Four fellows provided research support for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters and the office of State Senator Rosemary Bayer to improve a bill (SB 429 of 2021) that was introduced in the Michigan Senate to update regulations on the mining of aggregate materials (e.g., sand, gravel, stone, clay). The team conducted case studies of nine states, focusing on the relative authorities of state and local governments in the permitting and restoration processes, as well as topical overviews around soil conservation best practices, the use of recycled aggregate materials, and stakeholder...

The Michigan Action Plan for Fatherhood Involvement was created to explore ways of expanding support for the involvement of fathers in parenting/custody arrangements and to guide the establishment of permanent structures for improving policies and programs that benefit fathers and their families. The project sought to understand 50/50 shared parenting legislation on the state level and ways the organization could advocate and support such initiatives. During the project, the student researcher considered questions such as: how do states define 50/50 shared parenting, are these pieces of...

The Homeless Action Network of Detroit (HAND)’s core mission is to provide leadership to address homelessness in Detroit. One part of executing this mission involves advocacy to promote policies that increase affordable housing stock. For their deliverable, the team created a memo presenting an analysis of federal, state and local legislation relevant to HAND’s interest in the creation and maintenance of affordable housing stock in Detroit. The memo offers a variety of advocacy options at the federal, state and local level. Options include advocating for federal legislation to create...

Friends of Parkside (FOP) is a not-for-profit, community-based organization located on Detroit’s east side in the Villages at Parkside, a public housing complex. FOP has a 15-member board of directors consisting of Parkside residents and representatives from community-based organizations.This project focused on digital access in the Parkside community, specifically identifying residents’ ability to access resources and participate in programs that will enhance their ability to use less energy and save money. The deliverable was a participant pre-survey of the residents in the housing complex....

Blight is a serious issue in the city of Detroit; in dealing with this issue, the mechanism of demolition poses a variety of issues relating to safety, sustainability, and funding due to the financial costs associated with demolition. To deal with blight more sustainably, deconstruction prior to complete demolition was proposed. In response, the PCLP Spring 2022 fellows crafted several recommendations, divided by immediate, intermediate, and future actions. The recommendations included: (1) addressing current demolition practices, (2) increasing accountability for residents from city...

The student worked with Fund MI Future to help compile local property tax votes in Michigan to help identify policy opportunities to tip the State’s fiscal landscape to be more supportive of poor and middle-income communities. The research focused on what margin millages and millage renewals from 2012-2022 passed or failed and for what the millage was raising...