Police on Wednesday finished clearing residents from "the Pines," a wooded area of Traverse City that has long been the site of makeshift encampments by people who are homeless.
On Wednesday morning, police tape had encircled the massive area at 11th and Division streets, with 11th Street closed and several MSP vehicles stationed around the perimeter.
Police made contact with 14 people and told them to leave, said Traverse City police Chief Matthew Richmond. They all complied, and he said no citations or arrests were made.
The Pines area was clear of residents by shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday, at which point cleanup work began. But Richmond said there's more for the community to do.
"The work is going to go on," he said. "Just because we cleared the Pines of campers doesn't mean that homelessness is solved or that other issues are addressed. We need to continue to do work, and we're doing that collaboratively. There's a lot of good work to be done yet."
A task force is aimed at addressing some of those issues.
"Housing solves homelessness," . "We cannot forget that that's why we're here. We have to work together collaboratively as a region with our private and public entities to come together to work really hard to solve for more housing, more permanent supportive housing, and more supports for our most vulnerable community members."
Vogel said the atmosphere inside the Pines was "unsafe" and "inhumane," and had become a safety issue for people both inside and outside the encampment.
Where now?
The clearing of the Pines had been planned and announced. It began the morning after Traverse City Commissioners approved permits to enable year-round operation for the Safe Harbor shelter. That shelter had only operated in the colder months until this year.
On Tuesday, authorities began clearing the area following a city-imposed deadline for people to dismantle their encampments.
By midday Tuesday, many places where there were sizable encampments had been completely removed. Some tents remained, along with trash and debris.
Some of the people who remained on Tuesday afternoon were dismantling their belongings and preparing to cart them away, including Doug Kelly. He knew the sweep of the area was coming.
"They're treating it like a crime scene," he told IPR. He wasn't sure where he'd go next — probably Safe Harbor, a shelter in Traverse City.
Audrey Ouilette is staying at a nearby church, watching the sweep of the camp happen on Wednesday morning.
"The chief of police believes that most people in the woods have a place to go, but that was not my case when I was homeless," she said. She had stayed at Goodwill Inn, another shelter in the city, but those stays are limited to a few months. "Then they send you out into the woods if you don't have any other place to go, because it's a temporary place to go.
Officials at Safe Harbor told IPR they aren’t commenting on the Pines situation directly. They said Safe Harbor has hit capacity some evenings this month, but that it's hard to predict from night to night.
Goodwill Inn, an emergency shelter in Traverse City, was full on Wednesday and had been for a while.
The shelter's executive director told IPR he hadn’t heard directly from anyone who had just left the Pines.
