2 children sleeping in van in Detroit freeze to death: ‘Everybody now wants to help,’ mother says
The mother of two children who authorities believe died of hypothermia after spending the night in a van in a Detroit casino parking structure is speaking out, saying “everybody now wants to help” but she tried in multiple ways to get assistance before Monday’s tragedy.
Tateona Williams gave interviews Tuesday to multiple outlets, describing how she’s been homeless for about three months, but her children had everything “except a house.” She described realizing her 9-year-old son wasn’t breathing on Monday when she tried to wake him for school and frantically doing CPR before rushing him to the hospital.
“My son wasn’t moving. I kept saying, ‘Get up. Please get up. Don’t do this to me,’” she told WXYZ.
Williams said it was at the hospital that she realized her two-year-old also wasn’t breathing.
“They brought her in right after they pronounced him dead,” she said through tears.
“And they said she wasn’t breathing. And they pronounced her dead too. I asked everybody for help. I called out of state. I called cities I didn’t know.”
Williams spoke to the media outlets just hours after Detroit officials held a press conference, acknowledging that her family had reached out to the city’s homeless services department at least three times before Monday’s deaths, the most recent contact being in late November 2024.
At the time, Williams was not homeless but told officials she’d been staying with family who told her she needed to find somewhere else to live. City officials have not released Williams’ name. Her case was not deemed an emergency and no outreach workers connected with her.
Duggan has called for a city review of what happened, the city’s homeless services and its help line. The city has a help line for those facing homelessness but it only operates during business hours during the week and from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturdays.
“We have to make sure that we do everything possible to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” said Duggan. “I’m not trying to talk about an individual employee. I’m talking about the system as a whole. Are we doing everything to make sure people in the city know how to access this critical care?”
Williams said everybody now wants to help “after I lost two kids.”
“I’ve been asking for help,” she said. “I feel like it wasn’t their time. I did everything I was supposed to do.”
During the press conference Tuesday, Duggan said he’s heard others who’ve used the city’s help line for those facing homelessness say that they walked away “confused.”
“I want to make sure that when people call they get very clear options when that phone call is made,” Duggan said. “And I’m asking them to put a policy in place that any time minors are involved, experiencing homelessness, that our outreach workers automatically do a site visit.”
According to authorities, Williams parked on the ninth floor of the Hollywood Casino parking structure in Greektown around 1 a.m. Monday. At some point during the night, she ran out of gas or her car had a mechanical failure, said Interim Police Chief Todd Bettison. Temperatures were below freezing on Monday.
Detroit has outreach workers who help those facing homelessness in the city. Two are employed by the and 36 work for other agencies such as Cass Community Social Services and Neighborhood Services Organization.
The Rev. Faith Fowler, executive director of Cass Community Social Services, which has five outreach workers, said she’s wondered this week whether street outreach workers would have found the family in during their regular rounds. She worries they would not have, since they were in an enclosed garage rather than parked out in an open area.
“They certainly wouldn’t have found her in a parking garage for one of the casinos, because I don’t think they drive through them,” Fowler said. “They they probably would have found her if she was parked on Belle Isle or parked somewhere else stationary, they would have found her and engaged her.”
Williams told media outlets that she wouldn’t wish what happened to her on anyone.
“I don’t wish this on nobody,” she said. “And if you can get, please, go get help because I don’t want nobody to go through what I’m feeling. Wherever you can get help from… just go. You don’t have to suffer.”
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