The homeless mother of the two children who froze to death inside a van at a Detroit casino parking garage said she repeatedly sought help from Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration.

“I asked everybody for help. I called out of state. I called cities I didn’t know. I called cities people asked me to call. I even asked Detroit – I’ve been on the (the city’s wait) list for the longest,” Tateona Williams told WXYZ. “Everybody now wants to help after I lost two kids? I’ve been asking for help.”

Williams, her mother and six children were sleeping in the van at the parking garage at Hollywood Casino Hotel at Greektown on Monday, when the vehicle ran out of gas as temperatures dipped into the teens.

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When Williams attempted to wake her 9-year-old son around noon, she noticed he wasn’t breathing and attempted CPR.

“Yesterday, it was like a normal day… I woke them up to wake them up for school, my son wasn’t moving. And I kept saying ‘Fatty, please get up. Please, please for me, just get up. Don’t do this to me,’” Williams, a certified nursing and medical assistant, told the news site.

A friend came and transported Williams and the boy to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. While there, Williams’ mother called with news her 2-year-old daughter also wasn’t breathing, and the friend returned to bring the girl to the hospital, as well.

“She didn’t even get to live her life. She didn’t even get to do anything. She lost her life because I had to sleep in the car,” Williams said. “I regret having to sleep out there so bad. I tell them I’m sorry, but I tried. I tried to keep hotels, I tried to pay people to stay there, it wasn’t working for me.”

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Williams’ other two children, aged 4 and 8, along with her 13- and 17-year-old siblings, were also living in the van but survived. Williams told the media she has been homeless for three months, but was scheduled to start a new job on Wednesday.

“It took my two kids to die for ya’ll to help me? It just doesn’t work like that,” Williams said. “Everybody got this picture when I know in my heart, everybody who’s around me knows I loved those kids more than I loved myself.”

Duggan, who announced in December he’s ditching the Democratic Party to run for governor as an Independent, confirmed at a Tuesday press conference Williams contacted the city’s homeless response team on three occasions, most recently in November, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“In the course of that (November) conversation, there was no resolution reached on where they would go,” Duggan said, adding there was beds available at a shelter just miles from the Hollywood Casino on Monday.

City officials never followed up with Williams after the November call, he said.

“For whatever reason, this wasn’t deemed an emergency,” Duggan said.

Williams also called Detroit’s homeless response team over the summer, and on a third occasion “in the previous year,” the mayor said.

“The City of Detroit seeks to use its federal Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) funds, and matching funds provided through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to address the urgent needs of residents who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness,” according to the city website. “The City of Detroit does not provide these services, but rather provides grants to community organizations with experience in service to those experiencing homelessness.”

Detroit Board of Police Commissioner Tamara Liberty Smith told the Free Press Williams’ children attended Ecorse schools, her mother worked at Popeyes, and she was scheduled to start an auto job in Flint on Wednesday.

“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.”

“(I feel) sad, very sad. Especially as a father. I just can’t imagine what the family is feeling. I wish it hadn’t have happened,” Detroit Police Captain Nathan Duda told WJBK. “This was unnecessary. It didn’t have to happen this way.”

Detroit uses a Coordinated Assessment Model to make referrals to homeless shelters, a system Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries CEO Chad Audi described as “broken.”

Clients contend it the system is sometimes unavailable, and when it is it can take up to 15 days to get placed into a shelter, he said.

Last year, the system shifted from a first-come, first-served model to one based on perceived need following complaints about long waits.

“A homeless person needs a quick answer. They’re in an emergency. It’s like when you’re going to the emergency room in the hospital, you can’t go tell a person, ‘Oh, OK, well, we’ll see you later,’” he said.

Duggan on Tuesday tasked Deputy Mayor Melia Howard to work with the city’s housing department to determine ways to avoid a similar tragedy, with a report due in two weeks.

“The full strength of this administration is behind this effort,” Howard told the Free Press. “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.”

“It’s gotta make us rethink everything that we’re doing. The heartbreaking part of this is that there were family shelter beds available just a few miles away,” Duggan said.

Duggan acknowledged at the press conference he’s heard from other homeless residents who were left “confused” after calling the city’s help line, The Detroit News reports.

“I want to make sure that when people call they get very clear options when that phone call is made,” Duggan said. “And I’m asking them to put a policy in place that any time minors are involved, experiencing homelessness, that our outreach workers automatically do a site visit.”

The city currently employs two outreach workers for homeless families, while another 36 work for community organizations like Cass Community Social Services and Neighborhood Services Organization.

According to the Free Press:

Last year, there were 1,725 people facing homelessness, both sheltered and unsheltered, in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park — a 16% increase from the year before, according to a one-night count conducted in January by the Detroit Continuum of Care, the Homeless Action Network of Detroit and the city of Detroit. Among those tallied, 728 were families. About 300 people, including 28 families, were unsheltered, meaning they were sleeping in places not typically meant for human habitation.