Originally posted on the Detroit Free Press by Jamie L. LaReau
Eric Davis is used to responding to a crisis. As the director of essential services for Ford Philanthropy, Davis’ job is to coordinate with community nonprofits to provide relief, often during a crisis such as the recent wildfires in California, to effected residents.
So in the early morning hours of Feb. 17, when a 54-inch water main that was built in the 1930s broke in southwest Detroit, quickly flooding the streets with rivers of icy water and mud that seeped into hundreds of homes, Davis sprang to action.
“The pipe burst at 2 a.m. and we were talking to our partners at 8 a.m.,” Davis told the Free Press. By partners, he means the nonprofits in the community that provide regular services to help residents in need.
“It was obvious devastation to several hundred houses,” Davis said. “It was a very cold, hostile climate at that time in terms of the weather. So people retreated to the top levels of their houses and waited for help.”
Since 1949, Ford has helped those in need by funding a philanthropic arm now called, Ford Philanthropy. It provides grants to nonprofits. Those nonprofits then provide essential services such as shelter and food, job training and transportation and more to people in need. Originally called the Ford Fund, it was rebranded in April 2024 to Ford Philanthropy. It has given more than $2.3 billion to nonprofits across 34 countries in its 75 years of existence and it also helps coordinate volunteerism among Ford employees.
“These are all organizations that are grant funded by Ford Philanthropy,” David said of the local nonprofits coordinating the help for the flood victims. “It’s been over a decade of commitment to these organizations. We don’t come in and facilitate the operations. What we’re doing is making sure our partners know that we are available to help support and unpack those needs. They know the community intimately.”
The pressing need for boxes
It’s for that reason that Davis immediately contacted the grant-funded nonprofits within hours after the water main burst to assess the needs of the people impacted by the disaster.
“They’d have the best line of sight as to what was needed on the ground,” Davis said of the nonprofits. “They did a thorough and ongoing assessment.”
Davis said about half of the 400 houses in the Detroit flood zone were severely impacted. He did not have a count of the number of people displaced yet, saying, “as folks are being relocated and put into hotels, there’s an attempt to make sure everyone is accounted for.”
But one of the things that came from the assessment was the impacted individuals and families needed to move their assets out of the houses and they didn’t have the simplest tools to do it: boxes, Davis said.
So where do go if you need boxes? The automaker’s commercial real estate arm: Ford Land.
With close to 1,500 buildings in its portfolio, Ford Land designs, builds and manages a variety of properties, including office buildings, business parks and retail developments. So Ford Land knows a thing or two about moving.
“We connected to Ford Land to see if they had any resources to help around packing up,” Davis said. “They connected with a major vendor and Gleaners Community Food Bank. We were able to produce boxes.”
Gleaners moves food in abundance using medium-sized boxes, he said, so it was able to offer up those. Davis said each impacted person or family received three large-sized moving boxes from the other vendor and several medium boxes from Gleaners. In total, Ford Land secured 1,500 large moving boxes. Each box is large enough to hold two-to-three rooms’ worth of items, he said.
Overcoming a language barrier
The affected area runs approximately north to south from Chatfield Street to Lafayette Boulevard and east to west from Lewerenz Street to Solvay Street. It is the area of Detroit dubbed Mexicantown, where Spanish is the primary language for many residents, Davis said.
“There is a language barrier and that adds an extra layer of complexity to the response,” Davis said.
That’s where Ford Philanthropy’s grant partner SER Metro-Detroit comes in. The nonprofit provides residents with education, job training, job placement programs and other resources to achieve self-sufficiency. The organization is providing translation services for the flood victims in this crisis, Davis said.
“They have been a part of the community for a long time and are a trusted liaison, so that’s the role they’ve stepped into,” Davis said. “Some of this is coming together organically with partners recognizing the needs and addressing them as they come.”
Ford had given SER Metro-Detroit a small fleet of Transit vans in the past to help with its food delivery services, Davis said.
“They put those into use to help the families and their boxes get to the shelters the city has set up,” Davis said.
Also helping is the Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development center, called LA SED for short. For six decades LA SED, located on West Vernor in Detroit, has received grants from Ford Philanthropy to offer bilingual services and other programs to seniors and youth.
Ford donated a van for LA SED to use to transport seniors from their homes to the center for various services. The group also uses it to pick up kids from schools to bring them to LA SED for after-school enrichment programs. And they take kids and seniors on various field trips such as to the Detroit Institute of Arts, said Mary Carmen Munoz, executive director of LA SED.
“Ford is instrumental in that because expanding young people’s horizons beyond their neighborhood is very important for their future,” Munoz said. “We’ve been here 60 years and they’ve probably been supporting us for all that time.”
It could take years to rebuild lives
Since the flood, Davis said LA SED has opened the center as both temporary shelter for people affected by the flood as well as to host other nonprofits that provide services such as the American Red Cross and Forgotten Harvest. Forgotten Harvest delivers surplus food to charities so that the charities can provide nutritious food to people in need. LA SED is also helping with translation services to those impacted by the flood.
“Each of these organizations, whether they are offering space or services, there’s a collaborative effort coming together here,” Davis said. “These are all organizations that, over the last 10 to 12 years, have worked very closely with Ford Fund and Ford Philanthropy in creating a collaborative way to support the community.”
Munoz said that about 75 families from the flood zone are scattered at temporary shelters throughout Southfield and Dearborn. LA SED is providing transportation to those shelters and to any clinics the affected people need to go to. But Munoz knows this is a crisis that could last a long time.
This crisis is far-reaching, Munoz said, noting that “while it is a small portion of the city of Detroit, it was a 54-inch pipe that destroyed 300 homes. The basement flooding is causing issues with cleanout and can cause other health issues.”
She said the city of Detroit is doing the best it can with remediation of the area to mitigate any environmental damage, but Munoz worries mold has already started forming on homes that have not been remediated.
“You’re talking months, if not years, for people’s lives to be rebuilt,” Munoz said. “You’re talking babies and pets — how will they all be affected? In COVID you didn’t lose your transportation, your home, your clothing. This is very far-reaching, but together, as a community and as a city, we will get through this.”
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