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Students on the Clinic Master’s Project team with Cass Community Social Services (CCSS) pose outside the CCSS headquarters in Detroit. The students presented their project findings to CCSS leadership in April 2024, and also received Clinic t-shirts. Photo credit: V. Wilkinson, SEAS.
Project Dates: Fall 2022–Spring 2024
Client: Cass Community Social Services
SEAS Faculty Advisor: Lisa DuRussel, Assistant Professor of Practice, Landscape Architecture
SEAS Students: Kyle Anderson, Walid Bamehriz, Michael Grady, Nana Temple, Taylor Valentine, Parker Wise
About the Client
Cass Community Social Services (CCSS) is a Detroit-based nonprofit organization that provides food, housing, mental health services, and job opportunities in areas of Detroit where there is concentrated poverty. CCSS’s extensive community activities include preparing and serving 700,000 locally-sourced meals per year to unhoused persons or those experiencing economic hardship; offering warming centers, emergency shelters, and permanent supportive housing; and creating job opportunities in sustainability through their Green Industries program.
CCSS also operates a free medical clinic and runs a daytime activity center for adults with developmental disabilities. One recent priority for CCSS has been to create an affordable “tiny homes” neighborhood on Detroit’s northwest side. CCSS’s aim is to assist in providing accessible housing and generational wealth-building opportunities to residents with limited housing resources and low income, while transforming the city’s vacant land for enhanced public benefit.
About the Project
CCSS sought assistance from SEAS in establishing a vision and plan for the sustainable redevelopment of the Cass neighborhood, while proactively broadening the scope of its services beyond its current community offerings. DuRussel and her student project team supported CCSS with an exploration of public engagement and future development options, ranging from programming, design and mapping, to education, communication and environmental justice initiatives.
The project team took a three-phase approach to assisting CCSS in building a new vision and strategy. First, the team members reviewed CCSS’s current and past work, met with the organization’s staff, became acquainted with the Cass neighborhood and site history, and developed an understanding of the precedent and need for the project. In the second phase of the project, the team investigated redevelopment best practices that were successfully implemented in similar neighborhoods across the country. The last phase of the project included crafting and finalizing a formal sustainable development plan, community master plan, and toolkit for CCSS to use into the future. Additionally, the SEAS team identified partnership opportunities with organizations in Detroit to further support CCSS in its sustainable redevelopment of the Cass neighborhood.
Read the final report here.
"Climate and sustainability issues can feel incredibly vast, so being able to zoom in on a local Detroit community and get a sense of what folks are facing is very rewarding and helps ground you in the work you’re doing." - Taylor Valentine, MS '24, Visioning Cass Clinic Master's Project