TRAVERSE CITY – Housing is the key.
Traverse City leaders, who this week endorsed a resolution by the Housing and Homelessness Task Force’s (HHTF) aimed at addressing – and ending – chronic homelessness, know what needs to happen.
“Housing ends homelessness,” Mayor Amy Shamroe said during the discussion Monday. “And we have a housing-first policy with the Task Force, whose resolution laid out several other priorities that also need to be focused on and funded.”
“Investing in (housing), particularly for folks experiencing homelessness, has got to be part of a comprehensive plan,” Central United Methodist Church director of outreach and discipleship Ryan Hannon said, reaffirming the Task Force’s recommendation to preserve and increase permanent supportive housing within the community.
Those housing-first recommendations include aligning local financing tools and developing incentives to increase deeply affordable housing, and stabilizing and expanding permanent supportive housing and advancing zoning and land use policies that allow for increased density and flexibility to support housing development.
“That’s been part of the plan all along,” Hannon said. “To make sure that the ultimate solution to chronic homelessness is talked about and planned for at the community level, especially with what’s going on at the federal level [and its changes to HUD funding].”
Shamroe said that federal cuts to HUD funding may be completely felt for another couple of fiscal years.
“Some of the programs that are being cut from bills and legislation that was passed over these last year or two are just starting to come to fruition,” Shamroe said. “We know it’s on the horizon, but we don’t know exactly what it looks like.”
Also, she said, they don’t know how not having access to that federal money will affect their efforts.
Other Task Force recommendations include safety net strengthening with coordinated system navigation and outreach to reduce inflow and returns to homelessness; investing in targeted prevention and housing stabilization to reduce first-time homelessness; developing and adopting consistent service standards across all emergency and day shelters; and creating a sustainable budget and funding plan for emergency and day shelter services.
The projected budget for the task force recommendations includes:
• $3 million annually to maintain year-round shelter operations;
• $2.5 million each year to align local financing tools and development incentives for housing development;
• $1 million a year to stabilize and expand permanent supportive housing;
• $280,000 annually to strengthen coordinated system navigation and outreach;
• and $140,000 each year for targeted homelessness prevention and housing stabilization.
Problems, such as the recent assaults at Hull Park, are being identified as a priority with immediate and appropriate response by law enforcement authorities, city leaders agreed.
In a news release Friday, City Manager Benjamin Marentette said, “The circumstances at Hull Park underscore the complexity of addressing public safety and homelessness.
“Public safety concerns and criminal activity are not exclusive to any housing status, and the city remains focused on addressing behaviors and incidents rather than attributing public safety concerns broadly to people experiencing homelessness.”
Steps are being taken to increase police visibility in and around Hull Park, Marentette noted, connecting people with service providers to address their specific needs, installing security cameras and signage, among other strategies.
“In the last two to three years, we have probably done more (to address homelessness) than in the last 11 years I’ve been elected,” Shamroe told commissioners Monday. “We’ve seen more of this movement under the Task Force and through the community toward a regional solution.”
Grand Traverse County endorsed virtually the same resolution in June, Shamroe noted.
The resolution commits “to participating in the development of a comprehensive implementation plan by December 31,” which will “identify resource requirements, projected outcomes, supporting data, and assumptions,” the city said.
And, once that implementation plan is developed, it will go to the commissioners for consideration.
“We are seeing the fruits of that extra effort, and we are moving in the right direction,” Shamroe said. “Obviously, there is a lot of work to do going forward. Not only are we all unified on this, not only did we pass this, not only have we done a lot of work in the last couple of years, we have a roadmap of where we need to go and we have an imperative that, by the end of the year, we will see that plan laid out before both bodies.”
Housing and solidarity
Traverse City Commissioner Mitchell Treadwell pointed out that homelessness, and its impacts on the city and its residents, has affected the region “for decades, but it has been more acute in recent years,” citing the former Pines encampment, the library, and emergency shelter capacity issues.
“But it is through these sorts of community conversations and collaborative thinking that we work to fix these tough problems,” Treadwell said. “Yes, this exists in the city, but it is not the city’s sole responsibility, nor do we fully have the ability to fully solve a problem like homelessness. No city in America, on its own, has been able to do that.”
City Commissioner Laura Ness noted that implementation of the resolution will allow the city to work with all its regional partners “toward ending homelessness in this community.”
The ultimate solution for which, as identified time and again by local leaders, is housing.