A seasonal homeless shelter in Traverse City is gaining support to stay open year-round.
That’s the latest from a City Commission meeting this week. Jordan Travis covered this for the Traverse City Record-Eagle. He spoke about it with IPR’s Max Copeland.
Listen via the audio player above. Read Travis's story in the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
While officials backed the idea, it still has a long way to go before it becomes reality, he says.
TRAVIS: Well, first it's going to take a change to its special land use permit. The zoning permit specifies the season as it currently stands from about late fall to early summer.
That's going to have to go through the planning commission as well and a vote by the city commission. The city is also going to have to update its operating agreement with Safe Harbor. And it's also going to take money. According to Safe Harbor's leadership, it's going to about double their operating budget from $515,000 to $980,000.
They're looking for not only help from their donor base but their assumption is that the city is going to have to support them at some level.
IPR NEWS: Some commissioners have agreed that the encampment in Traverse City called 'the Pines' should not continue. So can you give us a little bit of more context about the homelessness situation as it stands?
TRAVIS: That's right. This is some city property at the corner of 11th and Division Streets. It's against city ordinance to camp in any city park.
But the city leaders have more or less agreed that as long as they're not breaking any other rules, they're not going to kick you out of there simply because there's really no place for these people to go. If they chase them out of there, then they'll just have to set up camp somewhere else.
And it just didn't seem like the humane thing to do.
IPR NEWS: Do we know how many people are unhoused in the area? How many specifically in the Pines?
TRAVIS: The Northwest Michigan coalition to end homelessness tries to keep track of this as best as anyone can. They figured there's about 250 people without shelter.
So out of that, somewhere between 80 to 120 people are living in the Pines. And that's according to numbers that the Traverse City Police Chief shared with the City Commission.
IPR NEWS: I imagine that there are a lot of other ideas that have come up to address this ongoing homelessness crisis. What are some of the other community leaders saying?
TRAVIS: Well, you've got a group called Community Cares Coalition, and they want to build a new 180 bed year-round shelter that would be open all day, whereas right now Safe Harbor is only open at night.
They have a purchase option on a building in Garfield Township, but they have a lot of details to figure out before they can open. For one thing, they need to secure funding, they need to arrange zoning, and they need to get partner organizations on board like mental health care, for example.
IPR NEWS: And how do people feel about the possibility of this decision to make Safe Harbor year-round?
TRAVIS: So at Monday's meeting, a lot of the people who spoke at public comment spoke in favor of this. There were some concerns from the neighbors, including about adjusting Safe Harbor's closing time to let kids go to school.
That kind of reflects the concerns you've heard from neighbors before about if Safe Harbor stays open year round, 'are we going to have to deal with the issues we see during their winter season all 12 months of the year?'
So that is an issue that the Homelessness Collective has tried to head off by getting a lot of these neighborhood organizations involved, getting a lot of dialogue with the neighbors, and pointing out that this is all going to be a very difficult issue. The special land use permit, for example, will require a couple of public hearings where people can voice whatever concerns they have about changing safe harbor season.
Jordan Travis is a reporter for the Traverse City Record-Eagle. He spoke with IPR's Max Copeland.
