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A Detroit mother experiencing homelessness said she asked the city for help before her two children died after sleeping in a freezing van, per PEOPLE.
Tateona Williams, 29, said her family parked in the garage at the Hollywood Casino to spend the night before her two children died in her freezing van. Williams said she had her car heater on that night, but it stopped running and she didn't notice until the next morning.
"When she awakened, the battery was dead also because the key had been turned forward all night. So the car ran out of gas," Detroit Board of Police Commissioner Tamara Liberty Smith said in a statement.
Williams recalled not being able to wake her nine-year-old son, Darnell Currie Jr., up when it was time to get ready for school.
"He was already deceased. She didn't know," Smith said. "So she turned him over and saw that after checking him repeatedly and calling his name and asking him to wake up."
Williams said she noticed "stuff coming out of his mouth" and rushed him to the hospital. A second child, two-year-old Amillah Currie, also wasn't breathing.
Both children were pronounced dead at the hospital.
The medical examiner hasn't released the children's official cause of death, but police believe it was due to "exposure to hypothermia." Temperatures were below 32 degrees the night the family spent in the parking garage.
According to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Williams' family contacted the city's homeless response team at least three times, with the most recent being on November 25.
Williams said she was told there were no family rooms available. The mother noted that she kept calling after November 25 to no avail.
"I kept calling. I called out of state, cities, different states. I asked Detroit for help," Williams said. "And they still would say, when I called, they didn't have no beds. But it took two [of] my kids to die ... for them to want to help."
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