Hamtramck is now closing in on a majority Muslim population, with Bangladeshis and Yemenis making up the largest immigrant groups. There are more than a dozen mosques around the small city, one of them in a surprising spot: the former American Axle factory. The factory closed down — thousands of jobs, gone to Mexico — and the Abu-Bakr Al-Siddique Islamic Center opened up in one of the bright blue cavernous warehouses still standing there. Right across the street from that mosque, we stop in at the home of the Hadwan family. They live in a new, three-story brick house, big enough for three generations of Hadwans to live comfortably.
Wayne County is working to aid refugees fleeing their war-torn countries for new lives in Michigan with a safe haven they are calling Freedom Village, officials announced Monday. The county is partnering with Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, Samaritas and the city of Hamtramck to create the resettlement designed to provide refugees and immigrants with transitional affordable housing. Construction of three two-family homes to house six families on Faber in Hamtramck is underway and is expected to be completed by summer 2020, county officials said. The United States is on track to take in the fewest number of refugees in four decades, according to U.S. State Department data, and the steep decline is reflected overall in Michigan.
