Dream Centers of Michigan

Housing: Residential Housing - 12 month residential housing program is designed for young men ages 18-24 focusing on life transformation through relationships, life skills, accountability, and spiritual growth. Services provided for all program residents include mentoring, wellness benefits, education, employment, food, and lodging. The goal is for participants to graduate, practicing a healthy lifestyle that promotes and maintains self-sustainability. Thirteen young men were served with twelve young men participating in life-changing personal development planswith 2 pursuing Higher Education, 1 Skilled Trades and 9 Living Wage Employment. Community Housing - Dream Centers of Michigan is committed to meeting the housing needs of low-income families and individuals by offering multi-family units, renovating existing homes and building new homes for ownership and equity in the Pontiac Community. Dream Centers currently has three housing units that are rented out to single mothers.

Community Engagement/Basic Needs: For the families that come through the doors of the Dream Center, hunger is never far from their minds as they face the reality of food shortage daily. Our hope is that families don't have to face that reality alone. During the Thanksgiving holiday, 1600 Thanksgiving Boxes, filled with food to provide a complete Thanksgiving meal, were distributed to families in Pontiac. We served our community with 800 back packs, dinner for 350 families at our Neighborhood Block Party and provided emergency assistance for 15 people.

Economic Empowerment: Through literacy, workforce development, mentoring, transportation, and general education, we provide opportunities for kids, teens, and adults to be equipped with life skills necessary to overcome the obstacles of poverty. The Workforce Development Program includes pre-employment readiness, job placement and assignment of a life coach. We offer life skills classes for all adult clients including such topics as conflict management, financial management, communication, computer skills, resume writing and interview skills, etc. The Workforce Development program served 40 people this year. The Social Enterprise Program pioneers partnerships with businesses employing those with barriers to employment on-site at the Dream Center providing life skills education, technical skills, childcare, and transportation with the goal of participants transitioning to sustainable living wage employment in the marketplace. The Social Enterprise partnership with Morrell Group & Brite Pet Products served 9 people with 5 employment positions available. During the year, 7 people moved towards self-sustainability, 3 obtained affordable housing and 5 were employed +90 days.

Education: We partner with the Pontiac School District, Beyond Basics and Bloomfield Tennis & Fitness to offer kid's K-5th grade an opportunity to improve their grade-level reading and become proficient as a tennis player. We typically serve 35-40 kids. Our post literacy-assessment tests results showed that 75% of the students showed improvement and 25% of the students stayed the same. We were able to have our Kids Summer Camp this year with 90 kids in attendance. We also did an extension of our After School Program by offering Kids Summer Tennis at Bloomfield Tennis & Fitness for 27 kids.