The problem? Leaders in Garfield Township — where the combined shelter is supposed to be — have said they don’t want more services and that they can’t be forced to add them.
While Traverse City has a slew of homelessness services, Garfield Township is home to the largest homeless shelter in northern Michigan, the Goodwill Inn.
The shelter, which is located on Keystone Road, has 120 beds for people experiencing homelessness. The next largest shelter, Safe Harbor, which has 74 beds, is in Traverse City.
The idea to combine the two was first recommended in January by the Housing and Homelessness Task Force, a group consisting of local partners from Traverse City, Grand Traverse County and nonprofit homelessness services.
In June, the task force submitted eight recommendations, including the shelter consolidation, at a joint meeting of the Traverse City Commission and Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners.
In the following months, both the county and the city passed resolutions signaling their support for the task force, while Garfield Township has signaled the opposite.
“Moving the entire region’s homeless into our boundaries would be unfair,” said Garfield Township supervisor Joe McManus in a September board meeting. “The whole idea of a concentration camp on Keystone Road is not an idea that we — at least I — support.”
We already have the only 24/7/365 homeless emergency shelter in the region, and we've done a lot of other supportive projects... So until other people get up to our level of support, we think it's unfair to try to put it all on us.JOE MCMANUS | Garfield Township Supervisor
McManus has repeatedly used the term "concentration camp" in conversations with IPR. He says he's playing off language used by the task force at a previous meeting, where he claims members referred to the proposal as a "concentrated campus." To be clear, no one is proposing a concentration camp.
McManus said he’s already voiced his opposition to a number of task force partners, but that so far the township's wishes have been largely ignored.
“We haven't been part of any conversations on where it would go,” McManus said. “We learned of their idea to put it at Keystone Road through the media. That's how we found out.”
While McManus said the township has no problems with the Goodwill Inn’s current operations, he argued that his community is bearing an unequal financial burden in addressing the region’s homelessness.
“We already have the only 24/7/365 homeless emergency shelter in the region, and we've done a lot of other supportive projects,” he said. “So until other people get up to our level of support, we think it's unfair to try to put it all on us.”
McManus noted the shelter is on pace to have 700 calls to 911 this year, all of which come at a cost to the township and its residents.
Ultimately, he argued, the task force — with the county and city — can’t make Garfield Township accept more services.
“The Goodwill Inn is operating under what's called a special use permit,” he said. “Any change, any expansion of that would have to be approved by Garfield Township. They just can't come in and expand it.”
Any violation of the special use permit, McManus explained, would allow the township to shut the whole operation down, if necessary.
But some community partners don’t think it’s that clear.
“I just would say that I think that, at the end of the day, the county is the higher body,” said Traverse City Mayor Amy Shamroe, who is also a member of the task force’s recently formed Oversight and Alignment Team. This is Shamroe’s opinion, not a legal determination.
“Should it fall on just one township and just the city?” said Shamroe. "Absolutely not, and that becomes part of the bigger conversation that we have to have. But I think this position that Garfield Township is doing more than anyone else — and is the only one bearing this burden — is a false narrative.”
There's just not going to be equal distribution. And I say that as a representative of the city where we have a shelter, we have affordable housing PILOTs... So there isn't only one party bearing the brunt of all of this.AMY SHAMROE | Traverse City Mayor
To that, Shamroe noted that Traverse City has more affordable housing PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) programs than the township.
Though that is true, the city’s more than 20 active or approved PILOTs account for 765 units while Garfield Township’s sixteen PILOT programs make up nearly 1,700 housing units. According to the updated numbers in the township’s November 10 agenda packet, more than 13% of all housing units in the township are in a PILOT project.
Shamroe also noted that solving homelessness is a regional problem, one that no single community can afford to opt out of.
“There's just not going to be equal distribution. And I say that as a representative of the city where we have a shelter, we have affordable housing PILOTs,” Shamroe said. “So there isn't only one party bearing the brunt of all of this.”
Last Wednesday, task force partners met with Garfield Township, including township supervisor McManus and administrator Chris Barscheff, to hear their concerns.
Emma Moyer, director of the Northwest Coalition to End Homelessness, was at that meeting and said this is just the beginning of a conversation.
“They have raised some concerns that we want to talk about and we want to work through with them,” Moyer said. “I think they are valid. I think what we want to do as an Oversight and Alignment Team is better understand them and try to meet them where they are.”
For now, it’s uncertain whether Garfield Township will be convinced.
Garfield Township will vote on the resolution to formally reject the shelter consolidation at its next board meeting on November 10.
