How a scrappy Google map tries to fill the gaps in Detroit homeless services

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3 days ago

When Cass Tretyak started working in homeless services helping unhoused clients get the basics such as shelter and food, she realized she had a blindspot: she didn't know where anything was, and if she didn't have that information on hand, what did that mean for her clients confronting homelessness for the first time?
She thought: "If this is overwhelming to me, how must the client feel when they are in crisis mode?' So, about two weeks into her new job at the nonprofit Community & Home Supports, Inc., Tretyak decided to do something about it.
She created the Detroit: Needs Management Map. What started out as a guide for her clients facing unsheltered homelessness and a reference point for herself, has ballooned nearly two years later into a sprawling and scrappy map that Tretyak vets and updates when she can with resources, from where to shower and eat to accessing free Narcan and available rentals in Detroit and into the suburbs.
Homeless service providers said the map is a one-of-a-kind safety net, highlighting both lesser and more well known resources in the city, amid worries about federal funding cuts. In a city with scattered resources and limited public transportation options, it's a tool that allows clients to see what help could be available nearby, providers, including those doing street outreach, said.
"My intention was always for this to stay kind of small, kind of grass roots, and just whoever needs it, can use it. They're welcome to it. There's never any shame in asking for help," Tretyak said.
Tretyak, who is also in school working on her master's degree in social work from Wayne State University, describes the map as a "full-time hobby," which she updates in her spare time. The Free Press spoke to Tretyak and local homeless service providers about the map — which, as of June 27, had more than 108,000 views — and why it's important.
Tretyak, who had been working what she called a "dead-end job" as a mechanical technician measuring car parts, said she wanted to go back to school for social work and break into the nonprofit space. In 2023, she began working at Community & Home Supports Inc. after a friend told her they were hiring for an outreach navigator.
Her clients are all experiencing unsheltered homelessness — living on the streets or in abandoned buildings, encampments and vehicles. That's who she thought of first when she made the map. As an outreach navigator, she drops off food, water, tents and helps with vital documents such as IDs and birth certificates and get clients into housing.
"They're trusting me, their case manager, to know these things, and my job is to help them, and I'm going to do that. But that doesn't make it less scary or intimidating," she said.
Detroit's shelter system: Families wait an average of 130 days for shelter
Homeless services and basic needs (including food, showers and laundry)
Health care and harm reduction
Resources for youth, ages 18 to 24 years old (including substance abuse support, street medicine and education)
LGBTQ+ resources
Food pantries
Free events
Detroit Department of Transportation routes
Available rental homes
The map allows people to see resources near them, homeless service providers said.
That proximity is important because transportation is a huge barrier for people experiencing homelessness in Detroit, and in Wayne County, said Brenna Welch, executive director of supportive housing and homeless services at the Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, a nonprofit that refers people to shelter, street outreach or identifies other housing options.
"Individuals experiencing homelessness or experiencing housing crises often feel like they're bouncing from one side of the city to the other, to the other," she said. "If someone has a car, that's a lot of gas costs and if someone doesn't have a car and is using public transportation, that is a lot of time to spend trying to locate, identify and then visit each individual location."
Dr. Shaina Shetty, a family physician with the Community Health and Social Services (CHASS) Center, who does street medicine delivering primary medical care to people facing unsheltered homelessness in Detroit, agreed. For her clients with phones, the map is a tool to find nearby resources, especially if they're displaced from encampments and on the move. It's on the backs of street medicine business cards she gives out to people. She uses the map at least twice a week, she said.
"Because there hasn't been a great social safety net here and because there is so much need in this city, I feel like groups and communities and folks have always popped up to address those needs in different and creative ways, which is fantastic, but it also makes it really hard to track down where these things are happening. Where is the nearest food pantry or clothing closet?" she said.
That's why the map is so useful, Shetty said, because it puts information about mutual aid efforts and more established clinics in one place. It's a resource to share amid fears of looming federal funding constraints and directs people to smaller or newer organizations that may be closer to them, Welch added.
"As we think about federal funding cuts, I think that we are going to be forced to rely more on some of these pop ups and mutual aid efforts," Shetty said.
Other resource guides in southeasterm Michigan include:
Gleaners Community Food Bank's PantryNet: https://pantrynet.org/
Forgotten Harvest: www.forgottenharvest.org/find-food/
Michigan 2-1-1: mi211.org/
Shelter Oakland: A new website (shelteroakland.com/) in development provides information on shelter bed availability at Oakland County shelters and other resources, according to the nonprofit collaborative Alliance for Housing.
It depends. Finding a food pantry or hot meal is easier, for instance, than a shelter bed or housing, providers said.
"I don't think that I would consider shelters to be easy to access or a simple process," Welch said. "I can say that work is being done to make it easier, and that I have seen a significant push by the city of Detroit to ensure that individuals who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness are immediately connected to resources and are provided support to shorten that experience of unsheltered homelessness."
Stanley Stinson, a street outreach nurse and the president and founder of the nonprofit Street Outreach Teams, said public showers and bathrooms are difficult to come by in Detroit. His volunteer-run group looks for people sleeping rough — meaning they are not in shelters — and provides food, hygiene and on-the-spot medical care.
"All the resources are difficult to access just because of how being unsheltered is such an unstable thing," Stinson said. "They don't know where they're going to sleep that night."
Homelessness increased 16% from 2023 to 2024, according to one-night counts of people experiencing homelessness in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park that take place every January. The city's homeless response system was under scrutiny earlier this year after two children died while living unhoused in a van and city officials revealed that their mother had contacted city and county services several times prior to the siblings' death. Mayor Mike Duggan released a seven-point plan to improve access to services for the unhoused following the tragedy, including expanding night outreach teams.
Currently, the city of Detroit funds eight outreach programs, operating Monday through Sunday in shifts. There are also non-city funded teams — such as Stinson's organization — providing services in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park. Additional outreach teams, with the Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency and Motor City Mitten Mission, joined following the children's death, with contracts funded through June 30, 2026, according to information provided by Terra Linzner, housing stability and innovations division director for the city of Detroit's Housing and Revitalization Department.
Study: More than half of Black women surveyed in metro Detroit reported experiencing evictions
Tretyak uses Google to find resources and combs through websites to find basic details, such as hours of operation, locations and funding sources. She tries to call or email to double check information. She sources additions through word of mouth and while networking. The available rentals are updated about every week and a half to two weeks, she said.
The map was last vetted for available rentals June 23; for homeless services and basic needs June 18, and DDOT routes April 9. The map includes a disclaimer that many items have been vetted, but that it's been more than a year, and must be vetted again.
A Free Press reporter searched for pantries near Clifford Street in downtown Detroit. The closest available pantry appeared to be the Basilica of Ste. Anne de Detroit in the Hubbard Richard neighborhood. The church hosts a drive-thru food bank on most Saturdays, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., according to its website.
Here is a link to Tretyak's resource map: bit.ly/DetroitNeedsManagementMap.
Tretyak acknowledges that her map is busy, so if someone is looking for a specific resource, such as food pantries, she recommends they uncheck all other items, so only pantries appear. The map allows someone to search for a resource or street name, but they can't plug in a specific address — instead, they'd need to zoom into their general area to find help nearby. Call ahead to double check items on the map that say WIP (or work in progress), as it may have been vetted more than a year ago, Tretyak said.
Contact Nushrat Rahman: [e-mail]. Follow her on X: @NushratR.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: This scrappy map guides unhoused Detroiters to food, housing help