![]() He said Detroit needs more people like Cunningham. Renard Monczunski, another member of Detroit People Platform’s Transit Justice Team, said he first met Cunningham at a 2015 city council meeting. “The buses would show up hours and hours late because then there was a shortage of buses. “I was riding the bus every day for about eight years and what I saw was just devastating,” he said. That’s when he first realized how broken Detroit’s transportation system is, he said. (BridgeDetroit photo by Bryce Huffman)Ĭunningham said he has spent a lot of time over the years riding city buses just to stay warm. As a former frequent rider himself, Cunningham said he knows what it’s like to wait for hours in the cold. ![]() Cunningham started passing out hand warmers and bus passes a few years ago. The need for hand and foot warmers for people waiting on buses that don’t show up on time is crucial.” Detroit transit advocate Michael Cunningham II passes out hand warmers to people waiting at the Rosa Parks Transit Center in downtown Detroit on March 6, 2023. And I know them toes and them hands get cold out here. “You can read about something, but experience teaches you so much. He said a lot of the work he does now – including his taxicab service and giving out bus passes and hand warmers – came directly from his experience with homelessness. Although he said he has owned and rented homes in the past, he is currently “living directly in the taxi cab,” between short stays with friends.Ĭunningham started his taxicab “side hustle” in 2019 as a way to help Detroiters get where they need to go. ‘Experience is a teacher’Īfter his incarceration and accessing medical care, Cunningham said he still struggled to find employment – and for about eight years has experienced housing instability.Ĭunningham told BridgeDetroit that he has applied to “many” low-income apartments, but was rejected due to a lapse in full-time employment. “The City of Detroit needs more people like Cunningham, that’s willing to go in the trenches, work for the people, advocate for them,” Hopkins-Stweart told BridgeDetroit. He also makes daily trips to a nursing home to visit with his mother, she said. She and others said Cunningham offers bus cards and food to residents who need it as well as transportation to the polls on Election Day. Hopkins-Stewart regards Cunningham as a man “for the residents of Detroit.” Rochella Hopkins-Stweart, an organizer with the Detroit People’s Platform Transit Justice Team, said she considers Cunningham like a brother. “This was before I was on medication and before I knew I had a purpose in my life,” he said. Due to mental health issues, Cunningham said, he also had “countless” stints in psychiatric hospitals. ![]() Then, he served another six months in Oakland County Jail for violating his probation. In his early 30s, he said, Cunningham got caught stealing and spent nine months behind bars in Cuyahoga County Jail in Ohio. He could no longer work and received disability benefits, but said the money “wasn’t enough to pay the bills.” So Cunningham said he began stealing expensive goods to make ends meet. Eventually, he found a job as a meat cutter at a Farmer Jack grocery store.Ĭunningham said a back injury on the job sidelined him. “Transportation is very important, especially in Detroit and for it to be such a big and amazing city, our transportation should improve,” she said, “and he’s never forgotten how it was to wait two hours on a bus on a regular day.”Īs a teenager, Cunningham said he began looking for ways to help provide for the family and himself, but said there weren’t many great opportunities. ![]() “So thanks to that, we just had to catch the bus.”Įvans said Cunningham’s activism is borne out of his own reliance on the city’s transit system. “Our mom worked midnights, so there were a lot of days where she would be sleep when we had to go places,” Evans told BridgeDetroit. Tia Evans, Cunningham’s older sister, said her brother was a “very opinionated” child and he began taking the bus on a regular basis when he was about 11 years old. “No child support, no new clothes, he just wasn’t really there for us.” “My mom told me a long time ago that one day he’ll show his true character and that’s exactly what happened,” he said. “She was a registered nurse and worked two or three or four jobs at one time to take care of us.”Ĭunningham said his father wasn’t completely absent from his life growing up, but he didn’t provide for his children. ![]() “She was a single mother of four, no child support,” Cunningham said. He and three siblings were raised on the city’s east side by a “strong and very religious” single mother, Cheryl Lyons. “After 10 years of doing your thing helping other people, it’s just about doing that,” he added, “and it ain’t about nobody saying ‘thank you’ and about getting an award.” ‘A man for the residents’Ĭunningham said his upbringing was far from ideal. ![]()
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