‘Hiding in plain sight’

Hi there. This is Ed Ronco, host of the Up North Lowdown. If you've been a longtime listener and subscriber, thanks for hanging with us through our hiatus. If you're new here, welcome. We are... back and we're glad to be with you. We've got a good story for you to listen to today, a poignant story about the housing crisis and homelessness in Traverse City. You can expect episodes of the Up North Lowdown to include stories like that.

conversations with newsmakers and our own reporters and some lighthearted things, too, about what's happening here in northern Michigan. Nine minutes of northern Michigan posting to your podcast feed by about 930 every weekday morning. And if you're here in northern Michigan, you can hear us. on the air at 842 a.m. every weekday. All right, we're glad to be back, so let's get started. Last year, a Traverse City no camping ordinance upended.

the city's homeless community. The Pines, an encampment that once housed up to 70 people, was cleared as the warm weather arrived in May. Access to the emergency night shelter expanded to absorb them, but they are now at capacity, and so people are still sleeping outside. But now, they're largely out of sight. And it is the dead of winter, as you know.

IPR reporter Maxwell Howard spoke with some of the folks trying to find a place to be over the holiday. It's 10 o'clock, just a few days before Christmas. And the day shelter Jubilee House is just opening. It's warm today, snowy sidewalks are turning to slush, and people are in a good mood.

In the main room are about a dozen leather chairs people can really sink into and get comfortable. Someone has turned on the TV, which is playing Ocean's Eleven. And meanwhile, a man is taking cushions off the couches, sweeping talked-away trash to the floor. while looking for change. He finds 35 cents and a banana. And then he pulls out an angel. It's silver and fits in the palm of your hand.

He shows it to Jubilee House director Hannah Westcott, who suddenly turns away. Her friend, another person who lived on Traverse City's streets, used to pass these out. He died last year. She tells the man to keep the angel. It's a sign, she says. In the back room, there's a small wooden cross. Seventy strings hang papers with the names of people who died on the streets over the years.

Last year, seven people died in Traverse City while homeless. None of those were due to the cold, but even so, extended exposure to cold carries with it increased risk of heart disease and stroke, along with worsening respiratory illnesses such as COPD. The temperature has been up and down this winter, but soon it will drop again, and northern Michigan's homeless will be in dire need of places to sleep. So, where will they go? Some people that have set up a camp, but it's farther out of town.

and much more difficult to access those services. That's Ryan Hannan, director of outreach at Central United Methodist Church. Before, when there was an encampment, folks were... of like people don't know what to do and are just doing all they can to stay alive at night and then try to get into the shelter the next day or another day. Right now, there are about 250 people actively experiencing homelessness in Traverse City.

but within the last year, that number has been at least 100 people higher. Safe Harbor can take more than 70 of those off the streets, and another shelter Goodwill Inn can take in another 120. On cold days, if it's 15 degrees or lower, the Goodwill Inn will call a code blue and become a warming center where anyone is welcome. But above that temperature, people will have to find their own shelter. Crashing with family.

pooling money together for hotel rooms, or finding somewhere hidden to sleep. Basically, I walk down the street all the time. I'm looking for crevices between buildings. I'm looking between the buildings. A place to get out of the wind. This is Brett. We're back at Jubilee House, and we're only using his first name to protect his privacy. Just looking at him, you wouldn't realize Brett is sleeping outside. He's dressed casually.

would blend in easily in a crowd. Living outside is relatively new for him. When he first moved to Traverse City, he was renting. But then, he says, his rent increased. i moved into a house i was paying like 600 bucks a month and 30 days later she moved to florida and said now it's 1200 bucks a month

For a while, he lived out of his van at a campground. At least a year, over a year. And then, even though I had three jobs last year, I worked at a golf course in two restaurants. I was making money. I had money. But it just got expensive. Traverse City is kind of an expensive place. It's a nice place. And even now, after he'd lost the van, he's still working. I have a job, but it...

It's a local restaurant here in town, but I'm only getting like one or two days a week because they're just not busy enough. What are you doing during the night? I go sleep in the shed behind me. Behind the bar. That's what I did last night. That's what I did. I woke up this morning. I was in the shed. I'm sleeping outside in a shed, hoping to God nobody knows I'm in there. If there's something that could help you, what do you need? What do I need? First and foremost, I just need a warm place.

A bed. A room. Just an ounce of something. Like, what's the expression? I'm trying to think of the expression. I'm like hiding in plain sight kind of thing. Like, I'm just hiding in a shed. systems serving the homeless are already overburdened, strained by record levels of homelessness and an ongoing affordable housing crisis. And now more cuts appear to be on the way. Last November,

The federal government announced a shift in its priorities that could cost Northwest Michigan organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars and push at least 20 additional households onto the streets. For now, Brett is trying to make it work in Traverse City. by getting a second job. If I go and apply for a job, which I'm trying to do right now at Modes, they're like, where do you live? I gotta put my address down. I gotta put my phone number down. I don't have a phone.

I don't have an address. And then you gotta lie. You know how much I hate lying? I hate lying. I try not to lie. If I have to, I just tell people, I mean, I just don't give them an answer. It's the first winter since the Pines closed, and while it doesn't seem to have reduced homelessness, it did make it less visible. For Interlochen Public Radio, I'm Maxwell Howard.

You're listening to the Up North Lowdown. Maxwell Howard with that story. When time permits, we will include headlines from around northern Michigan. with each episode of The Lowdown. And this week, the first headline is certainly related to the story you just heard. Michigan U.S. Senator Alyssa Slotkin says that affordable housing is an emergency issue in our state and our country and has introduced legislation. that would take dramatic measures to build new housing across the country.

would require the president to declare a national housing emergency. It would also invoke the Defense Production Act to force up domestic supplies of construction materials. The legislation would also punish communities that don't show housing unit growth. by withholding certain federal funds. The group Travers Indivisible says about 1,200 people showed up this weekend to protest the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

There have been deadly encounters with ICE agents across the country, including the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week. In Traverse City, participants gathered along sidewalks between the Civic Center and the city's downtown area. holding signs and chanting. The U.S. Navy has named a ship for Michigan's capital city. The USNS Lansing was christened over the weekend, 338 feet long. It can transport troops or serve as a medical platform. That's the Up North Lowdown.

From Interlaken Public Radio.