Dear Friends of DJC,
This is Amanda Alexander and I’m reaching out to ask for your support for the work we’re doing here at the Detroit Justice Center. We hope you will join our amazing donors and funding partners as we continue to provide innovative legal support to Detroit communities.
When we opened our doors last year, we only had two staff members and a dream of building a truly just city. A year and a half later, we have built a 24 person team, bringing that dream to life every day. We’ve helped 600 clients through our Legal Services Practice, built relationships with over 100 community partners, and have helped dozens of groups that are creating affordable housing, community land trusts, and worker-owned co-ops across Detroit. Because hundreds of people are sitting in jail each night in Detroit because they can’t afford bail, we’ve also launched and house the only revolving bail fund in Michigan, bailing out over 348 people to date. To fight the displacement of long-time Detroiters, we’ve also trained a team of Community Legal Workers who have had a 100% success rate in helping Detroiters lower their property taxes as a way of combating illegal tax foreclosures.
DJC is committed to letting our work be guided by movements fighting for racial and economic justice, and we practice deep listening with our partners and community members. We’ve partnered with formerly incarcerated people to call for a broad expansion of clean slate legislation, bail reform, and divesting money from jails and prisons to be put into communities. In a city where 48% of children live in poverty, we believe it imperative to include youth voices in these conversations. For this reason, we hosted a Youth Design Summit where young people created detailed designs of what they would build instead of a new 160-bed youth jail.
We can’t do this work without the support of our community, including incredibly generous folks like you. In the upcoming year, we are preparing to help hundreds more Michiganders stay out of jail and at home, keep their children, and support their families. Your donation will support our current work as well as upcoming endeavors, including a Supportive Housing Program for survivors of gun violence.
We hope to have your support as we move toward our goal of building truly just cities for everyone. Would you be able to make a generous year-end donation in support of the Detroit Justice Center? You can do so right now by following this link: Support the Detroit Justice Center!
Thank you so much for your generosity. It means so much to have you with us as we serve communities in Detroit and beyond!
Amanda Alexander
Founder & Executive Director
Detroit Justice Center