Building A Better Benzie

By Patrick Sullivan | Feb. 25, 2017

Nadine LaMont works, on average, three jobs to survive in Benzie County. Over the decades, she’s had as many as six housekeeping and waitressing jobs at one time. Now she’s decided it’s too hard to make ends meet in northern Michigan. She wants to move back to Arizona, where she lived a couple of years ago, and where she could support herself with just one full-time job.

“I’m actually thinking of moving to Arizona permanently,” said the grandmother of four. “The cost of living out there is much better.”

Benzie County is two worlds in one place. One world is populated by well-off retirees or part-time summer residents who live on the lake and eat expensive meals at restaurants. The other world consists of workers who staff those restaurants and clean those homes, people who live in trailers or ramshackle houses or even the woods.

Life for these working people in recent years has become such a struggle that some of those well-off retirees have decided to do something about it. For the last year, they’ve been trying to figure out how to make life better for everyone in Benzie County.

LIVING IN THE WOODS

The group called Advocates for Benzie County began at a meeting of the Sunrise Rotary in Beulah when Richard Robb and a friend listened to a speaker talk about rural homelessness. The retired automotive executive found himself intrigued by a virtually invisible problem – Benzie County’s homeless living in the woods.

“Afterwards, we looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve got to learn more about this,’” Robb said. “It’s not obvious. We don’t have people walking around the streets like you do in Traverse City or in a big city.”

Robb’s quest for a better understanding took him to a homeless shelter in Cadillac where a manager told him that 70 percent of the people they served suffered from mental illness or addiction; the other 30 percent slipped into homelessness because they’d been living in poverty and had a setback that cost them their homes. Robb decided there had to be something that could be done for that 30 percent.

He learned that many people in Benzie County, even families, live in the woods. They are fine eight months of the year. In the winter, some band together and move into a trailer or pile into a house to share heating costs. They depend on Benzie Area Christian Neighbors (BACN) or other charities for food.

They live in a poverty cycle that’s been going on for generations, Robb determined, and nothing was being done about it because no one was really trying to understand the roots of the problem or trying to come up with solutions.

He and a group of like-minded folks – John Parkins, Tim Bannister, Gerald Wilgus and Peter and Jill Brown – decided to organize with a mission “to promote a better quality of life for all the residents of Benzie County.” 

They hosted a meeting in January of 2016 and asked every local expert or decision maker they could think of to come. That first forum led to sub-topics that spurred more meetings. They’ve since talked about housing, employment, healthcare, education, infrastructure and childcare.

By October, Robb said, the original members realized they’d created full-time jobs for themselves, and they decided to open up membership to anyone who was interested. By the end of the year, there were 40 members. By Feb. 15, at a forum at which they hoped to reach some of the people they wanted to help by offering lasagna and childcare during the meeting, nearly a hundred individuals had joined the cause.

HOW TO HEAT A HOUSE

Lamont lived in Arizona for a year before coming back two years ago to Benzie County, where she’d raised three sons.

Her story embodies the struggle even a hard-working person can face in the local economy. Today, she works at the Bayview Grille and manages the cleaning crew at Serendipity House in Frankfort. She has secure housing, thanks to the large house she lives in and a rotating number of housemates in Bear Lake. She’s had as many as five housemates, but that number fluctuates as people struggle to pay their bills.

“Oh my gosh, the cost of living here is so high. I mean, we pay $700 a month, and when we started there were six of us and now we’re at four,” she said. “We were at five a month ago and the fifth person didn’t pay his rent, so he had to leave.”

Having fewer housemates increases the burden for those who remain to pay for electricity, satellite, Internet and garbage removal.

Lamont said rents in northern Michigan are comparable to Arizona, but other things cost a lot more.

“There’s a farmer’s market down there [in Arizona], and I went and bought all these fruits and vegetables. They cost $25,” she said. “That same amount of fruits and vegetables, if I were to buy it up here, would be a hundred bucks or more.”

On top of that, houses must be heated in northern Michigan winters, and that is a crushing blow.

The propane bill at Lamont’s house this season topped $1,000 by early February. To keep the bill low, she and her housemates have bought 19 cords of wood since October to use for heating.

“The thing back here is work ethic; you have to have a good work ethic,” she said. “It costs a fortune to live here. You gotta be a go-getter. You gotta work.”

LaMont is currently taking an off-season breath. She’s working just two jobs, a rarity for her, and she looks forward to having more free time when she gets back to Arizona.

“For me, this is the first time since my kids were little that I haven’t worked three jobs,” she said. “When I go back to Arizona, I can live on one.”

CHILDREN WHO GOT AWAY

The Advocates wants to create reasons for people to stay in Benzie County.

Lori Hill raised three children here. Now adults, they’ve all moved away, but Hill worries about the kids who can’t leave.

“What do we do for the ones who don’t go away?” she said.

Hill believes there needs to be more opportunities in high school for vocational training, but state requirements and tight budgets pose challenges to schools that want to add computer drafting or construction trades programs.

“The local schools, to a certain extent, their hands are tied,” Hill said. “We are required to follow the type of curriculum the state mandates.”

Hill’s children were able to attend college and move someplace where it’s easier to make a living. Her daughters, ages 26 and 18, live together in Utah and work in the ski industry; a 23-year-old son lives in Grand Rapids. She’s also got a 16-year-old daughter, Adrianne, who is disabled and lives at home.

Hill, who works in real estate and has served on the Benzie Central school board and the county planning commission, said the county struggles with cyclical poverty. She noted that children raised in poverty seem destined to raise their own children in poverty.

“You see the people around you make bad choices, and you make bad choices. You see your parents make bad choices, but you don’t know they’re bad choices because you’re a little kid,” Hill said.

She knows people on both sides of the county’s wealth gap, and she said there are good people on both sides. She believes things need to change in order for the poor to have more opportunities.

Hill said the Advocates is made up of good people who have decided to do something for their adopted home, but she said she’s also noticed an entrenched desire on the part of some of the other wealthy transplants against the change and growth it would take to create opportunities.

“Some of the lake people don’t want Benzie County to change. They don’t want to see growth,” Hill said. “It’s lovely and they want it to stay that way – that’s why they came. I’m not naming names, and I’m not even making a value judgment.”

THE CHILDCARE DILEMMA 

Hill’s experience as a mother showed her just how difficult it is to raise kids in a rural setting with little childcare available. It’s another piece of the puzzle that keeps people in poverty.

“When I first moved here, I said, ‘What do people do for childcare?’ Because there was no childcare available in the county,” she said. “And they said, ‘Well, everybody has relatives.’ ‘Well, what if you don’t have relatives?’” I asked. “And they just looked at me and said, ‘We don’t know.’”

Hill had a college education and professional career so she got by, but she knows a lot of people who struggle. 

Meredith McNabb is expecting her fourth child in April, and she and her long-term boyfriend work full time.

McNabb is lucky — she works for her parents’ printing business in Frankfort and gets flexible hours in order to take care of her children, ages 4, 7 and 11.

But her understanding of the challenges posed by the county’s lack of childcare prompted her to get involved with the Advocates, which hopes to convince large employers to invest in childcare.

When her first child was born, McNabb was able to bring her to work for the first three years, until a spot opened up at the Paul Oliver Memorial Hospital daycare in Frankfort. The Munson satellite offers some spaces to children of people who don’t work at the hospital.

This enabled McNabb to place her next two children on the waiting list, and they received spots in the daycare at younger ages. She understands the daycare is full now and that there may not be space available when her fourth child is born.

McNabb said that’s tough news because Paul Oliver’s is the only daycare in town.

“There are a couple of other women who have done it at times out of their homes, but that is the only facility available,” she said. 

McNabb said the service jobs that are most common in Benzie cannot support childcare. A good job might pay $12 or $14 an hour. At a minimum of $3 per hour per child, that cuts into income fast.

“If you have more than one child, there’s really no point in leaving home,” she said.

Her father, Bob McNabb, also joined the Advocates and now heads the childcare task force.

“I think the Advocates is the most hopeful thing I’ve seen occur in Benzie County in 10 or 15 years,” he said. “It’s trying to get people together in one room and talk about what they do and what the problems are and how to fix them.”

LACK OF HOUSING

Lack of childcare is a small piece of the problem, Meredith McNabb said. Everything always comes back to lack of affordable housing. McNabb is also lucky on that end – she purchased a foreclosure in Frankfort during the recession and today she lives in an affordable house, but for lots of people looking for housing today, there are no houses in their price range and the rents have gotten too high.

“It’s not only lower income housing; it’s also just kind of middle income housing,” McNabb said. “We’re in an area where you’re looking for housing and there are $350,000 or $250,000 houses, but in that $175,000 range that some people would be able to afford, [the houses are] just not out there.”

On top of that, many working people don’t qualify for subsidized housing. That leaves a scant few rental units under $700 per month, even for one-bedroom homes.

“We’ve got a school that’s seeing enrollment dwindling because people just can’t afford to live here,” she said.

Darlene Knudsen spends weekdays volunteering at the Gathering Place, a senior center in Honor. She clears tables and helps people who need help getting their meals. Knudsen, 65, is struggling to get into subsidized housing. The Advocates has identified a lack of decent senior housing as another critical concern.

After her husband died eight years ago, Knudsen moved in with her son and daughter-in-law into a small house where she pays rent but has no time to herself.

“It’s not a very good situation,” she said. “I’m just not happy where I am. I want to be on my own.”

Knudsen resolved to find her own place, but she cannot believe how difficult the process is.

“When I applied for housing, no one told me it took up to a year,” she said. She said she’s been on a waiting list for nine months, and in that time, she’s moved from 54th to 38th on the list.

Douglas Durand, executive director of Benzie Senior Services, said Knudsen’s experience is normal. When seniors need to get into subsidized housing, they have to wait because there are not a lot of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) units available.

NATURAL GAS FOR THOMPSONVILLE?

Part of the reason there’s so little affordable housing is that there’s no one around to build it, a consequence of vocational programs being cut in the county’s high schools a decade ago.

Another reason involves infrastructure and the fact that there are few places where developers could build HUD developments even if they wanted to. Those developments require water and sewer hookups, and the economics of operating the projects require access to natural gas because propane costs too much, Durand said.

Frankfort is the only place in the county where a new HUD development could currently be built. Thompsonville has water but no sewer or natural gas. Honor has a sewer but lacks water hookups.

Kay Bond, the treasurer of the Advocates and chairperson of the housing committee, joined the group in October. Benzie County residents are literally caught in the income inequality squeeze, she said.

Bond understands how desperate some folks are. For six years, she ran Benzie Area Christian Neighbors, which she took from a fledgling charity with no income to a bustling nonprofit with an annual revenue of $300,000. Today the organization is a critical safety net for the poor.

She said increasing affordable housing will require creative solutions.

The Advocates has looked to Jackson Hole, WY., a resort town with similar dynamics, where a nonprofit launched a workforce housing “land bank” that owns land and rents or sells housing with restrictions to ensure it remains affordable.

A second solution could be figuring out how to get natural gas to Thompsonville, an underdeveloped, partially abandoned town. It has some of the infrastructure it needs to support widespread development like water and platted neighborhoods, and the township is planning to install a sewer system. The community simply needs natural gas.

“What a great place for workforce housing, and it’s right around the corner from our largest employer [Crystal Mountain],” Bond said.

STANDING ROOM ONLY

At an Advocates meeting about healthcare held Jan. 18, every seat in the Benzie County Board of Commissioners chambers filled up and more seats had to be brought in as people stood at the back to listen.

After a year of forums on topics like healthcare, education, employment, infrastructure and housing, the meetings are becoming more specialized and the movement is gaining momentum.

Robb said the Advocates is in this for the long haul and that it might take a decade to see big changes occur.

“It’s an aggressive thing, but it’s not, ‘We’re going to solve this tomorrow,’” he said. “We want to be sure we’re not just a bunch of old white guys with beards trying to push something on people we think are in trouble.”

Not everyone agrees with the direction the Advocates has taken. Founding member Wilgus said he dropped out because he believes low wages, not lack of affordable housing, is the problem.

“We have a problem of labor affordability, with employers unwilling to provide adequate compensation,” he said.