Northwest Michigan
Coalition to End Homelessness
Creating a community action plan
The Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness is in a race against time. We've made a commitment to end chronic homelessness in the Grand Traverse region by 2028, and while there has been notable progress, we have just over three years to reach this ambitious goal.
The Task Force was created to:
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Build better trust among service providers to increase consistency and efficiency
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Lobby government officials for housing-friendly public policies and zoning changes
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Work with rental property owners and developers to set aside 0-30% AMI housing units
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Promote Brownfield TIF and Land Bank opportunities
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Leverage developer fees, Medicaid, and Behavioral Health funding to support folks after they move into permanent supportive housing.
There has never been a better time to meet this challenge. The Coalition is moving the needle with government buy-in from the City of Traverse City and Grand Traverse County, financial and operational support from Rotary Charities and the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation, and a caring and generous community. There has been regular media coverage in The Record-Eagle, The Ticker, Interlochen Public Radio, and other electronic and digital media outlets to better educate the public on issues surrounding homelessness and the critical lack of deeply affordable housing.
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More importantly, the Coalition continues to collaborate with our partners by sharing data and best practices, ramping up street outreach and engagement efforts, prioritizing chronic individuals for housing, raising and leveraging funds, and holding one another accountable.
It's taken some time, but we have made great progress in shifting attitudes around the Housing First philosophy, and the common goal of making homelessness rare, brief, and one time.
A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Witnessing
Community
Collaboration
Ashley Halladay-Schmandt, Director
Originally published on February 16, 2025
Traverse City Record-Eagle — At the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness, I have witnessed the power of community collaboration in tackling the complex issue of homelessness. The progress in just one year is truly inspiring.
After clear-cutting in the Pines revealed the unsafe and unsanitary camping conditions we have been working to address for years, there was unprecedented concern from local government and private philanthropy. This support has grown into a commitment to a comprehensive strategy to address homelessness, and together, we are making significant strides in moving individuals from the streets and woods into permanent supportive housing.
With key involvement from Goodwill Northern Michigan, the Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency, and Northwest Michigan Supportive Housing over many years, our Coalition has developed an effective and efficient process for guiding individuals through the homeless response system. However, a more coordinated, region-wide approach is necessary to achieve even greater impact. Direct and intentional support from local leadership is crucial, as we know from other communities that are models in preventing and addressing homelessness.
In this context, Rotary Charities and the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation stepped in last April to convene a diverse group of stakeholders, including City and County administrators, local law enforcement and social workers, neighborhood association leadership, homeless service providers, Community Cares Coalition members, Munson Medical Center representatives, and addiction treatment and mental health professionals.
This “Homelessness Collective” began meeting regularly, and the results were immediate. Last summer, the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation initiated efforts to provide essential sanitation and solar charging benches near the Pines, in partnership with the City of Traverse City. The City enhanced its support through additional safety measures, funding for community policing and social workers, and staffing for our local emergency shelter and day services. Most notably, they secured critical funding to transition 41 people experiencing homelessness into housing with on-site case managers at East Bay Flats.
Recently, the Grand Traverse County commission voted to fund additional units of permanent supportive housing and allocated the final support needed for Safe Harbor to operate year-round for the next two years. This initiative is expected to significantly reduce the number of people experiencing street homelessness in our parks and public spaces.
As we move forward, we are establishing a Task Force to continue and broaden the work of the Homelessness Collective. Our mission is to develop a comprehensive strategy that addresses safety, prevention, intervention, day services, basic needs and outreach, emergency shelter, and housing support. This plan will rely on data-driven metrics, realistic budgets, and potential funding scenarios to create a coordinated system of care for individuals and families facing homelessness.
Through our shared compassion and understanding, collaborative efforts, and generous support from both private donors and public funding, we are advancing toward our goal of ensuring that homelessness becomes a rare and brief experience for our region’s most vulnerable neighbors. For more information on how to volunteer, donate, or become a housing advocate, please visit https://www.endhomelessnessnmi.org/get-involved.
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Using a recommendation funnel
This recommendation funnel asks whether a proposed initiative is data-informed and achievable by the City, County, or a non-profit community, aligns with the Task Force values and Housing First principles, leverages partnerships without harming anyone, benefits multiple stakeholders, and delivers measurable outcomes. In essence, it screens ideas for feasibility and impact: practical, values-aligned, collaborative, inclusive of diverse beneficiaries, and trackable through clear metrics.
Decision making in this context relies on a structured, inclusive process that uses the recommendation funnel as a guiding framework. The funnel acts as a set of evaluative criteria to systematically filter ideas, ensuring decisions are data-informed, values-aligned, collaboration-friendly, and outcome-driven. By applying the funnel at defined checkpoints, our stakeholders can converge on clear recommendations, document trade-offs, and build shared understanding before committing resources. This approach promotes transparency, reduces ambiguity, and supports timely, accountable choices.
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Promoting Collaborative Mindsets
Collaborative mindsets create a safe, open space where ideas are put on the table and discussed with curiosity and respect. Practices like paraphrasing ensure shared understanding, while paying attention to both self and others helps balance voices and perspectives. Presuming positive intentions and providing data to inform the conversation foster trust and constructive dialogue.
The approach also emphasizes posing thoughtful questions to illuminate implications and pausing to reflect before deciding. Together, these habits support inclusive, collaborative problem-solving, clarity in reasoning, and stronger collective buy-in for decisions and next steps.
Listening Sessions and Public Input
Involving people with lived experience of homelessness alongside the general public in creating a community action plan is essential for grounding the work in reality. People who have directly faced homelessness bring nuanced insights into what strategies are actually feasible, what barriers persist, and which supports make a real difference on a day-to-day basis. Their perspectives help ensure that goals are not only aspirational but also practical and culturally sensitive, reducing the risk of well-intentioned policies that fail to address root causes or inadvertently overlook marginalized groups. By centering lived experience, the plan can identify concrete service gaps, barriers to access, and potential unintended consequences, such as stigma or geographic inequities, which might be invisible to those without that experience.
In addition, including people with lived experience alongside the general public fosters legitimacy, trust, and shared ownership of the process and outcomes. It signals a genuine commitment to equity and co-creation, which can enhance community buy-in, collaboration across sectors, and long-term sustainability of interventions. This inclusive approach also empowers individuals who have endured homelessness, validating their expertise and agency, and helps to shift public perceptions from blame to empathy and partnership. By combining lived experience with broad community input, the action plan benefits from diverse viewpoints, leading to more innovative, inclusive, and effective solutions that are better poised to reduce barriers to housing, support recovery, and ultimately end homelessness in the community.
Read about the July 17th Listening Session at the Central United Methodist community breakfast
Read about the September 11th Listening Session at the Jubilee House day shelter
Read about the October 29th Listening Session at the Goodwill Inn overnight shelter
Read about the January 21st Public Feedback Sessions at the Governmental Center
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