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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's homeless count in 2025 recorded more than 30,000 homeless veterans nationwide. One local group trying to change that is Second Mission Veterans Housing Initiative. They are holding an event at the Warren Community Center on Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. to learn more about what causes veteran homelessness and provide resources. Don Berry Sr. and Jay Anderson are both veterans with 13 years of service respectively. Don is the CEO and founder of the Second Mission Veterans Housing Initiative and Jay is the group’s creative outreach director. They joined The Metro to speak with Tia Graham.

Every Veterans Day, veterans hear the same five words: Thank you for your service. A 2023 survey found about half say the phrase makes them uncomfortable, and younger veterans feel it most. Kevin Scott served in the Marines during Desert Storm. Now he’s a therapist who helps other veterans find their footing. He tells The Metro's Robyn Vincent what veterans actually want from the rest of us, and why a coworker, neighbor or friend may be the first to notice when one is struggling.  If you or a veteran you know is struggling, call 988 and press 1, or text 838255.

Omar Offendum is a Syrian-American rapper and poet who immigrated to the United States when he was 4 years old. Growing up in Washington D.C., his music is bilingual and draws as much influence from 90s rap as it does from Arabic art. Offendum is in town this week as part of the Concert of Colors Neighborhood Series – which is partnering with the Arab American National Museum to bring his theater production, “Little Syria,” to Michigan for the first time. It will be performed Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn. Omar Offendum joined The Metro to talk with Tia Graham about his upbringing, music, and the “Little Syria” stage show. Also on the program is Concert of Colors Director of Neighborhood Programming Charles Ezra Ferrell.

Last week, many Michigan voters went to the polls with the goal of removing large political spending from corporate actors. Over 80% of voters approved Proposal 2, aka the Michiganders for Money out of Politics measure, which limits campaign contributions from utilities and large state contractors. Now DTE, Consumers Energy and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are suing to block the measure. So the question is, just how much is money corrupting our politics? And, can newly elected Democrats in Lansing and in Washington who’ve vowed to make change actually do so? Mara Ostfeld is a research associate professor at the University of Michigan’s school of public policy. Ostfeld spoke with The Metro's Robyn Vincent.

The day after 9/11, 11-year-old Abdullah Hammoud was walking home from school when a man pointed a gun at him and told him to keep walking. Last week, the city he now leads helped elect the first Muslim to the U.S. Senate. Two years after Dearborn’s vote split over Gaza, the city cast more ballots than in any recent election and gave Dr. Abdul El-Sayed 82% of its vote. Mayor Hammoud tells Robyn Vincent what drove people to the polls, from young people who can’t vote yet to residents who were grieving loved ones. He also explains what “habibi” really means, the $1.51 billion school bond and the pair of swim trunks he shared with his neighbors as a kid. Have thoughts? Email the show at [email protected]

This week, voters in Oakland and Wayne Counties approved the Southeast Michigan Public Historical Museum Authority Millage Proposal. It passed by a fairly wide margin in Wayne County, with 63% of voters approving it. In Oakland, about 53% of voters said ‘yes’.  Macomb County was not included in the proposal. That means the millage will be in place for the next 10 years. It will tax residents 20-cents for every thousand dollars of taxable property value. For a home that costs $300,000, that would come out to about $30 a year. That funding will cover the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Historical Museum, and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. Beyond that, there’s also a 15% allotment for other historical museums throughout Wayne and Oakland Counties. Assistant Director of the Michigan Museums Association Melissa Ford joined The Metro to discuss the millage with Tia Graham.

What if America’s violent past isn’t really in the past? What if it still lives in all of us today? Those are the questions at the heart of a new book, "The Savage Mind: An American Legacy." Ojibwe author David Treuer began the book as a letter to his three children. Treuer argues that violence of the American frontier never really ended. It lives inside of us.  Treuer is the son of a Jewish father and an Ojibwe mother. He and his brother grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota.  He earned his PhD in anthropology at the University of Michigan and he teaches at USC. His previous book, "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee," was a national book award finalist.  This weekend, there are two Q&A’s and book signing events for the book in metro Detroit.  Treuer will speak at The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation Saturday Nov. 7. On Sunday, Nov. 8, he'll be at the Detroit Public Library main branch alongside public historian and published author and member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Heather Bruegl.

After the August primary, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed had momentum. But his narrow defeat of Haley Stevens made some of his supporters nervous. How was he going to pick up enough voters to win the general election? After the primary, The Metro spoke to Bishop James Williams about the people he knew who were excited to vote for El-Sayed, and about those who were less certain. Bishop Williams is the founder and senior pastor of Spirit and Truth Christian Ministries in Detroit. He’s also the second vice president of the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity. That group supported El-Sayed during the primary. Williams spoke to host Robyn Vincent about what El-Sayed’s victory—and this broader political moment—means for his congregants.

Data centers were on the mind of many voters during the 2026 midterm elections. In Michigan, Democratic challenger Will Lawrence campaigned on a data center moratoriam and defeated incumbent Tom Barrett, flipping the 7th Congressional District seat.   Opposing data center construction is a national trend. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly 71% of Americans don't want them in their neighborhood. Tech policy expercy Darrell West, a senior fellow in the center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, says the ongoing battle to develop new data centers has "upended politics as we know it." He adds that the economic output of data centers isn't enough to outweigh the costs for residents as they increase local energy bills and deplete natural resources. West spoke about data centers and their effect on Michigan's midterm elections with Robyn Vincent.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed will be the first Muslim to sit in the U.S. Senate. He got there through a campaign in which his religion was the case against him — from his Republican opponent Mike Rogers, from sitting members of Congress and from President Donald Trump, who stood on a stage in Port Huron nine days before the vote and said he was there to stop a “jihadist.” Independent journalist Ali Harb covered the race from inside Michigan’s Arab American and Black communities. He joins Robyn Vincent to talk about why that language travels so easily now, why it so rarely costs the people who use it, and what a campaign like this leaves behind for Michiganders who were never on a ballot. Have thoughts? Email the show at [email protected]

Democrats won huge last night. That was in part because of the populist bent of many Democratic candidates. It was also because Republicans and President Donald Trump, in particular, made decisions — war and tariffs — that have angered voters and led to a higher cost of living. In the meantime, President Trump’s massive wealth has increased exponentially since he’s been back in office. All this has made Trump very unpopular. Still, he made the midterms all about him. Is it time for the Republican Party to distance itself from Trump? If so, what should post-Trump conservatism look like? Republican Andrea Bitely is the founder and principal of Bitely Communications. She was part of Mike Duggan’s campaign for governor. She recently wrote about her own discomfort with the Republican Party, and how she voted purple on her ballot. Bitely spoke with The Metro's Robyn Vincent.

Detroit’s politics have never been simple. This is the city that produced the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in the 1960s.  It’s also the city that voted for Haley Stevens over Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the August primary, by over 60%. And yet, recently, Democratic Socialists have been gaining a lot of ground.  At the city council level, that includes Gabriella Santiago-Romero and Denzel McCampbell. At the state level, Chris Gilmer-Hill was just voted in. And, Detroit’s Congressional members — Rashida Tlaib and member-elect Donovan McKinney, are both members of the Democratic Socialists of America.  What accounts for this trend? And, what does it say about the political leanings of Detroiters? Donna Givens-Davidson is the president and CEO of Eastside Community Network and co-host of the Authentically Detroit podcast. She was also part of Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield’s transition team.

After President Trump was elected for a second time, Democrats had been described as “lost in the wilderness.” Today, on Election Day, polling suggests they may have found their way. We won't know anything until all the ballots are counted. But Democrats are likely to take back power in the House. They could also do something that was unlikely just months ago: They could win a majority of Senate seats. E.J. Dionne is a contributing columnist at the New York Times, a professor at Georgetown, and a senior fellow at Brookings. He spoke with The Metro's Robyn Vincent.

Getting gun violence under control is a priority for Chef Greg Beard after being shot outside of his restaurant in April. He’s challenging neighbors in the Bagley community where he’s owned and operated Soul-N-the Wall for 21 years. Beard recently hosted a rally, asking residents of the community "what does it mean to be a good neighbor?" Chef Beard joined Tia Graham in-studio to talk more about connecting with neighbors to foster safer communities.

50 years ago students in Soweto, South Africa stood up to apartheid and poetry carried the story across the world. We’ll explore how Detroit played a critical role in putting those poems in the hands of the people.  South Africa’s National Poet Laureate Mongane Wally Serote joined the show alongside Laura Kraftowitz, co-founder of City of Asylum/Detroit and current president of Broadside Lotus Press Christopher Rutherford too discuss the power of poetry as a catalyst for liberation movements.