2 KIDS FREEZE TO DEATH...HOMELESS IN A CASINO PARKING LOT

A Detroit mother reached out to the city's homeless response team at least three times, the most recent in November, nearly three months before two of her children appear to have frozen to death on Monday while they slept in a van in a downtown casino parking structure.

"In the course of that (November) conversation, there was no resolution reached on where they would go," Mayor Mike Duggan said during a Tuesday news conference.

During that call, the mother told a staffer with the homeless response team that she was staying with family but wouldn't be able to stay there much longer, he said.

Just a few miles from the Hollywood Casino in Greektown, where the mother parked the van on Monday, family beds were available at a shelter, Duggan said. The family did not call the city's homeless response team back after that November call and the city never followed up with the family after the call, he said.

"For whatever reason, this wasn't deemed an emergency," Duggan said.

Duggan added the family had called the city's homeless response team two other times, once in the summer and a time "in the previous year."

The mother also reportedly called shelters multiple times prior to Monday's tragedy but was told they were full, according to Detroit Board of Police Commissioner Tamara Liberty Smith, who is also the director of Detroit Power Detroit Community Outreach, a transitional housing service the 29-year-old mother was referred to on Monday evening after police responded.

Smith said the mother is lost without her children. She witnessed the mother ask God why he didn't take her instead.

The 9-year-old who died was the mother's oldest child, Smith said.

"They’re a family that’s trying. They didn’t want to abandon each other," Smith said. "They weren’t expecting a tragedy like this."

Smith said the mother told her that her kids were in Ecorse schools. The grandmother works at a Popeyes location, Smith said, and the mother was scheduled to start an auto-related job in Flint on Wednesday.

It's a tragedy that must make the city rethink everything it's doing to combat homelessness, Duggan said.

He asked for an investigation by Deputy Mayor Melia Howard and the city's housing department that would determine what went wrong and what is needed to make sure nothing like this happens again. That report is due in two weeks.

"The full strength of this administration is behind this effort," Howard said.

"No parent, no family, no mother should ever have to endure such hardship and heartbreak. ... As Detroiters, I know that we will lift them up in our hearts."