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Detroit residents press council on DDOT reliability, homelessness outreach, housing and BZA transparency during public comment
Summary
At a Detroit City Council meeting, callers urged faster DDOT service and higher pay to retain staff, described grassroots outreach to people experiencing homelessness, raised housing and landlord-retaliation concerns, and asked the council to investigate BZA court-reporter costs and Proposition N spending.
Several Detroit residents used the public-comment portion of the Detroit City Council meeting to press elected officials on transit service, outreach to people experiencing homelessness, housing conditions and transparency in the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA).
Callers prioritized timing and staffing at the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT). Coleman Cunningham, a longtime transit advocate who runs outreach from a vehicle, said DDOT “is not on time, and it needs to be.” Rochelle Stewart of the Detroit People’s Platform Transit Justice Team asked the council to “double do that,” criticized a 70% on-time target as insufficient and said the group was seeking $150,000,000 for DDOT to address service and wages.
Why it matters: callers linked transit reliability and worker pay to broader quality-of-life concerns — from riders’ daily commutes to homelessness outreach — and asked the council to respond in forthcoming budget or policy work.
Multiple callers described grassroots outreach to residents experiencing homelessness. Cunningham said he distributes “hand warmers, gloves, bus tickets, blankets” and asked staff to ride buses with outreach volunteers. Another caller thanked Cunningham for his volunteer work and said he receives no city salary or benefits for these efforts.
Housing, neighborhood maintenance and landlord issues also drew repeated comment. A caller who said she had complained about drug activity and uninhabitable units asked the council for direct action against landlords who retaliate against tenants and called for stronger enforcement when shelters refuse women with children. Betty A. Varner, president of a neighborhood Black association, described having purchased vacant lots from the Detroit Land Bank and said thieves had stolen most of a newly installed fence, leaving an “eyesore” that volunteers now need help removing.
Other speakers raised oversight and transparency concerns. An individual who identified themself as requesting that “BZA hearings recordings [be] available” said Detroit City Code already requires BZA transcripts and called out what they described as “outrageous” court-reporter costs charged per page and an RFQ that, in their view, improperly restricts transcript release. That caller also criticized demolition practices and questioned whether Proposition N bond funds had been used to acquire and rehabilitate homes as the ballot language had described.
A speaker who identified themself as Lee Shelton urged the council to account for how Proposition N bond proceeds were spent, asking specifically how many houses had been acquired and rehabilitated with those funds.
Council response and next steps: the public-comment period closed with the chair acknowledging the range of concerns. Several callers asked for follow-up from council members and department staff; specific staff follow-ups (for example, a site visit or a budget reply) were requested by callers but not recorded as formal council directives in the transcript.
Ending: The public-comment block ran through a wide set of neighborhoods and civic concerns — transit reliability and pay, volunteer outreach to people experiencing homelessness, neighborhood vandalism and fence theft, landlord and shelter practices, and calls for transparency in BZA transcripts and Proposition N spending. Several callers asked the council to respond in writing or by direct outreach.
