The Senate bill, which passed Tuesday in a vote of 35-0, would require the agency to waive the recovery of improperly paid benefits if they were distributed more than three years ago. The first cases of COVID-19 in Michigan were identified in March 2020, five years ago. The pandemic and government efforts to combat the spread of the virus spurred a rush of unemployment claims and a wave of fraud.

The bill still allows the state to seek repayments that were “the result of the claimant’s fraud.”

Both Democratic and Republican senators — Democrats have a majority in the Senate — voted for the measure Tuesday. However, it will have to be approved by the GOP-controlled House and signed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to become law.

Jason Palmer, the Unemployment Insurance Agency’s director, said in a statement on Sept. 8 that his staff was “legally obligated” to seek the repayments from the pandemic if they were improper. Roughly 350,000 workers with claims in collections dating back to March 2020 would be required to return the unemployment benefits they received, the agency has said.

The value of the overpayments, many of which lawmakers believe were made or sought by accident, has been estimated at $2.7 billion. The Unemployment Insurance Agency faced a tidal wave of claims and fraudulent activity during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the state’s jobless rate reached as high as 22.7% in April 2020.

Palmer has said the overpayments primarily resulted from claimants not providing the requested or required proof of employment or income, starting a job but continuing to certify for benefits as if they were unemployed and not satisfying the required work search activities.

“In these situations, we have a legal and fiduciary duty to recover the funds,” Palmer previously said. “The unemployment trust fund is taxpayer money, and we must be responsible stewards of it.”

Much of the unemployment money in question flowed through the federal government. Many business groups, like the National Federation of Independent Business, have voiced concerns that the U.S. Department of Labor might try to force the state to reimburse the federal government for the overpayments if they’re specifically forgiven by the Legislature.

“We would still like to see a waiver or waiver language because we don’t want to see the state end up with a budget crisis,” said Amanda Fisher, Michigan state director for the National Federation of Independent Business.

Lawmakers attempted to address that concern in the bill by adding a provision that says the new policy doesn’t obligate the Unemployment Trust Fund for any amount of money.

Brian Calley, president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan, called the new language an improvement. But Calley said he wants to see a specific statement in the bill that makes it clear that employers will not be assessed any additional liability because of the policy.

Forgiving the overpayments isn’t the problem, Calley said. It’s the potential liability to the small businesses that fund the Unemployment Trust Fund, he said.

“You could inadvertently create a massive obligation for small businesses,” said Calley, a former lieutenant governor.

Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, who’s running for governor, was among 16 Republicans who voted for the bill Tuesday. He said it was a shame that lawmakers were still dealing with the “ineptitude” of Whitmer’s administration.

From the other side of the aisle, Irwin said the Unemployment Insurance Agency was acting “irresponsibly” in seeking the repayments from the pandemic.

“They bully our residents,” Irwin said. “I’ve had residents … who have paid UIA back money, not because they owed, but because they’re scared. They’re bullied. And they’re harassed by the agency.”

Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, the proposal’s sponsor, called on the House to pass it next week before the holidays.

“They should do the right thing,” Camilleri said Wednesday in an interview.

cmauger@detroitnews.com

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