Similarly, members of Soleology, a Saturday design club of current and former Creative Studies students who have a passion for shoes (graduates typically go on to top positions at athletic shoe companies like Nike, Adidas and New Balance), have also been working on a footwear solution for Detroit’s homeless population, as has a group of students from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Such a challenge came from Cass Community Social Services in Detroit, which operates a micro-enterprise in which homeless men convert abandoned tire parts into mud mats that are then sold at markets and fairs, bringing its clients some much needed income. But with the mats being made from the sidewalls of the tires, the Rev. Faith Fowler, a Methodist pastor and Cass’s executive director, couldn’t help but wonder if the treads could also be used in some way that might benefit those in need.

Enter the University of Michigan’s integrated product design class, which combines design, engineering and business. Its solution? Treads Motor City sandals, which can be sold to the public, but will be produced by Ms. Fowler’s constituents, giving them yet another income stream. (The soles are made from tire treads while the straps are harvested from seatbelts found in junkyards.)

Image Credit... Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

“It’s a great opportunity for everyone,” Ms. Fowler said of the program. “You have these smart students who care about the community, the planet and using recycled materials, and we have these people here in Detroit who really want to work and need money.” (Meanwhile, Soleology is working to design a shoe that Cass’s clients could produce for homeless people to wear that would be “rudimentary and simple, yet highly functional and durable,” said a recent Creative Studies graduate, Brett Golliff.)

But it is Ms. Scott’s coat that has so far come the furthest of any of these designs, and not just because she won a 2011 International Design Excellence Award from the Industrial Designers Society of America in September. While her first attempt was a heavy, 20-pound coat that took 80 hours to make because of her lack of sewing skills (it looked like a “body bag,” according to one homeless man), she has since devised a new one that she and her friends tested in 17-degree weather. “We were warm all night, but the ground was hard,” she recalled. The latest version is made of water-, wind- and air-resistant polyethylene on the outer layer, which acts as a barrier, and Thinsulate and Steelcase fabric on the inner layer, to store body heat. (It also turns into an over-the-shoulder bag with the arm sockets acting as storage.)