Good evening, everyone:

We have watched with enormous respect and admiration (“awe” might be the more appropriate word) as Dr. Mona Hannah has piloted a cash assistance program to pregnant moms called Rx Kids – first in Flint, and then as she methodically sought to expand it throughout the state. She has now brought that program to Detroit.

As many of you may remember, Dr. Mona (as she is called most often) is a pediatrician (who is also associate dean of public health at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine) who was the leading actor in uncovering the Flint water crisis so many years ago – and in helping guide recovery and remediation efforts.  In 2024, she developed the idea of making cash payments to mothers, both during their pregnancy ($1,500 beginning in the fourth month of pregnancy) and through the first months of a newborn’s life ($500 a month for the first year). In the first year of the program in Flint, nearly every expectant mom participated.

We met with her shortly thereafter to explore both how Kresge might help and how the idea might capture State of Michigan Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) monies (a huge thank you to Raquel for her contributions to Dr. Mona’s thinking about this).

Within a year, Dr. Mona had arranged enough public and philanthropic support to expand the program to Pontiac, then to Kalamazoo, then to five counties in the Upper Peninsula, then to several Wayne and Oakland County communities. One-third of the funding came from the State budget, and two-thirds from private sources (there is a match requirement for localities that seek to participate in the program). Kresge, Fisher, Skillman, and Kellogg all contributed.

The program is governed by the Michigan State University Pediatric Public Health Initiative in collaboration with Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. It is, in turn, administered by a nonprofit called “GiveDirectly,” which enables donors to fund the effort.

But I’ve buried the lede:

On Monday, Detroit Mayor Sheffield announced that the City of Detroit would launch Rx Kids, at a price-tag of $105 million over the next three years.

This is beyond spectacular news. Approximately 8,000 babies are born in Detroit annually.

When our Detroit team hosted Dr. Mona at the Detroit Neighborhood Forum late last year, she explained that Rx Kids enables moms to reduce part of the burden associated with carrying and providing for a newborn – paying for diapers, food, health care needs, rent, utilities, or other necessities. She also noted that Rx Kids has resulted in declines in pre-term deliveries and in low birthweights, resulting in reduced health care costs and less dependence on government maternal intervention programs.

The State will pay for $90 million of the cost in Detroit . . . the City of Detroit, $1.5 million . . . and the foundation community (Kresge, Ballmer, Green Light, Skillman, Kellogg, General Motors, Fisher, and others – again, this has been a huge priority of the Wendy and her team), $9 million. Three or four million dollars remains to be raised.

The entire Kresge team – Wendy, Raquel, and members of their teams – has zeroed in on ways to counteract the fundamental drivers of poor health outcomes among people with low incomes, and to give our youngest residents a more equitable start in life.  Rx Kids is an inestimable contribution to that effort in Detroit. As Crains quoted Dr. Mona: "It broke my heart then, and it breaks my heart now, to care for kids when you are unable to prescribe away what is kind of the root cause of what makes kids and community unhealthy, and that's poverty."

So enormous congratulations – and thanks – to Mayor Sheffield, Wendy, Raquel, the Michigan Legislature and Governor, and – above all – Dr. Mona. A momentous and inspiring step forward for the families of Detroit.

Rip

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