Empowerment Plan: Veronika Scott’s Sleeping-Bag Coats and Detroit Jobs

Veronika Scott was a design student in Detroit when she began handing out a coat she had designed to turn into a sleeping bag. At a shelter, one woman shouted at her: "This is pointless! I don't need a coat! I need a job!" Scott took the challenge to heart, and the result was Empowerment Plan, a Detroit nonprofit that hires people experiencing homelessness to sew the coats.

From class project to Detroit nonprofit

Scott was studying at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit when the idea began as a class project. She designed a coat called "Element S(urvival)", made from Tyvek house insulation and wool army blankets, that could keep someone warm by day and unfold into a sleeping bag at night.

The encounter at the shelter changed the plan. Instead of simply giving coats away, Scott decided to employ homeless women to make them. She set up Empowerment Plan as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2011, and it began full operations on 1 January 2012, after her graduation. The workwear brand Carhartt donated the first sewing machines and fabric. The workshop started in a small studio in Corktown and later moved to a larger space in the city.

Scott was often told her idea would fail because the women she hired would not be "capable". She has said she enjoys proving those people wrong.

How the sleeping-bag coat works

The coat is built for people who spend nights outdoors in a Michigan winter. It is a durable jacket by day, and it converts into a full-length sleeping bag that protects against frostbite or folds into a storage tote.

A donation of about $125 covers the materials and labour for one coat. In December 2015 a coat cost around $100 to produce.

Jobs, training and a path out of homelessness

The real product is the job. Empowerment Plan pays its staff for a full working week, but only about 60 per cent of that time is spent sewing. The other 40 per cent goes to classes and support, including:

• financial literacy and budgeting
• driver's education
• preparation for the GED high-school equivalency test
• domestic violence recovery

The aim is a stable income, secure housing and independence. By December 2015 the organisation had trained and employed 30 homeless women and distributed more than 10,000 coats. By 2020 it had made around 35,000 coats, shipped around the world, and employed more than 80 people who had experienced homelessness; KSL reported that none had returned to homelessness.

Awards and recognition

Scott's work drew attention early. She was invited to speak at the United Nations in 2010 as a young change-maker and at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2011. In 2012 she received the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation's New Frontier Award, the youngest person ever to win it, and she spoke at TEDx Detroit the same year.

The coats still reach the streets of Detroit every winter. During the 2024 holiday season, 107 coats went to the city through local partners, many of them to the Pope Francis Center.

More winter stories of help

For a smaller-scale employment story, revisit Jhaqueil Reagan’s unexpected job offer. For a different winter act of help, read the Duck Lake rescue report.

Related reading:

• Would You Give Johannes Your Jacket? The Oslo Campaign Film
• How to Stay Warm Outdoors: Clothing, Stops and Sleeping Systems

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