Citizen Vox: Parent searches for fresh ideas and better schools this election

Citizens hold the ultimate political power under the U.S. Constitution.

But do people in Metro Detroit feel they have the power to change or affect the government?

WDET posed that question as part of our Citizen Vox project.

Former Detroiter Stephanie Cochran says she doubts that she will feel that authority over government until a new generation of politicians take office.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Stephanie Cochran: Culture is evolving, generations are growing, and we need fresh, young, new faces with fresh, new, young ideas that understand how times have changed. I understand tradition is important. But we have to evolve with the growing society. So, until we get new, young, fresh faces in there, we’ll never have the control. It is our right and our power to choose who we put in there. But the masses put the same people in office every time.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: If there were some fresh, new faces in there, what issues would you like to see them try to address right now?

SC: Livable wages, that’s my first thing. People are miserable in their situations. They’re working just to get by and they’re not even getting by. Most households have a minimum of two jobs per adult. In situations like that I need job security, I need better jobs, I need higher-paying jobs.

And that leads directly into affordable housing. I had to move out of the city of Detroit because I couldn’t afford to live in the city anymore. For what I was paying for a studio apartment on the riverfront, I now have a whole three bedroom home in Warren. It’s like I was bullied out of my neighborhood. I grew up in that neighborhood, I had been there since childhood. And I was bullied out because people with higher incomes have come in and bought up all the property, redeveloped it, and now everything is astronomical and sky high for native Detroiters to stay in their communities.

QK: City officials in Detroit, among many other officials, often push the need for affordable housing and that they’re addressing it. But that doesn’t seem to be having much of an impact in your view?

SC: Not really, because it sprinkles here and there. If you really want to see some dynamic impact, invest in the communities. Go door to door, knock on people’s doors, offer them grant money. “Can we help you fix your house up? Do you need some assistance buying the lot next to you so you can maintain it on our behalf?” Get creative with the options. Don’t just throw up a high-rise or a complex in the worst neighborhood in the city and call it affordable housing, knowing it’s only 40 units in that building. That’s 40 families taken care of out of what, thousands?

QK: Other issues that might be important to you?

SC: Inflation is definitely a a worry, especially with the tariffs constantly fluctuating and us being right here on the Canadian border. We see the price influx first.

QK: If you were elected to whatever position, how do you think you would go about trying to attack those issues?

SC: The first thing is more open lines of communication between the political scene and the direct constituency it serves. I think if we had more clear, concise conversations, more people voice their concerns and they were actually heard, we would get a lot farther.

QK: Does it feel like you’re kind of cut off from some of the representatives right now?

SC: It does, it does. You call and you get their aides or their voicemail. Or you’ll send an email and it will go through a chain of command. And by the time you’ve gotten your issue to someone who has the power to help, it’s either no longer an issue or you’re too exhausted to keep fighting.

For me personally, being the parent of a recent high school graduate who had to take her child to a suburban school district to feel confident in the education she was receiving, I want Detroit’s school system to pull it together. There are schools in Detroit that don’t have computer labs. There are schools in Detroit that don’t even have enough books per student. There are suburban schools that send laptops home with their students at the beginning of the school year that is theirs to maintain for the rest of the school year. Why can’t Detroit have that same type of opportunity for our students?