Shelter from the Storm: Packed its Limit with Homeless People, the Goodwill Inn Seeks a New Shelter

March 5, 2003

On a moonless night in early February with temperatures just above zero and the knife edge of an arctic wind cutting hard from the north, nearly 50 souls gather in their small rooms beneath the roof of the Goodwill Inn, wondering where their lives are going.
This is Traverse City‘s homeless shelter, a transitional place between two worlds -- that of the home its guests have lost and the home they hope to find after their run of bad luck and hard times is over.
“Being homeless is the result of a series of events, but the root cause is poverty,“ says Lois Lannin, who has been with the Inn since 1996, first as a VISTA/Americore volunteer, and now as its manager.
Established in 1979 and operated by Goodwill Industries, the Inn occupies a former motel on M-31 just south of 14th Street. Its 44 beds are almost always full. Currently, Goodwill Industries is pushing to construct a new shelter with 70 beds within the next two years to meet the rising level of need in the area as poverty and homelessness become more commonplace.
“Last year, we served 397 people during the course of the year, and during any one night we had 45 to 50 people staying here,“ Lannin says.

ON THE RISE
It‘s estimated that there are between 700-900 homeless persons in the five-county area around Traverse City, a number determined by the U.S. Census Bureau with the help of local courts, schools, law enforcement and other agencies.
“It‘s difficult to tell how many homeless people there are because a lot of them double up living with family members or friends on a temporary basis,“ Lannin says. “Sometimes, both families will end up homeless because the housing situation is so critical here.“
It‘s also difficult to determine how many young people are homeless. “Throwaway kids“ frequently get kicked out of their homes or leave on their own as a result of parental disputes. They may live in their cars or on the sofas of friends.
“Some people may not even consider themselves homeless,“ Lannin notes.

WHO‘S WHO
A common image of a homeless person is that of a struggling single mother with children. In fact, children comprise close to 20 percent of the homeless at the Goodwill Inn. There were 58 children at the Inn last year, along with 339 adults. Lannin notes that nationally, one out of every five visitors to a soup kitchen line in America is a child.
But a surprising number of homeless persons are single men. Lannin says that out of 397 guests at the Inn last year, 229 were single men, a percentage that‘s “pretty close to the national average.“
Often, men become homeless because of high child support payments, which make it impossible to afford rent or house payments.
“The courts have gotten really tough on child suport,“ Lannin notes. “We had a couple here, male and female, who both paid so much child support that they couldn‘t pay for an apartment to live in. A lot of these people are right on the edge.
“I used to have an attitude that they should just put these single deadbeat dads in jail,“ she adds. “Then I began working here and saw the other side of the story. We had one guy in here who was $16,000 behind in his support payments. When you get that far behind, they issue a bench warrant and it means jail. There are men here who get so far behind on their payments that it‘s hard for them to get started again.“

SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Other factors contributing to homelessness are substance abuse and emotional problems. At the Inn, an estimated 26% of guests suffer from alcoholsm and depression; 8% from drug addiction; 10% from mental illness; and 10% veterans suffering from psychological problems arising from military service. “For the veterans, it‘s not just those who served in Vietnam, but younger vets too -- most are drug-addicted, mentally ill, or both.“
A huge problem is the lack of affordable housing in the region, coupled with low wages.
“With families and sometimes single people as well, the problem is often that there‘s no housing they can afford,“ Lannin says. “If there was adequate low-income housing, they could move out of here, but there‘s just no place to go.“
Families can qualify for Section 8 rental assistance funds from the government, but even so, options are scarce in Traverse City, where homes increasingly sell for a quarter million or more. Cheaper homes are often scooped up by real estate agents or investors looking to turn them into rental properties, often at rents which people living at poverty levels can‘t afford.

PAY RENT FIRST
People often end up homeless because the pitfalls of poverty force them into a sort of checkmate.
“What we tell people is to always pay your rent first before all other bills,“ Lannin says. “Make it the very first thing. And that‘s hard to do because affordable housing is farther and farther out in places like Interlochen or Grawn. If you have an old beater car and it breaks down, you have to get it fixed first in order to get to work from out there.“
Lannin notes that the working poor can always get assistance for food from local pantries, and sometimes help is available to get cars fixed, but there is little assistance for paying rent, and if a person falls into the vicious circle of pouring money into a vehicle in order to drive long distances from home to work, the rent can fall behind.
By the time people reach the Goodwill Inn, their supports in the way of a car, job and place to live may have all been kicked out from under them. At the Inn, families move their possessions into what amounts to a motel room, with two beds and a bathroom, but no closet. Cooking is done in a communal kitchen, and kids must accompany their parents while meals are being prepared.

THE HARD CORE
Things get even tougher if you‘re mentally ill. Even though many of the mentally ill can live independent lives with the help of local agencies and social workers, they‘re often shut out of the local rental market, both by poverty and social stigma.
The hard-core, indigent “can man“ types drifting around town often live in the bitterest conditions, sleeping in the city‘s outlying woods.
“Occasionally you run into a person who is just too mentally ill and is not receiving any treatment,“ Lannin says. Adult Protective Services is charged with helping these people, but the agency is understaffed and underfunded for the task.
“Sometimes people go off their meds here and it‘s hard to watch and hard to do anything,“ she says. “Sometimes, the client‘s rights make it hard to do anything.“
One indigent man who‘d been hit by a car was referred to the Inn by Munson Medical Center. Lannin interviewed the man three times, trying to win his trust and overcome years of rough living.
“It‘s hard for people like that to fit in because we have rules they have to follow. It was hard for a person like him -- he had lived on his own out in the woods and on ranches and it took a long time to win his trust. Now, I struggle every day to keep him here -- he‘s not a politically-correct person and we don‘t allow any bullying or bad language. What we need is permanent, supportive housing for people like that.“
Because the hard core homeless may lead an alcoholic or delusional existence not far removed from that of wild animals, the Inn must balance their needs against those of families at the shelter.
“The new shelter we‘re talking about building would have transitional shelter for people like that,“ Lannin says. “It would be a place to be safe and warm, but isolated from the families. We have a mission to keep people safe here. People who are in danger of freezing to death on the streets have their needs balanced against people staying here. If a person drinks, we have to exit them.“

BUILDING HOPE
Lannin exudes energy and optimism, and it‘s obvious from her attempts to contact hard-core indigent homeless persons that she is a caring person with a high level of zeal for her mission.
She spent 28 years as a business manager with a large engineering firm in Annapolis, Maryland before deciding to launch a new career in social work. An opportunity arose when she signed on as a caseworker in Traverse City with Americore, a U.S. public works program established by the Clinton administration. When her Americore stint ended, she was able to continue her work at the Goodwill Inn with a state grant.
The Inn has a staff of 12, and part of their job includes extending hope to their guests, who stay an average of 90 days.
“Most people are pretty depressed about being here, but it helps when you sit down and explain our services. They‘re so grateful. You see a lot of depression here, and it‘s hard to lift your head out of that.“
Services include assistance with finding jobs or rental properties; filling out applications; and learning how to access local social agencies and other self-help measures on how to become independent. People who don‘t have food can find donated supplies of canned goods, pasta and the like in the Inn‘s kitchen, which has two stoves, a dishwasher and two refrigerators.
“I think depression is one of the biggest things people struggle with,“ Lannin says. “The hardest thing is to keep people focused on finding a new home, because once they‘re here, they can relax into the Inn too much -- it‘s safe and there is food.“

ZERO TOLERANCE
One measure which the Inn stands by is zero tolerance for drugs, alcohol and bad language or behavior.
“We decided we had to hold people way more accountable in what they say,“ Lannin says. “By zero tolerance we mean language that provokes other people in the way of racial slurs or bullying. They get a one-time warning. We‘ve also had people here who are good at manipulating other people to lose their tempers. We try to nip that before it reaches a point where there‘s a problem.“
Young adults, 18, 19 and 20 are a special problem due to their immaturity and lack of common sense. “We don‘t like having them -- they‘re in here with substance abusers who are manipulative and we worry they‘ll make the wrong friends. Often, they think these people are really neat, but there‘s a big difference between a young person who wants to party and someone older who‘s addicted.“

LOOKING AHEAD
Within two years, Goodwill Industries hopes to have build a new shelter which will have 70 beds. The new inn will have a wing for a men‘s dormitory and a dormitory for newcomers in addition to smaller four-bed rooms and a separate wing for women and families.
Goodwill is currently looking for land for the new shelter. It has a grant from HUD for the project, but additional funds will be required in the way of donations from the community to make the shelter a reality. Volunteers from GIVS (Goodwill Industries Volunteer Services) are organizaing a number of fundraising events to generate money for the project.
In the meantime, the staff at the Inn are winding up one of the coldest winters in recent years, trying to keep spirits up and help create new homes for people in need.
Sometimes, guests of the Inn disappear without a word of farewell.
“We get a lot of good feedback, especially from families,“ Lannin says. “But sometimes people just leave... Sometimes the best success stories come from people you helped a couple of times who come back a year later to say thanks.“

If you‘d like to help support the Goodwill Inn homeless shelter, contact GIVS at Goodwill Industries, ph. 922-4805, ext. 313.