For years our team has been surprised that a unified eligibility screener or universal intake to ensure Detroit residents know about and can easily enroll in benefits or social service programs hasn’t existed. The Detroit Data team compiled public benefits offered by the City of Detroit and its intermediaries through various programs listed on the City of Detroit’s website. Reviewing the public benefits dataset compiled by Detroit Data we’re able to get an overview of the types of benefits available and the eligibility requirements for someone or their family to meet in order to apply.
The Services by Provider chart below shows which City Department or partner organization is the provider of the service.
Quick Facts:
- The City’s health department leads in the sheer number of services that they offer.
- SER Metro offers the most out of any non-city organizations in the dataset.
- “General” references services that didn’t necessarily fall into a specific department or organization. Like a scholarship list for students in the city.
There are quite a few providers that offer just the single service which shows us a social services landscape that is specialized and spread out across departments and organizations.
The Services by Category chart below shows us what the service aims to support. Housing services are the primary focus for the plurality of offerings with health being second.
Eligibility Requirements
Age
Most of the services offered were for anyone over the age of 18 years old, but there were some specific programs that targeted youth, newborns, and seniors directly for benefits/services. “Universal” in the age requirement chart is for when no age was stated or for when there were various age requirements…