Tonight on the Detroit Evening Report, we cover Detroit Future City’s upcoming Equity Forum; Detroit’s new (and only) freestanding birthing center opening its doors and more.

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DFC Equity Forum Wednesday

Detroit Future City is hosting its fifth annual Equity Forum with Detroit Public Television on Wednesday. A panel of local and national leaders will discuss advancing economic equity, with a focus on strategies for Detroiters to access high-quality jobs. Detroit Future City’s CEO Anika Goss will give opening remarks and Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia University’s Journalism School and a New Yorker staff writer, will also share some thoughts. The panel will be moderated by Stephen Henderson, host of WDET’s current affairs program Created Equal.  The forum will take place from 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Wayne County Community College Northwest Campus, 8200 W Outer Dr., Detroit.

Southwest Detroit celebrates Día de los Muertos

The restaurant La Jalisciense Supermercado y Taqueria in southwest Detroit is hosting the second annual Día de los Muertos festival next week, Oct. 31-Nov. 3, to honor and remember departed family members. The four-day festival will feature an interactive cemetery exhibit and theatrical performances. Community members are invited to bring pictures of loved ones for a community ofrenda or alter. The festivities will feature over 20 local vendors, cultural workshops, folklore dance performances and more. 

Report shows drop in breast cancer mortality

A new American Cancer Society report finds there has been a 44% drop in breast cancer mortality rates since 1989. However, rates for American Indian and Alaska Native women have remained consistent over the past three decades. There’s also a slow increase of more women under 50 getting breast cancer. Asian American Pacific Islander women of any age are seeing a steadier growth — about 2.5-2.7% per year — of diagnoses.  

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among U.S. women after skin cancer. This year, an estimated 310,000 new cases will be diagnosed in women and 2,700 men, with over 42,000 women and 530 men dying from the disease. Black women have a 38% higher cancer mortality rate than white women, although they have a 5% lower incidence of getting the disease.  

Birth Detroit holds grand opening

The nonprofit Birth Detroit recently hosted a ribbon-cutting for its new Birth Center at 8575 Heritage Place in Detroit. Birth Detroit is a Black women-led network of midwives who support pregnant women by reducing the cost of birth and providing safer alternative birthing options to women of color. The center — Detroit’s first freestanding birthing center — also provides culturally relevant maternal care. The nonprofit crowdfunded $4 million for the project, which broke ground last year. Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield also awarded Birth Detroit the Spirit of Detroit award.  

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

Editor’s note: A previously uploaded version of this episode included incorrect audio from an earlier episode about grief and loss.

A staggering amount of metro Detroit’s polling stations are not accessible for disabled people — 84%, according to a 2022 audit by Detroit Disability Power.

Subscribe to Created Equal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Another, less visible, barrier to democratic participation is equitable access to information. Yet nearly half of Detroit households don’t have broadband access.

That picture only gets worse when you account for household income. 

Voting sites inaccessible 

There were four criteria Detroit Disability Power used in their audit to define accessibility at a polling location: 

1. An accessible parking area with a clear pathway into the building
2. A fully accessible voter assist terminal (VAT)
3. An accessible entrance into the building
4. An accessible booth for casting paper ballots privately

Dessa Cosma from Detroit Disability Power says that being able to vote in-person without barriers is a democratic issue, but the state of polling location accessibility now is not acceptable. 

“I can tell you as a disabled voter, it is frustrating and demoralizing and dehumanizing to go exercise my right to vote and realize that people weren’t prepared for me to show up,” Cosma said. “When they were thinking about who mattered and people they needed to set up their day for, I wasn’t on their list.”

Detroit Disability Power plans to conduct another audit of metro Detroit’s polling locations for the general election in November. 

Internet access 

Democratic acts such as voting, accessing a city hall website, attending virtual public meetings, or contacting representatives are all reliant on having internet access.  

Detroit is among the worst-connected cities in the nation, with nearly 40% of homes without a broadband connection. 

But access to broadband internet is only one of three pillars of digital equity, says Christopher Ali, telecommunications research at Penn State University. The other two pillars are affordability and skillset. 

“The internet is our window to the world right now. It’s how we get news and information […] it’s how we engage with the many of the governmental services we need to do on a daily basis. It’s how we book the COVID vaccine and apply for benefits and file our taxes,” Ali said.

Cosma and Ali both joined Created Equal on Wednesday to discuss equitable access to voting and information.

Guests:  

• Dessa Cosma is the executive director of Detroit Disability Power

• Christopher Ali is the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and professor of telecommunications in the Bellisario College at Penn State. Ali is the author of “Farm Fresh Broadband: Politics of Rural Connectivity.” 

Listen to Created Equal with host Stephen Henderson weekdays from 9-10 a.m. ET on 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand.