Veronika Scott Designed a Coat for Detroit's Streets, Then Hired the People Who Needed It

Veronika Scott grew up in poverty, and according to her alma mater she experienced homelessness as well. When it came time for college, she followed her grandfather's advice and chose the College for Creative Studies in Detroit over Yale, because of the financial aid, and studied product design.

In her junior year, a professor, Stephen Schock, gave her class an assignment: find a real need in the community and design something to meet it.

Scott took the assignment further than a class required. For about five months, she spent three days a week at a Detroit shelter run by the Neighborhood Service Organization, talking with people about what they faced.

Out of that research came a prototype, a coat that could convert into a sleeping bag. The first version took about 80 hours to build, and the early feedback was mixed. She kept working on it anyway.

The turning point came from someone the coat was meant to help. According to The Empowerment Plan's own history, a woman at a shelter told Scott that what she needed was not a coat but a job.

Scott listened. Rather than simply giving coats away, she decided the people making them should be people working their way out of homelessness. The coat would still keep people warm, but the work of making it would become a path to stable income.

Scott graduated in 2011 and turned the project into a nonprofit, The Empowerment Plan, which hires parents living in Detroit shelters to sew the coats. She has said she took no salary for the first two years.

She did not do it alone. A mentor, Imre Molnar, a former design director at Patagonia, connected her with Carhartt, and the organization has relied on partners such as the COTS shelter network and many donors. The original coat evolved into today's weather-resistant EMPWR coat, made at the organization's headquarters on Detroit's east side.

The jobs come with support. The Empowerment Plan describes a two-year paid model that includes job readiness training, GED programs, financial literacy, legal help, and mental health resources, along with help with housing, childcare, and transportation. The organization reports that every participant has moved out of shelter within 90 days of starting work.

Her alma mater describes it as a paid-to-learn model and says the organization has employed hundreds of people over the years.

That claim comes from the organization itself, and the people who succeed do so with real effort and real help. It is a reminder that steady work, paired with practical support, can open doors that a handout alone cannot.

On March 19, 2026, The Empowerment Plan delivered its 100,000th coat. It left the organization's headquarters on Kercheval Avenue and went to a resident emerging from homelessness at COTS Peggy's Place in Detroit. COTS has partnered with Scott since her student days in 2010. The coats have reached all 50 states and more than 20 countries.

Scott told Model D that the milestone shows what becomes possible when people invest in people.

Scott is still the organization's founder and CEO. In May 2026 the College for Creative Studies named her its Distinguished Alumni.