- Hi, I'm Christy McDonald and here's what's coming up this week on One Detroit.

The recovery of small businesses in Michigan with SBAM president Brian Kelly.

Plus a closer look at the difficult struggle for many people to get out of poverty and just how expensive it is to be broke.

Then a new exhibit changing the narrative about Black men.

And the world-renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts celebrates a major milestone.

It is all coming up this week on One Detroit.

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(upbeat music) - Hi there and welcome to One Detroit, I'm Christy McDonald.

Thanks so much for joining me this week.

I trust you had a good Thanksgiving.

We are now in the middle of Hanukkah and the Christmas season is upon us.

But COVID numbers are skyrocketing here in Michigan.

Hospitalizations are at a record high and the Federal Government is sending in medical teams to help support the hospital systems here.

We will be following all you need to know, just head to onedetroitpbs.org.

Also coming up this week, we are taking a look at how expensive it can be to be poor, it's an in-depth report.

Plus we'll head to Northern Michigan and the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Talented students come from around the world to the fine arts high school.

You'll hear about the completion of a campus master plan that began over 30 years ago and why it's so significant in the fine arts world.

And we'll take you to see a new exhibit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.

It's aimed at changing the narrative about Black men.

It's a story from American Black Journal, and it's all ahead on the show.

We're starting off with the recovery of small businesses in Michigan as we continue to navigate COVID, inflation and job change.

Former Lieutenant Governor Brian Kelly is now the President of the Small Business Association of Michigan and our One Detroit contributor Nolan Finley met up with Brian to talk about the challenges the businesses face now.

- Brian, what is the state of small business in Michigan today?

- Well, it depends on what industry you're talking about, but overall things generally headed in the right direction.

We saw a big bounce after the restrictions were lifted, but very quickly, what rose to the top of the list are two main concerns that we're now hearing across the board, which are costs rising faster than what many businesses have ever seen and then trouble filling open positions.

So there's this desire to grow and intention to grow, open positions out there today, rising wages and sign-on bonuses pulling out all the tricks to try and get more applicants in, but just cannot find the people to fill the demand.

- Brian, how close to a crisis are we with this?

And does it have the potential to derail our economic growth?

- When you see these things, these workforce shortages in certain areas, it will spill into other areas for the holiday season, which is the majority of so many retailers business, they make or break their whole year based on that holiday season.

The logistics problems could really get in the way of that.

So you could see how this could cascade.

And then on top of that, we already have these shortages, but imagine all the workers on these container ships that have been out on the water for months, and then it gets delayed.

What I'm worried about is that the logistics problems will get worse when people finally get off the boat and say, "I'm not getting back on."

- Right, so when you talked about higher prices for small businesses, what's driving that?

Is that also in the labor shortage?

- Part of it is the labor shortage when you see costs rising as a result of that.

You'll also though see that when the Federal Government drops trillions of dollars extra into the economy, and it's not tied to productivity increases or anything that sustainable, it's just, you get this short-term boost in demand, and it's not like there's tons of extra supply out there.

I mean it's supply meets what the normal demand is.

So when you create a lot of artificial short-term demand, you get these shortages.

So for example, I was with a restaurant owner the other day and we got to talk about the rising expenses.

40 pounds of chicken wings used to cost 70, 80 bucks, now 240, there's just so much more in terms of demand and just not the supply and the supply systems to meet it.

And if you think about it, why would somebody invest multi-millions into creating new supply when really this increase in demand is artificial?

It's not really sustainable.

- So you got businesses scrambling to get workers paying higher wages.

What other patchwork solutions are they putting in place Brian?

- Well, you see a lot of prioritization happening.

So in terms of what products, what goods, what services, what times to be open, they have to prioritize because there's only so much work you can put on the current workforce.

And therefore they have to decide, "Okay, well, we've got so many man hours.

"We're gonna have to focus here and here, "and then we're gonna let some other opportunities go."

And that's just leaving growth and economic activity on the table.

So it's really, it's tough because you normally see after a recession, you see this bounce back and particularly in small business, about 12 months later, we're in that period now.

And so many entrepreneurs are ready to go and there's demand, it's just pieces that are required to deliver are just not available at this time.

- That's gotta be stuck in their mind as they consider opening a business, whether they'll be able to hire the staff to keep it running.

- That is something that I think that we're already experiencing, but it's probably going to ramp up is the idea that, hey, look, there's growth and there's demand, and we'd love to go out and do it, but I can't even fill the positions that I have open today.

So these growth plans for the future are going to have to be put on hold.

- As look ahead, what do you see over the next year for our small business community in Michigan?

- I do know that however this business, all these challenges settle and in whatever that new environment looks like in the future, they're gonna find a way to operate.

But what I'm concerned about is that over time, there will be attrition and being small, it gets harder and harder with these challenges.

If you have your own container ship, well, it's a lot easier to manage your logistics than if you're relying on somebody else's.

And so the idea of attrition, and just more and more over time, going toward private equity firms and bigger companies, nothing wrong with private equity firms and bigger companies, but we need the locally-owned businesses.

It's not a luxury.

It is a necessity.

That's my biggest long-term concern.

- COVID-19 really put American social safety net programs to the test and made long standing systemic issues, more visible.

So One Detroit's Will Glover took a look at one of those issues, how expensive it can be to be broke.

Will spoke with experts working to lift people out of poverty, those who've experienced the added cost of low wages and examines how making more money pushes some who still need assistance off of a financial cliff.

- [Will] COVID-19 has stressed American social safety net, already compromised before the pandemic.

One thing it's highlighting, how expensive poverty actually is.

- The complexity of poverty is a shocker.

- [Will] This is Circles USA's Michigan Executive Director, Suzanne Van Dam and Circles' Coach Bonita Bingham.

Circles USA pairs middle and high income allies with low-income clients, developing networks and plans to pull clients out of poverty.

- So one of the first thing, the narrative needs to change around poor people don't wanna work, right?

No poor people don't wanna work.

I'm really tired of hearing that because what that fails to take a look at is why poor people who are young, they're getting so much unemployment.

They're finally able getting enough money to pay their rent and buy groceries, right?

So people are being looked at in a negative way because they finally get to exhale a minute because they're not working three jobs trying to make ends meet.

- It costs more to be poor, why is that?

And a lot of those barriers are systemic.

If there was a disincentive to work sometimes given the way our public assistance is needed out.

- [Will] Suzanne is referring to the benefits clip, which is when a person or family loses benefits because of a small race.

It puts them in a position where they still can't pay for their basic needs, but earn just enough to disqualify them from receiving assistance.

The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity recognizes our state's benefits programs are inadequate and designed to be extremely difficult to access.

This is Melissa Dunn, a single mother who got help from the Washtenaw County Circles Program.

She now works in the medical field and lives in Southwest Detroit, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still need help.

Is that what your experience was?

Do you think that it was almost set up to make it hard for you to get any of the assistance that you did receive?

- Absolutely.

Yes.

And for me being a single mom, just because I have a croupier and you know, doesn't mean that I should be disqualified for that.

Just because I make maybe a little bit more money than some people doesn't mean that I don't need the help, I don't need the assistance.

- So it might be a cut to their food stamps or their housing subsidy or their childcare.

And so that actually an increase in income results in a net overall net decrease, because they can lose all of these benefits abruptly all at once, and that's a good example of a systems barrier.

It's not just one person dealing with this, but many people.

- Food stamps, it was 10 or $15 a month.

It was never more than that.

I never got any rental assistance.

I never got any assistance for any bills.

I struggled a lot.

- [Will] When I asked local residents on social media how they were surviving on low pay, there were more than 150 responses.

Stephanie said high rental costs prevent saving for home ownership.

Samantha couldn't cover bus fare to her job.

Lisa got hit with extra fees for not having money, which can lead to what's called bill cycling.

- This month, I'm gonna pay my rent.

And next month I'm gonna pay the power bill.

And the next month I will get part of my medication and part of my rent - Part of my rent and part of my med.

- Like what?

(Suzanne laughing) How does that work?

And then that gets at how the complexity of that is that when all of those things get way to it.

- [Will] Natalie zeroed in on another kind of cliff effect.

One that disproportionately forces women out of the workforce, the childcare care cliff, where the cost of childcare exceeds a person's income.

- I'm wondering why it's so hard to find people right now.

We have a childcare shortage, but we also have the child care cliff is one of the most severe.

- I got pregnant when I was 17.

Had him two months after I turned 18 and got in the medical field.

And because I made more than minimum wage, that automatically just put me into the cliff effect.

- Michigan has one of the most severe cliffs.

So people working, parents lose their childcare subsidies very early on, and then to get normal childcare could cost up to 40% of your income.

- According to Michelle Robinson from the Wayne Metro Community Action Agency, poverty doesn't only stifle the poor.

- And what people don't often realize is what happens in Detroit, impacts all of Metro Detroit.

So if the property values in Detroit are lower, the property values in Metro Detroit are lower just because all of those things, they domino, they spiral out.

So everything that happens at the core just kind of works its way out.

And we're not realizing that you may be in Metro Detroit, but you're actually paying more for a good or a service because of something that's impacting a lower income resident.

So building those incomes, it actually does have a positive impact on the rest of us as a whole.

- [Will] Benefits cliffs, late fees and childcare costs are complicated systemic policy issues that require complex solutions to break the cycle that keeps people in poverty.

- So from average citizen to average citizen, the first thing that you can do is educate yourself on the local level on what is going on right in and around you.

The second thing that you can do as an average citizen is being involved in the process.

With my vote, I used to vote the straight ticket, no questions asked.

Now, before I cast my vote, I do some research.

How will this policy impact me?

How will what's happening impact my household and the people around me?

- The narrative like a living wage started saying, who wants to not look to work for something that's not a living wage?

And like we said, it's not a matter of cobbling together, more and more and more jobs because people get exhausted and they have kids that need love and attention.

And so just to put it all on this kind of exploited person is really not fair.

- [Will] The Department of Labor and Economic Opportunities has a long list of recommended policy changes like adopting a cost of living adjustment for all benefits, no longer stripping benefits from parents whose child misses school.

What Melissa wants is much more simple.

- We don't want to survive any more.

We want to thrive in life.

- For more on our report on poverty and resources, just head to our website, at onedetroitpbs.org.

Now to one of the most prestigious fine arts schools in the country, Interlochen Arts Academy.

It's located in Northern Michigan, just about 15 miles away from Traverse City, but it is world-renowned.

30 years ago, Interlochen came up with a master plan to help the school evolve from a summer-only, music-only organization to the year round multidisciplinary global arts and education institution that it is today.

This fall, Interlochen celebrated the completion of that 30-year plan and launched a second goal.

I spoke to the president of Interlochen, Trey Devey.

Trey Debbie from Interlochen.

It's great to see you and what a fantastic celebration this fall, really the culmination of 30 years, a 30-year plan.

Yeah.

Thank you, Christy.

We really couldn't be more proud of our community and a tenacity to get to this point over these three decades.

- Talk to us specifically about some of the facilities that stand out and how they are state of the art.

- The beautiful thing about each of the facilities is that our faculty and artistic leaders help guide the development of those projects.

So when you're in the writing house, as an example, and if you're interested in creative writing, I know every time I go in there, there's the fireplace, there's these small intimate nooks and crannies.

You just wanna write your first novel.

The music center was the largest single project in the history of Interlochen.

So that was a $24 million, 60,000 square foot facility, rivals anything that you would experience at the collegian or the professional level.

And then some of the more recent projects were the dance center, right on the shores of GreenLake, it's essentially this fishbowl, all glass, can see out to the water, can see the work of the dancers from all over campus.

But because we engaged our artistic leaders, we ended up with facilities that were just really purpose designed for those students.

- Talk about the importance of expanding this kind of education, fine arts education for young people.

- Creative education is going to be one that will stand the test of time.

The arts develop this level of resilience that our students are gonna need now and in the future.

We know that about half of our kids will go into the arts in some form and half of them will go into other fields, but they'll take their creativity with them wherever they go.

- So when you celebrated this major milestone, this 30-year master plan, of course, all of the students were a big part of that in their performance, describe what the weekend was like.

- We brought all of our campus together.

We dedicated the final two facilities, the Dance Center and the Dow House, which is the residence hall.

And then we had a series of performances throughout the day on Friday, covering all of the disciplines in these various spaces.

And so that was amazing.

And then we came together again that evening, and this was students, faculty, staff, alumni supporters.

And we said, "Thank you."

Then we talked a bit about where we're going and we're seven years away from our 100th anniversary.

And so we talked about how we wanna be even more excellent for our students and how we wanna provide even greater access.

So these two themes are really where we're going in the years ahead.

- I love when you talk about access and being able to expand, what are some of the maybe specific plans about getting to other areas and seeing this is an opportunity for you to be able to come here to Interlochen.

- We've started programs in various areas around the country, Detroit is an area of focus.

We've got a program called Opportunity Scholars, which is essentially saying if you've got passion and potential, and we see that promise in you, we don't want the price of Interlochen to stand in the way.

So they're scholarships that are available for students to come in the summer.

Eventually what we'd like to achieve is to meet the full demonstrated financial need of every young person who applies.

So if you're accepted, we're gonna meet your family's full demonstrated need.

That's what we hope to do.

And so between now and our 100th anniversary, it's our goal when we enter our second century of Interlochen, that's that's the gift that we wanna give to everyone in Michigan and really beyond.

- What do you see on the horizon of how the pandemic has changed the arts and how you have responded to that at Interlochen?

- Well, for one thing, we've begun virtual education.

And over the last 18, 19 months, we've served about 3,000 young people through online education.

And this has been a real opportunity for us to break down barriers and bring our faculty to more young people.

- Well, we can't wait to see what happens in these next seven years Trey, and we fully expect to check in with you along the way, and then celebrate 100 years of Interlochen very, very soon, it will be great.

- Thank you, Christy.

It's tremendous to be on your show, I really appreciate it.

- For more on the Interlochen Center for the Arts, just head to our website at onedetroitpbs.org.

The Ford Motor Company Fund is teaming up with the Charles H. Wright museum of African American history to advance positive stories about Black men.

It's called men of change, power, triumph, truth.

It's a traveling Smithsonian exhibit that celebrates Black men who changed culture and history.

Stephen Henderson talked with museum CEO, Neil Barclay, and Ford men of courage program manager, Justin Kimson on American Black Journal.

- Men Of Change is as you say, a traveling exhibit was developed by the Smithsonian.

It really looks to change the narrative about what we think about Black men and how those stories are told and related, the media, and other areas of American life.

And I think what we loved about it, bringing it to the light was both the notion that there were some very prominent names in the exhibit, James Baldman, Muhammad Ali, Du Bois, Kendrick Lamar, but also that it pared these stories with artists who were doing similar things in their own artistic practice and work like, Nina Chanel Abney, Derrick Adams, Robert Pruitt, Devin Shimoyama.

So that combination was really attracted to us.

And also the notion that there were very prominent figures, but there are also some people that aren't well known, but when you hear their stories, you're inspired by the work they're doing within their own communities.

- And telling these kinds of stories about African-American men, you would think in 2021, we wouldn't have to look hard for opportunities to do that.

But Neil, one of the reasons that the museum is so important, that the space there and the dedication of that space is so important is because we still struggle to get these stories out there.

- We really do.

It's amazing in 2021 that this is still, so some people, a new story of fresh stories of revelation, if you will, that there are these men doing these incredible thing, again, well-known but not well known that are just everyday, sort of hitting the pavement, if you will trying to make their communities better, contributing to American life.

It was just been the story of course of African-Americans from time and memorial.

Our stories are really under told a lot in the the American historical narratives that we hear, but this is an important part of the work that we do is just bringing these kinds of stories to light, right?

- Yeah.

So Justin, this fits into this larger national effort, really to draw more attention to stories, positive stories of the African-American men.

Tell me about Men of Change in general, in a more general sense.

- So men of Men of Courage, is a tongue-twister sometimes-- (all laughing) - Men of Exhibit, Men of Courage.

- The beauty of it is that we work together hand-in-hand.

So Men of Courage as you know, started in 2015, sponsored by and created by the Ford Motor Company Fund, ultimately to change the narrative regarding African-American men.

And so the early rendition of Men of Courage, we went around the country and hosted summits, intergenerational summits with African-American men to storyboard, to visionize what it means to better their communities.

And so since that time we've been really, really busy.

And at the beginning of 2019, we launched the Barbershop challenge.

We created a national leadership forum that we travel and companion with the Men of Change exhibition.

So we've been to over, I would say, this is our fifth city to date.

And so we are really excited about just the stories, because that's really where you get the true essence of what it is to be a Black man, to learn these different stories about Black men across the country.

And as one commonality that I found as I've traveled across the country is that we're all the same.

We may live in different communities, in different cultures, but we want the same things.

We want our stories to be told.

We wanna be heard because we have contributions that we want the world to know that we exist and we're relevant, and we are strong and we are ready to make our mark in this world.

- The exhibit runs through the first week of January at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.

Just head to onedetroitpbs.org for more and all of the stories that we're working on.'

That is gonna do it for us this week, but make sure you join us for One Detroit Arts and Culture, that's Mondays at 7:30 p.m.

I'll see you then, take care.

(upbeat music)