Children & Families

A federally funded program to help the poorest workers pay for child care used to serve 60,000 Michigan families, three times what it serves now. A 2008 audit exposed financial lapses, caregivers with criminal pasts, and possible fraud. The numbers have yet to recover.

Michigan has one of the most restrictive policies in the nation on giving low-income families access to subsidized child care. Yet research shows investing in high-quality care can put more parents back to work and improves the odds for vulnerable children

Bertie Marble’s death certificate points to pneumonia. But an attorney for her family, and her own medical records, raise questions about whether she was an uncounted victim of Legionnaires’ disease. Experts say toll may be far larger.

Bertie Marble’s 2015 death coincided with a trio of emergencies in Genesee County: the Flint water crisis, an increase in pneumonia and flu deaths, and a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak

In a U.P. forest, the “‘hood in the woods” has struggled to build a real community on an abandoned military base. The results so far are mixed

Sawyer is a community carved from a ghost town. More than 20 years after the U.S. Air Force left its base behind, it is an isolated Upper Peninsula outpost in need of jobs, transportation, a grocery store, laundromat, more activities for youth, as well as additional drug treatment for adults

Sex and labor trafficking are problems. But the state is left to create laws with no reliable data on the scope of problem in Michigan, or even a common understanding of what constitutes trafficking. Too often, Hollywood fills the vacuum.

A human trafficking court in Washtenaw County is dispensing with assembly line prosecution of prostitutes. Instead, the court identifies whether women have been coerced into the sex trade, and offers them services to begin a new life.

Latino immigrants, including some in the U.S. illegally, were among the last to know about lead in Flint’s water. What is the state’s duty to help hard-to-find residents?

Lead poisoning rates have dropped dramatically in Michigan over the past decade. But in many cities and towns, child exposure rates far exceed those in Flint.

Check out cities across Michigan with high lead exposure rates, as well as rates in your neighborhood

‘Babies having babies’ isn’t the problem it once was. But rates are higher in northern, rural counties, in a state where school districts may opt out of sex ed entirely.

The nation's teen birth rate has been falling since the early 1990s, and Michigan has generally tracked with that drop. But some counties remain above the state level of 7.8 percent of all births.

Low-income people often find it harder to eat well. Classes designed to teach basic cooking skills, and how to find food growing wild on vacant lots, aim to fill the gap.

Grand Rapids DHS office took the biggest hit, losing 35 workers. That could leave overburdened caseworkers with a heavier administrative load.

There’s work to be done in the resort counties of northern Michigan, but opportunity doesn’t always match the available workforce.

For many unseen residents of northern Michigan, life can be struggle for survival. This is true even for those with jobs, which tend to be seasonal with marginal pay

Food pantries, like their customers, mostly take what they can get.

The homeless are about in rural northern Michigan, John McLintock sets out to find them.

The safety net is anything but secure for homeless children and families across the state. Bridge reviews some approaches that have shown promise elsewhere.