It Takes a Village

Veronika Scott, a fourth year student at the College for Creative Studies, has designed a heat-capturing coat that turns into a sleeping bag. Made for the homeless, and constructed by the homeless, her product has become a multi-stage program that aims to provide housing, food and jobs. Viewers sit in on a monthly event called "Soup," where young artists pay a small fee to come together for a simple dinner of soup and bread, and pitch projects to better their community of Hamtramck (a neighborhood completely surrounded by metro Detroit). The Russell Industrial Center (RIC), originally a 1925 auto body plant is a 2.2-million-square-foot, seven building complex. A community unto itself, RIC is now home to many artists, craftspeople, and small businesses. Eric Novack, operations manager, visits with Mike Dion, an artist who makes sculpture out of junk and Andy Kem, a furniture designer and digital sculptor at General Motors.

Some Detroiters are spearheading a local food movement. Edith Floyd takes matters into her own hands and starts an urban garden where abandoned and blighted houses once stood. She is one of a growing number of Detroit's urban poor, determined to eat healthy and become self-sufficient in a city with very few food options. Kristyn Koth and Malik Muqaribu feed Detroiters in their 1956 Airstream, "The Pink Flamingo," delivering fresh organic food to Detroiters in a unique mobile food truck.