What Detroit Residents Want Foundations to Understand (Letter to the Editor)

To the Editor:

I manage a program, Automation Workz Institute, the first American Cisco Networking Academy hosted in a public library system, where we train women of color to be network technicians, earning starting salaries of $40,000 to $50,000. The Chronicle’s article “After Detroit’s Financial Crisis, Grant Makers Worry Their Rescue Dollars Came With Too Little Citizen Involvement” was right on point. There is hardly any citizen involvement here in Detroit regarding the vision of the City of Detroit, even now.

Foundations make decisions on what they think is important and not what citizens desire. Detroit residents want high-paying tech jobs to replace the plant jobs they lost during the recession and GM/Chrysler bailouts but lack the technological skills. The Detroit metropolitan region, according to Workforce Intelligence Network, has 27,156 open information-technology jobs. Even after Amazon shunned Detroit in its search for its second headquarters, citing the lack of a tech-talent pipeline, few foundations have invested in technology training to prepare for automation. Sadly, the next wave of layoffs, due to automation, have already begun.

Instead, foundations have invested millions in the arts, blight removal, and social skills to stimulate acculturation as if there is something wrong with Detroit residents.

The only thing wrong is 86 percent of American women earn below $50,000 annually, and 74.3 percent of Detroit households are led by a single woman.

Poverty is the core of every problem Detroit is encountering. The only solution to poverty is a high-paying job, as that income drives retail, manufacturing, and neighborhood safety. If only Detroit foundations had invested in solving today’s problem — the 48 percent 2017 child poverty rate — by equipping single moms with technological skills so they could secure a high-paying job.

While the future must be built, Detroiters cannot wait 13 years to see the return on investments foundations have made. Our children need prosperous and healthy neighborhoods today, fueled by their mom’s high income, to live and play. I look forward to furthering this discussion of technological training with foundations and other donors who desire to create prosperous neighborhoods.

Ida Byrd-Hill
President
Uplift, Inc.
Detroit