- Coming up on "American Black Journal," we're gonna check in with Covenant House Michigan about the state of homelessness among young people and what the organization is doing to address the problem.

Plus, improv isn't just for comedians and actors.

We'll show you how it's changing the lives of some Detroit public school students.

Stay right there.

"American Black Journal" starts right now.

- [Announcer] Across our Masco family of companies, our goal is to deliver better living possibilities and make positive changes in the neighborhoods where we live, work, and do business.

Masco, a Michigan company since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Through our giving, we are committed to meeting the needs of the communities we serve statewide to help ensure a bright and thriving future for all.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Announcer] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

November is National Homelessness Awareness Month and National Homeless Youth Awareness Month.

It's a time to shine a light on the efforts to prevent and end homelessness.

Covenant House Michigan serves young adults ages 18 through 24 who are homeless or survivors of human trafficking.

The organization provides shelter, educational and vocational programs, and wraparound services.

Joining me now is Covenant House Michigan CEO Meagan Dunn, along with one of its residents, Layla.

Welcome to "American Black Journal."

- Thank you for having us today, Stephen.

- Yeah, so Covenant House has been one of my favorite nonprofits in Southeast Michigan for a long time, and there's a really specific reason.

I think of nonprofits as often filling kind of critical gaps that exist either in government or other institutional kind of gaps.

But this is a particularly important gap to fill, and Covenant House does it in such a vibrant and creative way that it has always stood out to me.

So let's start with you just kind of explaining the work that you guys do at Covenant House.

- Well, thank you for that acknowledgement.

Nonprofits are on the ground.

So we are, you know, serving our community's most vulnerable every single day, 365 days a year.

And at Covenant House, the way that we approach our work is through unconditional love, absolute respect, and relentless support.

So before a young person can even start their journey towards ending their experience with homelessness, we start with those three principles because that's what most of us need in order to have the confidence to thrive and succeed.

And once we can establish that trust, the trusting relationship, and when a young person feels safe enough, then we get them on their journey.

And even before the outcome is stable housing, the outcome is that they can go on to live independently, but the journey to get there starts, again, in those first few hours that they arrive at Covenant House.

We then can help them, you know, from a mental health standpoint, you know, over 75%, not just of Covenant House residents, but 75% of young people in general that are experiencing homelessness also experience some issues around mental health challenges.

- Sure, sure.

I think a lot of the viewers might be sitting at home thinking, "Well, how does this happen?"

How do young people come to be homeless on their own and need these services separate from their families?

- There's no one answer, Stephen.

30% of our young people age out of foster care.

So there's so many significant challenges with our foster care system, and that's not specific to Michigan, nationally, that's a problem.

So 30% come from there.

But most of our young people also have some experience with either domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, some very unfortunate situations and stories that happen.

A lot of it is also, they might be the second generation to experience some sort of housing insecurity or homelessness.

You know, when a young person turns 18, our country, the resources really dry up.

They're seen as an adult.

If the family structure is already, you know, living check to check or might be struggling from a financial standpoint, that young person is usually put out to live on their own, and there's not a lot of safety net that's geared towards this age group.

So we see young people that are, they're resilient, they have dreams and aspirations and wanna do so much with their lives, but their safety net, their structure has fallen apart.

And so that's where we step in.

- Yeah, so Layla, you're one of the people who is part of the Covenant House family.

Tell us a little about how you came to be at Covenant House and what you found since you've been there.

- Well, not to get too deep into the story, but it was definitely something that I was looking for in an emergency.

I really needed help at the time and I didn't really know where to turn.

You know, it goes with the codependency of, you know, just being younger and everything.

And so when you don't have that, you know, you don't know where to go.

So it definitely helps being there.

It gives you a place of stability, and I really like that.

- Yeah.

How did you even hear about Covenant House?

Or how did you find it?

- A Google search, really, it was a very quick moment, it wasn't no plans or anything.

I'm grateful that they were able to take me in as fast as they did.

- Yeah, and so when you get there to Covenant House, talk about the kind of things that you found and the kind of support that you felt they were able to give you.

- One of the biggest support is really just being a place for you to be able to build up your strength again.

Again, it's the stability that they offer to be able to just build up from the ground, especially when you often don't have anything when you're there, when you start.

Another thing is definitely their mental health.

I love my counselor there.

So it's someone that you can talk to too when you need the vent, because it could be a lot.

- Yeah, yeah.

And you've already started to think about what this takes you to, what's next?

- Yes, it's always- - Talk about what you're doing - Now really, it's a lot of studying and a lot of schooling.

Definitely trying to get more stable in a career that I'm working towards.

You know, definitely in finance, definitely in psychology.

That's been my focus.

- Yeah, and you had a really great opportunity this summer, right?

- Yes, with, well, it's through Gear Up, but it's for Chase, so it was a good experience to have transactional, yes.

- Wow, what was that like to kind of find yourself there?

- It was definitely a very, you know, cold water thing.

It was something that you had to get fast.

But I do love that type of service, definitely.

- Yeah, yeah.

When you think about when you'll leave Covenant House, what do you think the most important thing you'll kind of take with you from that experience?

- Really, I'd say that you could do so much more on your own.

I mean, you get to realize your own strength because, you know, essentially you are on your own.

They look for you to build yourself up.

And so you get this confidence of you can do it, you know, and it's not as hard and, you know, from nothing, you can have everything, so definitely.

- Meagan, this has gotta be- - Oh my gosh.

- Really great.

- I gotta pull it together, yeah.

- Really great for you to hear.

But I mean, this is exactly the sort of path that you're trying to establish for these young people.

- Absolutely, I mean, our goal is to help eliminate all barriers in order for a young person to feel and be successful, and in the end, that's what they deserve.

So many of us grew up with supportive family structures and there may have been challenges, but overall, we had the support and the confidence to be able to say, "I can have everything."

And so to hear Layla say that, it just, it warms my heart.

It really helps me to understand that the approach to this work that we're doing is the right way.

We're always, you know, listening to our young people, ensuring that we hear their voice, you know, making small tweaks and changes.

You know, there's no one size fits all.

So we've tried our best to provide that individualized care.

And so to hear that, I mean, and just to see how Layla has just really grown at Covenant House.

She's been with us for some time, and just to see her journey, there are many things that keep us nonprofit leaders up at night, but what brings us up the next day, what wakes us up the next morning, is knowing that there are about a hundred young people that sleep in our beds at night across the state, and we're here to continue to work with them.

- Yeah, yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't give you a chance to talk about the particular challenges that nonprofits and especially social service nonprofits are facing right now, budget-wise, things don't look the way they did, you know, 10 months ago, 11 months ago.

- Certainly, you know, the federal uncertainty, so many of us nonprofits have support from the federal government through the various agencies, which all of us, you know, rely upon as revenue to help us to be able to do our programming.

And so knowing that on any given day, there could be that challenge of what if we wake up on this day and these funds are not available?

So many of us have had to do some scenario planning, you know, for things that happen that way.

But then it also impacts the donor community, rightfully so.

People are holding onto their dollars a little tighter.

So I always, I've been saying the last few months, there are times in our careers where we earn our stripes, This is one of them, but we're resilient, we have a very supportive community.

The city of Detroit, even the state of Michigan, so many partners have volunteered to step in to help us ensure that we're able to continue to do this work.

- Yeah.

Are you able to manage all of that without a direct effect on people like Layla, the folks who are depending on you?

- Fortunately at this point, we've been able to continue our programming without any disruption.

And even when we look at scenario planning, we're doing the best plan that we can without any service interruption.

In the end, our goal is always to service young people as best we can every single day.

So at this point, we haven't, and we're very fortunate in that way, but I am having very strategic and aggressive conversations with donors and foundations and individuals and corporations, you know, sharing that we are on the ground.

So we are the ones that are serving our community's most vulnerable.

- Yeah, yeah, Layla, I'm gonna give you the last word here.

What would you say to someone who is right now in the situation you were in before you came to Covenant House about possibility, about the future, about opportunity?

I mean, it seems like all of those things are pretty clear to you now, and they probably weren't before.

- You know, there is always a chance to start over.

You know, never to be attached to too much.

This should be your biggest lesson in that, definitely not to be materially attached to things, but also have goals, you know, because you want more things definitely and life can turn out great.

So yeah, that's the biggest thing.

- How much longer do you imagine you'll be at Covenant House?

- Hopefully not too much longer, but I'm trying to leave it strong as I can, so definitely.

- Will you miss it when you're gone?

- It'll be a point of graduation for me, so I'll miss the people, definitely.

But I'll definitely be happy to know that I'm, you know, I'm on my own now.

- Yeah, well, congratulations on the work and congratulations to you, Meagan, on all the work that you guys are doing, - We appreciate you're paying attention to this.

We do.

- Yeah, it's important and it's so important right now given the climate and as you point out, the uncertainty.

A program for students in the Detroit Public Schools community district is helping boost their self-confidence and life skills.

The Detroit Creativity Project uses improvisation to help elementary through high school students succeed.

The program was founded by actor and comedian Marc Evan Jackson.

Earlier this year, "One Detroit's" Chris Jordan visited one of the improv classes.

He also caught up with Jackson and one of the project's well-known supporters, Detroit area native and former "Saturday Night Live" cast member, Tim Meadows.

- Meatballs are falling from the skies.

- Did you see that?

Whoa.

A meatball?

How did they know I was hungry?

Anybody want some?

- Off the ground?

- Oh yeah.

I'll try to catch them.

(group laughing) - This is my favorite day of the year.

This is our spring student showcase.

We do this every single year.

We bring together kids from a lot of different schools who never get to meet each other or play together during the year.

And they all perform for friends and family and the public.

Some of the kids performing here today will have never performed really on stage in front of an audience.

They've done improv in the classroom, but this is their first performance in front of an audience.

- Is it spoiled?

- Ew!

- I think learning improv at this age is really good.

I mean, I wish I'd have learned when I was younger.

I think the thing that you learn from doing this, and I think you'll find it in the kids you meet here, they have a higher level of confidence in themselves.

They're able to like express themselves much better.

And I think for a teenager, that's like huge.

- Who are you talking to?

- You don't see the camera there?

- Detroit Creativity Project was begun in 2011 by a group of improvisers and performers who all met at the Second City Theater when it was downtown.

- I am blessed to have been part of a generation of the Second City Detroit, the sadly now defunct Second City Detroit that was at the corner of Woodward and Mountcom at the Hockey Town Cafe next to the Fox Theater back in the late '90s.

And there is enough of a hit rate.

Enough of us have left there to go on to do fun and exciting things in entertainment that we get asked frequently here in Los Angeles and in New York and various places like what was in the drinking water in Detroit in the late '90s?

A lot of my friends that work as actors and directors and writers and musicians, we got together in 2011 and we said, "What should we be doing to give back to the city of Detroit?"

And it took about two cookouts at my house before we were like, "Oh, improvisation is what's made all of our lives great.

That's something that we should be sharing with the youth of Detroit."

So piloting a program in late 2011, early 2012, we began the Detroit Creativity Project.

We teach improv.

Improv is unscripted short form theater where you get a suggestion from the audience and create something from nothing.

We began teaching that in Detroit middle and high schools.

And it's just a wonderful skill set.

In addition to being fun and funny, it carries with it some not so secret, really wonderful life side effects.

- It's adaptation, it's dealing with change.

It's any moment in your life realizing that something different might happen.

And if you can be cool about it and you can roll with it, then anybody else can look at you and just say, "Hey, that makes sense.

Maybe I can do that too."

- I like drama improv because I like to join things that like get me out of my comfort zone.

So like, I join drama and debate because it can help with public speaking.

- Most of the time, the ones that is the most shy, even in walking in the hallway, now they're verbal.

According to their teachers, especially in math, they volunteer, they're more outspoken, and they're like, "What did you do in that drama class?"

I'm like, "I didn't do anything.

Most of the time it's them."

When I watch Jason and Dana kind of pull some things out of the kids, I'm sitting back like, oh my goodness, look at this kid.

I remember when.

- It's a true pleasure to watch a student who goes from, you know, in their shell or even students who are super careful, they don't want to be wrong, they don't wanna make a mistake.

It's super cool to watch those students go from that state to blossom into a young person that's empowered, that is connected to their own choices, their own voice that are confident enough in their ideas to be able to share them and build with other people.

- Improv for me is like a expression of freedom.

It's like you don't really have to follow a set of rules, it's just you can freely express yourself.

Also to like really get in the rhythm of being in a social environment and, you know, expressing your feelings with other people.

- I love the creativity of improv because you can just say anything on the spot, whatever you're thinking in your mind, you just make it come to life.

I'm a creative person.

I like to build stuff and make it come together as in one big ensemble.

And I like working with people a lot.

- You become part of a community of people that are like-minded.

It's almost like, oh, I met other people who are just like me, you know.

You're weird, just like me.

You like comedy, just like me.

You're creative, just like me.

And so it's really great because you get strength from that.

- Correct.

(audience applauding) - Devising the curriculum initially for the Detroit Creativity Project, the teaching of improv is fairly universal, but we had to pivot a little bit because we realized we're teaching this to, in some cases, middle school students, in some cases, high school students.

And now we've even moved younger.

We have third graders and fourth graders in some of our programs, - We've just got this amazing group of teaching artists.

They're all improvisers and performers and teachers themselves.

We have a social worker on staff, we have people who have been teaching improv for decades, and they're amazing with the students.

- Typically, every semester, we've got about 10 to 15 classes in about 10 or 12 schools.

We are so fortunate to be partners with Detroit Public Schools and local area schools, Hamtramck, Lincoln Park where we just go in, we have the classroom teacher stay in the class, and we teach improv games.

- There are contestants in a spelling bee.

The host will give you a word that is made up, and the host is gonna ask you to spell it.

I'm a professional, I'm an actor and a drama teacher.

When I heard about Detroit Creativity Project and their mission to not only just teach improv skills, but use it as a tool of empowerment, I signed up to be a teaching artist.

And this is my fifth year.

Throughout these five years, I've learned so much that has impacted me as a artist and just as a person.

There's a range of emotions.

What I would love to see from your characters before we even begin, I already know how your character feels.

My teaching style is more so reflective, reflexive of what I'm seeing.

So today, I created a game based on what I was seeing from the students.

And that was these students at Bates are extremely intellectual.

They're very, very bright, and they love to be engaged and they love to be challenged.

Finding ways to still move the group towards that freedom we talked about, I ain't gotta be right, I ain't gotta have the right answer, I ain't gotta have the right statement, right?

To push them there definitely takes you paying attention to the group and knowing what the group need.

Listening, watching, observing, and responding.

What was challenging, what was easy about that second- - Okay, because since I had an accent with my voice that I was doing, it was like hard to keep my voice up.

- It really helps me because it helps my brain think of new things on the spot immediately.

- I was feeding off of everyone's energy.

Like when I heard one thing, I thought of another, and I was like, "Oh, that could go there."

And then I added my own thing into it and it just became one.

- Some of the activities are more focused on things like character building or emotion, point of view.

So we utilize the different games and warmups based on a specific skill that we're trying to work on.

For example, yes and.

- Yes and is probably the biggest rule in improv, which is just accepting an idea and then building on top of it.

So it doesn't always mean that you have to agree with the idea, but in the scene, you accept it and you build upon it.

- And you're building together, you're working together, you're honoring what they're saying and adding to it.

Everybody shows up and does their part.

And it turns out that if you do that in real life, it goes better.

Improv is really only important for people who ever have to come across another human being in their life.

If you were on the planet Mars, maybe you shouldn't take an improv class.

If you're anybody other than that, you should take an improv class because what it shows you is that you're improvising all the time anyway.

There's no script for your day, and it shows you that, and then it teaches you that it matters how you approach it.

And it makes you a more curious, more interested, and therefore more interesting person.

- Once the kids had like a first couple of classes, I was tuned in, I'm like, "Oh, this is it."

And I was always taking notes.

Even some of the most troubled students, I think if they kind of tried improv, it would help them because it does bring out emotion.

It also teaches them how to deal with that.

It teaches them how to communicate.

- It truly opens your life up.

You realize that failure is not a lasting condition.

Not everything's going to go perfectly every day, but you realize it's not fatal, it's not a lasting condition, and you fear it less, so it makes you more willing to go into the unknown.

It opens up what psychologists refer to as acceptance of uncertainty.

So it reduces the anxiety.

- After school, when I think of after school, I'm like, "Oh yay, I get to do improv today, it's Monday."

And it actually makes me look forward to Mondays because everybody's just so fun here.

They help us like express our emotions and like they tell us that nothing's wrong.

- This is great because I'm sure there's other people just like me in Detroit who are in public schools that have talent but don't know how to express it or don't know how to find out what they like.

And I think even with improv, it's not even about acting sometimes, it can be just about being able to like have confidence and speaking in front of people and like trusting yourself.

- If every one of our students nails a job interview one day because they can think on their feet and have the confidence to know that they're gonna be okay in any situation, then this program is a success.

- We've seen improvement in test scores, we've seen improvement in attendance.

It helps with math and with reading.

- The progress, I'm one person, I'm able to see in a student in less than a year, sometimes it's six weeks, I'm so excited by the discovery of their own voice, their own power, their own confidence.

Whatever they go on to do, they'll be great at it because they'll believe in themselves, they'll have the confidence and the experience of communicating with others and working with others.

So whatever they decide to do, they're gonna be great at it.

- That's gonna do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org, and you can connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care and we'll see you next time.

- Get this side, this side.

- Who are you talking to?

- You don't see the camera there?

(group laughing) You don't see?

Come on, come on, come on.

Hey.

- That's a mirror.

(group laughing) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Across our Masco family of companies, our goal is to deliver better living possibilities and make positive changes in the neighborhoods where we live, work, and do business.

Masco, a Michigan company since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Through our giving, we are committed to meeting the needs of the communities we serve statewide to help ensure a bright and thriving future for all.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Announcer] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you, thank you.

(bright music)