People’s Action: Real Help for Detroiters from the People who Actually Live Here

In Detroit, help for the disenfranchised isn’t always something easy to come by. It often arrives late if it even arrives at all – but some don’t wait.

Some simply show up and do the work.

That’s The People’s Action – not some distant nonprofit defined by fancy buzzwords and billboards, but a hands-on community upliftment organization born on the city’s East Side.

At its core, this is neighbors helping neighbors – everyday people who deliver groceries before fridges even have a chance to go empty, check up on grieving families after traumatic events like shootings, and show up to drive people to work and job interviews whenever needed.

 There’s no red tape. No paperwork. No endless loopholes to jump through.

Just action – plain and simple.

Today, People’s Action is considered one of the most trusted grassroots community violence intervention organizations in the city, one that provides everything from food access to youth mentorship, economic support, and mental health services.

They don’t want to reinvent the wheel.

Their only aim is to keep it turning.

At People’s Action, the people volunteering for outreach work often live right on the block and have experienced its struggles firsthand, from poverty to incarceration to loss and everything in between. 

One of the organization’s biggest projects is Adopt the Block, a program that puts ownership back in the hands of the community at large, allowing local leaders to take responsibility for the streets they live on – whether that means handing out Narcan, settling disputes before they get violent, or being a safe person kids can talk to. 

It’s local. 

It’s personal.

And it works.

People’s Action has also played a key role in Detroit’s violence prevention work, especially since joining the Detroit’s ShotStoppers program in 2023. Through the program, they work with organizations like Beat the Odds, Detroit 300, and Force Detroit to be first responders with shootings, decreasing tension, minimizing the odds of retribution taking place, and lending an ear to traumatized families.

That said, not all crisis work is of the same nature.

People’s Action also plays an active role in crime prevention work, funding summer programs and creative workshops as well as fostering real relationships with at-risk area youth. 

In 2025, they even started the Community Violence Intervention Basketball League for teens, giving them something to look forward to in order to take their minds off of the streets.

In short: People’s Action is not here to save the city of Detroit.

 They simply have a deep enough love for it to do the hard stuff no one else wants to be saddled with.

Where fear has lingered far too long, People’s Action is doing something else: 

Restoring hope.