Michigan Chronicle
Vol. 86 – No. 32 | April 12-18, 2023
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Detroit Launches Downpayment Assistance Program with 13 Participating Lenders Mayor Mike Duggan, City Council members and the Detroit Housing & Revitalization Department announced a landmark program today that will provide Detroiters who do not currently own a home with up to $25,000 in downpayment assistance to help them realize the American Dream of homeownership. The program is available to lower-income earners who may be able to afford a monthly mortgage payment buy don’t have savings enough for a downpayment. For a single person to qualify, for example, they would have to earn less than $41,000 per year. The program is part of a $203 million Affordable Housing Plan that Mayor Duggan and Councilmembers Latisha Johnson, Mary Waters, Angela Whitfield Calloway and Gabriela Santiago-Romero unveiled last July. Downpayment assistance was among Johnson’s contributions to the housing plan, with the issue being a major priority for the councilwoman, who spent 15 years in the community fighting for increased access to home ownership for Detroiters. Funded by $6 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, the Detroit Downpayment Assistance Program provides qualifying Detroit households grants of up to $25,000 for a downpayment. Funding also can be used for other home purchase-related expenses, including prepaids (such as escrow deposits for property taxes), interest rate buy-downs, closing costs and reduction in principal. The program is expected to help between 240 and 400 lower-income and middle-class homebuyers in the next two years, depending on the amount each family needs in downpayment assistance. “It is vitally important that as property values continue to climb, people of varying incomes are able to buy a home,” Councilmember Johnson said. “Owning a home provides stability for them and their family. Having to move because your landlord has increased your rent means not only having to find a new place to live, but also uprooting your child from their school, leaving friends and relationships you have developed, and possibly leaving the community you love and call home. This program is about helping more Detroiters to remove that instability so that they can feel secure in their future.”
See DOWNPAYMENT page A2
WHAT’S INSIDE
Hiring:
How Amazon is Still Hiring Detroiters Despite Layoffs
T
he COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the global economy, and many industries had to adjust to the changing landscape. The tech industry experienced rapid growth as people turned to online services and products, but as the world begins to recover, companies are reevaluating their business strategies. On March 20, Amazon announced it would lay off 9,000 workers, adding to the 18,000 employees released in late 2022 and January of this year. The layoffs at Amazon have generated significant media attention, with many people questioning the company’s commitment to its employees. Some critics argue that Amazon is prioritizing profits over people, while others argue that the layoffs were necessary to ensure the company’s long-term viability. Yet, Amazon continues to be one of the largest employers in the United States, and the company has made significant investments in its workforce. In 2021, Amazon announced that it would invest $700 million in employee upskilling and reskilling programs. The company has also pledged to invest $15 billion in new data centers and other infrastructure projects, which will create tens of thousands of jobs in the coming years. However, despite the downsizing, Detroit at Work has been sending emails to its job-seeking clientele that Amazon is hiring. The hiring collaboration between Amazon and Detroit at Work made sense for reaching Black workers in the city, Amazon spokesperson Austin Stowe said.
Detroit at Work is hiring for Amazon’s logistics side, or all the sites that help with getting packages to customers such as fulfillment centers. On March 16, Detroit at Work announced it had teamed up with Amazon to begin hiring for more than 1,200 full-time jobs in the new fulfillment center located on Woodward and Eight Mile. Amazon said recruitment efforts for this site remain on track and are not impacted by recent role eliminations. The jobs at the new center start, on average, at $19 per hour, according to the announcement. The full-time positions also offer “comprehensive healthcare from day one…up to 20 weeks of paid parental leave, [and] full tuition coverage at six colleges and universities in Michigan.” “As new employers consider making Detroit their home, Detroit at Work stays ready to build and offer a pipeline of jobready talent,” said Dana Williams, Detroit at Work’s chief strategy officer. ”The Detroit at Work partnership with Amazon is evidence of that. We deeply appreciate Amazon’s commitment to prioritize Detroit residents for the jobs at their Detroit location.” According to Amazon’s 2021 statistics, 28.2% of their national labor force is Black, but the company did not provide demographic information of those who were laid off. The layoffs occurred in Amazon Web Services (its cloud services), People Experience and Technology (similar to a human resources organization), advertising, and Twitch (a popular streaming platform for people who play video games and for DJs). These areas were constricted due to “slower sales growth, a rare annual net loss, and a stock price that dropped by about 50% in 2022.”
The layoffs at Amazon are part of a broader trend in the tech industry, with many companies downsizing their workforces. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that it would cut 10,000 jobs in January 2023. Other companies such as Google, Logitech, and Indeed have also announced layoffs in recent months.. According to Crunchbase, the tech industry has let go of approximately 118,000 people in the last year; that number includes Amazon’s 27,000 staffers. The last time the tech industry cut so many jobs was during the dot-com bust in the early 2000s. Overall, the tech industry is going through a period of significant change, and companies are adapting to the new realities of the post-pandemic world. As the economy continues to recover, it will be interesting to see how companies in the tech industry adapt to the new realities of the business landscape.
requests are often for multiple removals, and organized by national groups such as the conservative Moms for Liberty, which has a mission of ‘unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government,’” the PBS Newshour reported on March 23.
It’s not like libraries have not experienced attempts to ban books; the entire first week of October is dedicated to commemorating the volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry that people have tried to remove from library shelves.
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“The overriding tenant of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a whole,” Jassy said in an internal letter to employees on March 20.
Local Librarian Gives Her Views on ‘CRT’ and Other Controversies By Andrea Plaid
Detroit Couple Promotes All-Natural Wellness with ‘Socialite Body Essentials City.Life.Style. B1
The layoffs are the second largest in Amazon’s history and were a response to the pandemic. The retailer doubled its workforce due to the phenomenon, specifically because so many people were forced to stay home. They filled the time shopping, enjoying DJ sets, and other services Amazon provided. Since people are now venturing back outside, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy cut jobs to cut costs.
The difference is that nowadays banning has moved from intellectually insidious to physically dangerous. White nationalists and those who agree with them terrorize Drag Story Hour, where drag queens read to children usually with the parents’ or guardians’ knowledge, if not consent or presence at the event. This newest drive started with the big-c Conservatives creating a boogeyman—and accompanying strawman arguments—out of Critical Race Theory, or CRT. What is an elective course studied in law school curdled into the 21st-century version of “reverse racism.” These conservatives also redefined the Black-from-way-back word “woke” to be a loose synonym for CRT. With the twisted understanding of CRT constantly replayed on big-c Conservative
Not only that, but librarians reported being harassed and threatened with violence or legal action. media and posted on social media, some felt justified in going after library books like the Nikole Hannah-Jones-edited “The 1619 Project “and author Angie Thomas’ “The Hate U Give.” The American Library Association (ALA) reported a record-setting 1,200 challenges to books. The number was not only double from 2022, but also the highest number since they started collecting and keeping data about these oppositions in 1983. What the ALA also noted was the number and, moreover, the method of the challenges. “A few years ago, complaints usually arose with parents and other community members and referred to an individual book. Now, the
That’s exactly what happening in Lapeer, Mich., according to Christine Peele, who’s a librarian on Detroit’s West side and a member of the executive board of the Michigan Library Association. “The prosecutor [John Miller] is considering filing charges against the library director [Amy Churchill] over the content on the shelves,” namely the book Maia Kobabe’s memoir “Gender Queer,” Peele said. Miller has attempted to walk back the charge, stating that his allegedly threatening Churchill with a four-year felony if the library didn’t remove the book was taken out of context. Another Michigan library was outright
See CRT page A2