Tour The Matrix Center Renovations with CEO Brad Coulter
From the Detroit Housing & Revitalization Department:
Meet Public Facility Rehabilitation Grant Recipient Matrix Human Services!
In the 1990s, Matrix Human Services purchased a church on Detroit’s East Side for a dollar. Now dubbed The Matrix Center, the church is home to Matrix’s social mobility center, where residents can participate in high school diploma completion, workforce development, and financial education programs.
With the help of grants from the City of Detroit Government‘s Detroit Housing & Revitalization Department, the center recently received a facelift to provide residents a space where they could feel inspired.
“It still did not look like a place of hope,” said Kerrie Mitchell, Matrix Human Services’ Vice President of Marketing and Development. “We wanted to make sure that they came to places that they felt comfortable, looked like a place of hope, looked like a place of resilience, and looked like you can really become something different. We wanted the Matrix Center to look like a change agent.”
The grants from the Housing and Revitalization Department helped support a variety of improvements to the center. They added building features that help residents with disabilities navigate the space, improved the center’s fire alarm systems, and added energy-efficient windows. Matrix also added more bathrooms and repainted the space.
“When people come into The Matrix Center, we want them to be transformed,” Mitchell said. “That’s what these new developments are helping us to be able to do. We want people to walk in and see that this is something that is for them, that’s going to inspire them to be better.”