Detroit once had outdoor pools across the city. Now, there’s just one — and it’s closed this summer 15%
By Briana Rice18%
7/14/2026, 3:00:00 AM
Topics: Systems Repair
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Appeal to Emotion, and Negativity Bias, with Representativeness Heuristic as the most egregious example at 11.4% saturation with 77 hits. Analysis detected 573 faulty-reasoning hits from 678 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 26.1% and a BS Rank of 15% (21,914 of 25,564 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 85.70% of the article peer group.
Ajanae Ruffin has been coming to Belle Isle since she was a kid.
Now it’s where she brings her two daughters to swim.
It’s free and an easy drive.
“It’s so important,” Ruffin said.
“Every kid wants to get in the water in the summer.
Every kid wants summer, splashing, fun,” Ruffin said.
Her daughter, Kali Gafford, 10, loves the water but is nervous about getting in the Detroit River because she isn’t a strong swimmer.
She never goes in past her chest and prefers her parents to be beside her.
There are no lifeguards at Belle Isle Beach.
Kali’s ideal Detroit would have “a real big pool and a water park, but make it free,” she said.
“With a lot of lifeguards.”
Detroit does have a big, city-run outdoor pool: Brennan Pool in Rouge Park.
But it’s closed this summer for construction of an adjacent recreation center.
The closure leaves Detroiters with not a single city-run outdoor pool this summer.
Although, residents can cool off at Belle Isle, splash pads across the city, indoor pools at a few recreation centers and Wayne County’s wave pool in Chandler Park.
“Absolutely, we need more pools,” Ruffin said.
Asiajona Sanchez-Puebla feels the same.
The Detroiter drives about 20 minutes to Belle Isle with her three young children because it’s the only free place she knows to swim in Detroit.
She brings them as often as she can, especially on hot days.
“It feels good.
They love it,” Sanchez-Puebla said.
“We do have a lot of splash pads.”
But she thinks the city could use more “community-based pools and things like that that you can just attend.”
A city without outdoor pools
Detroit once had several outdoor pools.
All but Brennan eventually closed because of aging facilities and a lack of funding, according to General Services Department Director Crystal Perkins.
“Over the past years, the city just has not invested in outdoor pools because maybe the demand has not called for it,” she said.
Perkins said residents haven’t raised outdoor pools as a priority during community meetings and focus groups.
William Ramos, a professor at Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington, said it’s unusual for a city the size of Detroit to have just one outdoor public pool.
Cleveland, for example, has 22.
Indianapolis has 14.
“They are not an extra.
They are a place where people can be healthy and active throughout their lifespan,” Ramos said.
He added that outdoor pools also create community, giving neighbors a place to gather and cool off together.
“It is a public health deficit if aquatic space is not available.”
This summer has underscored the importance of water survival skills in Detroit.
Adults have shared stories on social media about rescuing children from waters on Belle Isle.
Last month, 14-year-old AaMina Bradley died while trying to save her cousin in the Detroit River.
Ramos said there isn’t research directly linking a lack of public pools to drowning rates.
But he said learning to swim is one of the strongest protections against drowning.
“I’d be hard pressed to say it’s not connected.”
‘People want to know how to swim’
Black to the Land Coalition is one group that’s working to help Detroiters be comfortable and safe in the water.
The outdoors nonprofit has organized large kayaking trips, water safety trainings and free swim lessons.
“People were fighting over those spots,” said Black to the Land co-founder Antonio Cosme.
“We had this really long waiting list.”
“I think people are afraid of water,” he said, adding that Detroiters have too few opportunities to swim.
Residents aren’t asking for luxury, Cosme said.
They’re asking for equity and access.
“There certainly is like a popular narrative that Black people don’t swim, but I just think that’s not true,” he said.
“It doesn’t reflect the fact that people want to have a relationship with water, people want their kids to know how to swim, people want to know how to swim.”
Analysis
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