When Poverty Kills and Society Blames Black Mothers
- Chardá Bell
- Mar 19
- 7 min read
I don’t usually watch the news. It feels like a slow bleed of anxiety. Which, for a heart already wired for worry like mine, it only makes the noise louder. But lately, I’ve felt this need—almost a responsibility feeling—to stay aware. To brace for whatever fresh threat is being inflicted upon our communities, our bodies, our babies, under an administration that doesn’t have a moral compass.
On a slow weekday afternoon my work day was done, the familiar tunes of nursery rhymes filled my room as my sweet baby girl nestled in the crook of my arm dozed off at the comfort of my breast. I looked for something on the TV to unwind a bit during her nap time as we had fallen into this rhythm—her turn for songs and colors, my turn for scrolling headlines, the Karamo show and my fair share of cooking videos. A postpartum bargaining of sorts that comes naturally as a part time work from home parent. But that day, when it became my turn, I stumbled across something that shook me to the core. That’s when I learned about Tateona Williams of Detroit, Michigan. A devoted mother who made sure her children were fed, educated, and wrapped in love.
She showed up. She asked for help. She kept going when the systems around her failed to show up for her. And STILL—despite her best efforts—two of her children passed away in a parked car as victims of a housing crisis they didn’t create and a society that punishes poverty with death.
Tateona Williams called the city of Detroit in November for help finding shelter for her family after learning their living arrangement with a relative was no longer working out.
But Williams never reached a resolution with the homeless response team, and no one followed up, even after the city opened a new drop-in shelter for families just a few weeks later, its mayor said.
The cause, initially reported as hypothermia, was later found to be carbon monoxide poisoning—a tragic outcome of trying to survive another night of homelessness.
I watched in horror and I quietly wept, salty tears slowly dropping onto my sleeping baby. My partner urged me to turn it off knowing I’d seen enough. But I couldn’t. I needed to know more. I needed to understand. I wanted to scream it out into the world that Tateona’s children did not die because of her!
Tateona and her children had no choice but to sleep in their car, like so many others who are denied access to shelter in cities facing housing shortages and legacy disinvestment.
Instead of compassion or accountability from the systems that failed her, Tateona was met with criminal charges—as were members of her family like her own mother, the grandmother of the children. As if grief weren’t already crushing their lungs.
As I watched this story unfold, I was struck with a battery of emotions of horror, shock, outrage, because once again...
America looked at a Black mother in crisis and saw a scapegoat, not a survivor.
But let’s be honest, Tateona’s children did not die because of neglect. They died because of capitalism. They died because of a society that criminalizes poverty and treats housing, food, and warmth as luxuries to be earned—not rights that all children, all families, are entitled to, instead we have a system designed to punish Black mothers and families for falling through the cracks created by this country.
Detroit’s Legacy of Housing Inequity Is Deadly
So I dove deeper. I’m a bit of a sponge—my partner lovingly refers to me as a walking Wikipedia page. And what I found peeled back every layer of what we already know…Detroit’s housing crisis is not new. It is a city with a deep history of racialized housing segregation and disinvestment. According to the University of Michigan School of Public Health, decades of redlining, discriminatory lending, and predatory development have left Black communities in Detroit vulnerable to unstable housing and related health crises.
As the University of Michigan study states:
“Historical housing discrimination has left a lasting imprint on Detroit residents’ health, leading to higher rates of asthma, mental health conditions, and premature death.”
Over 80% of Detroit residents are renters. The majority are Black. And a shocking portion of them are rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than half their income just to keep a roof overhead. Black Detroiters are far more likely to face eviction, lead exposure, utility shutoffs, and unsafe housing conditions.
For Tateona Williams and countless others, this is not abstract. It’s lived. It’s deadly.
But housing is only one part of the story. Michigan also ranks among the worst states for healthcare disparities for Black residents. According to Planet Detroit, Black Michiganders face significantly higher rates of infant mortality, maternal death, and chronic illness than their white counterparts. Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications. And when it comes to critical support for any parent navigating housing insecurity—access is fragmented and underfunded, especially for uninsured or underinsured Black families.
When Tateona asked for help, she wasn’t just asking for a bed. She was asking for care, dignity, and a chance to live. And she was denied.
The Lethality of Poverty
What I desperately need people to understand is that poverty is more than an economic condition—it is a public health crisis. For Black families in America, poverty is often a result of layered oppressions such as the generational impact of racial wealth gaps, housing discrimination, environmental racism, employment bias, and the sheer cost of surviving in a system never built for us to thrive. Add gender to the mix, and Black mothers, in particular, are forced to carry the burden of this inequity on their backs while being vilified at every turn.
This is NOT a coincidence. It’s SYSTEMIC.
The Columbia University "Detroit Impact Report" shows that Detroit children are among the most vulnerable in the country. They are more likely to live in poverty, face food insecurity, and breathe in environmental hazards. Let's not forget about the Flint water crisis.
Even when community groups build solutions, the system starves them of support.
Tateona Williams is not an outlier, she is a face of intersectional injustice. She represents the way that Black mothers, especially those living in poverty, are positioned at the crossroads of multiple systems of oppression.
As noted in the New Detroit Racial Equity Report, Black residents in Detroit experience a drastically lower median household income compared to white residents, even when education levels are equal. Black women, in particular, face racism and sexism in employment, with higher rates of underemployment, wage discrimination, and job insecurity.
Black women are the most likely demographic to be single heads of household, and yet are paid less than their white and male counterparts. Which by the way is often why they are unable to meet the common breastfeeding goal of 6 months or longer, as they often return to work before 6 weeks. They are more likely to be evicted, denied loans, or have their children removed by child welfare agencies—not because of harm, but because of poverty. A mother asking for help is not a sign of neglect; it’s a signal flare. And we ignore it far too often.
Let’s call it what it is criminalizing Black motherhood. Tateona’s story is part of a broader pattern of nationwide violence that treats poverty moral failing not a policy failure by blaming mothers instead of interrogating the systems that left them stranded.
The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Structural Violence
Intersectionality is imperative to understanding the compounding layers of this profound loss. Black women like Tateona are navigating multiple forms of oppression at once. When they experience poverty, it is not simply about lack of income—it is about a social and economic structure that denies access to livable wages, affordable housing, adequate healthcare, and reliable safety nets. The criminalization of Black motherhood is a uniquely American tradition, fueled by stereotypes of the “unfit” Black mother and narratives that center blame rather than systemic failure.
If Tateona Williams were white, would the headlines and the charges look the same?
Would the story have been met with more empathy, more action, more calls for housing reform instead of incarceration?
These are the vulnerable conversations we as a society need to be having every day to do better.
For those who are more compelled to empathize when they have data, The Columbia University “Detroit Impact Report” provides a sobering picture:
Detroit children, just like Tateona’s children, are more likely to live in poverty than in nearly any other major U.S. city.
Black families face increased exposure to environmental hazards, food insecurity, and structural barriers to upward mobility.
Despite community based solutions and resilience, systemic neglect continues to shape life and death in Detroit’s Black neighborhoods.
This emphasizes is the need for policy rooted in equity, not charity. And that begins with listening to the people most impacted. People like Tateona.
Media, Motherhood, and the Myth of the Unfit Black Mother
It never fails. When something tragic happens, the mother becomes the first and easiest target for blame. And if she’s Black? The story writes itself. We’ve seen it over and over again. The Mammy. The Welfare Queen. The criminal.
There is also a long history of media portraying Black mothers and women as lazy, negligent, dangerous, or undeserving of grace. This is racism. This is misogyny. This is deflecting from the real culprit, a society that makes survival a full-time job plus overtime for Black women and then punishes them when they inevitably need rest, relief, or help.
We are quick to judge. Slow to listen. And even slower to provide care.
How do we grow from here?
This cannot keep happening. We cannot allow our response to poverty to be punishment.
We must:
• Expanding access to stable, dignified housing. Housing is a human right, not a prize for those who “deserve” it. Emergency shelters, long-term supportive housing, rent control policies, and universal housing vouchers must be funded and prioritized
• Invest in Black maternal and family support systems that actually serve, rather than surveil, mothers. That means community led wraparound care, mental health services, and child care support.
• Hold systems accountable, not just individuals. If a mother asks for help and is ignored, the failure is not hers—it is ours.
Tateona Williams deserves support and safety, not sentencing.
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Tateona Williams did what so many Black mothers do every day, she showed up, she loved her children fiercely, and she asked for help. She deserved shelter, not shame. This tragedy was not the result of parental neglect. It was the result of social neglect—policy neglect—of a nation that would rather arrest a mother than admit its failures.
We owe Tateona and every family like hers more than our outrage. We owe them justice, care, policy change, and a radical reimagining of how we support families—not after tragedy strikes, but before.
“Anyway I don't think we can rely on governments, regardless of who is in power, to do the work that only mass movements can do.”
― Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement
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