Resilience in the D is a five-part series launched to commemorate BridgeDetroit’s fifth anniversary and recognize Detroiters who have made a difference in their communities. Selections were made based on resident nominations.

On a Tuesday afternoon in early June, with tools and products at the ready, Niesha Lee primped and pampered women at her makeshift salon in the basement of a family shelter on Detroit’s west side.

She carefully combed and straightened their hair. She curled the ends and arched eyebrows and applied wispy lashes as a finishing touch. 

Lee offered these services through Inspiring Hair LLC, her mobile salon that provides free hairstyles, makeup and grooming at Detroit homeless shelters to prepare residents for job interviews, court dates or to just help them feel good about themselves. 

As Terri Motley, a resident of Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries Genesis House II shelter, left her chair with a silk press, fresh curls and a smile on her face, she embraced a teary-eyed Lee. 

“I love it,” said Motley, 51, before she even saw the final results. She’d been staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries shelter after coming out of rehab. 

For Lee, the work is personal. 

The 39-year-old Detroiter and mom of five said she knows what it’s like to come face-to-face with homelessness, to be overlooked and left behind. She knows what it’s like to not be able to afford clean clothes or get her hair done. 

“A lot of people who face homelessness are looked over because of their outer appearance and that’s my goal — to change that,” she said.  

Lee has dealt with homelessness at various points throughout her life, starting at childhood. She battled substance abuse in her adulthood before she said she decided to turn her life around in 2018. 

Now, she’s giving back to the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, a nonprofit providing food and housing to those facing homelessness and substance addiction. It’s the same organization that housed her. 

Stepping up 

At a very early age, Lee said she faced adversity head-on. 

Starting at about seven years old, Lee helped raise her siblings. Her mom suffered from mental illnesses and would sometimes leave the home — prompting Lee to step up. 

“It wasn’t pretty,” she said. “I didn’t have a normal childhood that all my other friends had. … I wanted to step up and help my mom and dad because I just loved them so much.” 

Lee said she stayed out of school for months at a time. 

“My mom and dad, they had mental disabilities, and also they struggled with drugs. … and the shelters in Detroit received us with so much love,” she said. Sometimes family would take them in, but they’d end up back at the shelter, to the point where residents knew them personally, she said. 

Writing, music and poetry served as an escape. 

“I found peace creating things,” she said. 

In 2000, her mom was diagnosed with cancer. She died two years later, when Lee was 16. Lee and her younger sister cared for their mom while she was sick. After the death, Lee and her siblings were placed in child protective custody and into the care of family members. 

Once she graduated high school, Lee went to court to get custody of her five younger siblings and took care of them, staying in shelters a couple times because she didn’t have money, she recalled.

Giving back 

Her own experience with homelessness and mental health challenges led Lee to create Inspiring Hair. 

“I found myself in the biggest fight with depression of my life, to the point where it almost consumed me, and I promised myself that I would not let no one feel that if I can help it,” she said. 

Her services are important, she said, because homeless shelters are often forgotten. 

“There are so many things going on when you’re homeless, you don’t have time to get yourself in order, and that’s the thing that is looked over the most. You have to be able to handle your mental health as best as you can, and when you don’t feel good, sometimes you tend to not want to look good, and I’m trying to reverse that,” she said. 

Her services are paid for by sales from her online lipstick brand, Inspiring Cosmetics. The CEO of Inspiring Hair LLC began volunteering her services under the business in 2016. She wants to take a van equipped with shampoo bowls straight to shelter residents, and is seeking a donated vehicle or money to make that vision a reality. 

“This is a way for her to do something, to offer a service to women who are in a situation that she’s been in, and been very familiar with, and that’s kind of the testament of anyone who chooses to come back and give back to our clients because they’ve experienced it. They understand what it means to be in a shelter, and it’s a way to kind of pay it forward,” said Chiara Clayton, director of communications for Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries. 

More than 1,700 people experienced homelessness — both sheltered and unsheltered — on one night last year in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park. Among them were 728 adults and children in families.

Lee continues to face housing insecurity. Lately, it’s been difficult keeping up with the cost of rent, groceries and utilities, she said. 

She has been waiting more than three months for a rental home while she said the landlord completes repairs, and is looking at other properties to potentially move into. In the meantime, she doesn’t have stable housing and is living between several places, including with her sister in Ypsilanti and a friend in Detroit. 

Before that, Lee had been living in a home without a working furnace and heat. She said she was trying to negotiate with her landlord to lower the rent for those months when she didn’t have heat, but her landlord moved to evict her. 

The COTS shelter has seen the number of families experiencing homelessness increase in the past few years, Nikki Carbonari, director of impact at the Detroit-based nonprofit, said in June. The shelter, Peggy’s Place, is always at capacity, and that’s still the case in August. Families are also staying longer — more than four to six months on average.

“It really creates this backup and this cycle where people can’t get into shelter because those who are in shelter are staying longer because they cannot find affordable housing,” she said. 

And so, hair care is a small act of dignity that uplifts people, Carbonari said. At COTS’ emergency shelter, partners and volunteers provide a variety of services, including haircuts and braiding. 

“Even such a simple act as getting your hair done can really make you feel so much better, give you confidence,” she said. 

‘If you look good, you feel good’

Lee was a former student at the P&A Scholars Beauty School in Detroit and guided students experiencing housing insecurity to shelters, CEO Anna Jackson-Pajardo said in June. Lee helped plan the school’s annual “Hair for the Homeless” event, becoming a senior advisor for the initiative and working with shelters. She still collaborates with the school to put on the event. 

“She not only had the experience of being in the shelter, but she also had the experience of being able to pick herself up and to go back and help other people,” Jackson-Pajardo said.

Homelessness is one of the biggest problems in Detroit, she said. She’s had students who were sleeping in their cars. 

“Niesha was the one that would come and say, ‘Listen, I can get them placed,’” she said. 

Lee said she finished P&A Beauty School in 2012 and is a licensed cosmetologist.  

She received her high school diploma from Catherine Ferguson Academy, a place she remembers with fondness. She participated in the Detroit Recovery Project, completing the rehab program in 2019, and then became a peer recovery specialist, she said. 

Lee is also a writer, spoken word artist and poet — an art form she said helped release the hurt and burdens she’s held onto over the years. She’s the volunteer community engagement director for WJZZ, Detroit Jazz Radio. 

Roderick Dickerson hired Lee to perform a poem for his upcoming documentary, “Noize of Joy the Movie,” about Detroit’s independent gospel artists. He’s known Lee for about four years. 

“Despite her own personal challenges, she’s always reaching out. … She has a great heart and a great desire to see people win,” said Dickerson, CEO of Eyebox Films LLC, a Detroit-based video and film production company, in a June interview. 

He said he was shocked and amazed to hear about Lee’s mobile salon initiative. Dickerson applauded her perseverance despite facing housing insecurity.

“If you look good, you feel good. There’s a lot of truth in that. And not only that, someone’s taking care of you, someone’s pampering you, someone’s spending time with you, someone’s adding value to who you are as a person and that goes a long way and that builds a person’s morale,” he said.

After getting her hair done by Lee in June, 24-year-old Jalisa Walker — another woman who had been staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries shelter — looked in the mirror and admired her slicked-back look with a bouncy ponytail. 

“I can go out in the world,” she said. 

How to help: To contribute to Inspiring Hair, email Lee at eshalee80@gmail.com or call 313-946-6778.