Metro Detroit area strains to help homeless

More find shelter in tents, vacant properties

Catherine Jun / The Detroit News

On most days, a white bus rolls down the streets of Detroit, and Tyrone Chatman peers out its window looking for homeless camping outside.

Chatman found remnants of a makeshift shelter on a recent wintry morning: blankets pulled over a playscape, covering a mattress, with clothing and baby toys scattered outside.

At the same time in northeast Detroit, workers for the Coalition on Temporarily Shelter search for families living in abandoned or condemned homes to offer them help.

"Because we do have so many abandoned and foreclosed homes, word gets around how you can get into this home or that," said Jessica Staton, a specialist at COTS.

At a time when foreclosures in the nation are forcing millions to find new living arrangements, the homeless are frequently turning to alternatives to overbooked and inadequate shelters. Some stake out vacant homes that serve as makeshift shelters in a pinch. Others congregate in encampments. This fall, an organized camp in Ann Arbor made headlines when its founder was arrested for trespassing on state property.

The number of homeless in Michigan grew to about 86,100 in 2008, a 9 percent increase from 2007. Statewide estimates for 2009 will be released in April.

But midyear figures indicate the number continues to grow, possibly at an even steeper rate, said Barbara Ritter, project director with Michigan's Homeless Management Information System. The national program gathers homeless data.

"It's a tough scenario if you find yourself homeless now," said Chatman, executive director of the Michigan Veterans Foundation, which runs a 104-bed transitional housing facility on Park Avenue.

Families jolt agencies

The growing number of homeless families with children, which jumped by 11 percent in 2008, has thrown some assistance agencies for a loop. The largest increases are in rural areas as well as suburban communities.

"We were used to those chronically homeless," not families, said Carrie Fortune of the Macomb Homeless Coalition. "That's kind of what we're struggling with at this point." In Macomb County, 824 children were homeless in 2009, Fortune said. That's up from 569 children in 2007.

Relocating to a shelter presents more challenges for adults with children. It's complicated to find them affordable housing that meets their space needs and is close to their schools.

"You're not going to put them into a typical two-bedroom apartment," Fortune said. For those in shelters, that means staying there longer than they should be, she said. In recent years, experts have tried to forestall the growing homeless problem by directing federal housing vouchers and subsidies to the homeless first, those on the verge second.

As much as $53 million in federal stimulus dollars flowed to Michigan for households on the verge of losing their homes. But the need exceeds the dollars, according to several administering the funds.

In Oakland County, more than 700 families qualified for homeless vouchers in the latest round of distribution. But there was only enough money to award 30.

The Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness is running a letter-writing campaign, joining national lobbyists to try and convince federal legislators to up homeless assistance funding to $2.4 billion in 2011, a 28 percent increase from 2010. This year's funding was raised by about 10 percent over last.

"That is a modest increase," said Jason Weller, executive director of the coalition. "We're still not talking about providing the services to everybody."

More 'are on the verge'

Housing experts emphasize the rising homeless counts don't include many of those living in unconventional shelters.

"We know there's much more people that are on the verge of homelessness or in a precarious housing situation," said Amanda Sternberg of the Homeless Action Network of Detroit. Official counts rarely reach those in abandoned homes or hotels, she said. The count in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park doesn't reflect that group.

In northeast Detroit, when Staton of COTS ventures through neighborhoods looking for homeless, she sometimes finds dangerous living conditions. Some families turn to abandoned homes for shelter, she said.

"A lot of times it's families who have recently been evicted and have no place to go," Staton said.

Structures vary, from those with collapsed ceilings, fire damage or mold to "abandominiums," a house in relatively better condition, she said.

Selena McClain, a 38-year-old mother of three children, was evicted, but she managed to gather enough money to keep her family in a motel in Southfield.

McClain lost her rental home in Detroit when the landlord went into tax foreclosure. Then, McClain lost her job just before Christmas, and she, her uncle and her children, a 5-year-old and 16-year-old twins, were evicted from a condo in Southfield.

"They don't really understand what's going on," McClain said of her children. "It's very, very hard, but I know things are going to get better for us."

'Steadily rising'

In Oakland County, the number of children who are homeless at a given time now ranges from 3,000 to 10,000, up from 2,000 to 7,000 three years ago, according to estimates by the Oakland County Task Force on Homelessness and Affordable Housing.

"It's been steadily rising," said Susan Benson, a director at Oakland Schools who oversees a program to help homeless students maintain their school routines. "Hopefully this will be the worst year and then things will turn."

Benson's office provides families like McClain's with clothing, school supplies and bus transportation as well as helping them sign up for federally funded free or reduced lunches at school. In some cases, counselors have discovered parents resorting to living with their children in cars, Benson said.

"We're swamped and we know we are serving the tip of the iceberg," she added, citing the high number of requests.

The Michigan Veterans Foundation now sets up dozens of additional emergency cots in the facility lobby each night. It is a preferred alternative to leaving people on their own outside, said Chatman, the executive director of the foundation.

Dan Betanzos cooks three meals a day for the approximately 100 veterans who temporarily live at the center. He lives there, too.

"I had nowhere to go; I had nothing," Betanzos said who moved there after being released from prison for drunk driving, something he now regrets.

"It's comfortable living conditions here, but still you want your own place," he said.

cjun@detnews.com (313) 222-2019