LANSING, Mich. — Community Activist Mike Karl said he doesn’t regret posting a photo on Facebook that shows what looks like a basically empty room inside the Letts Warming Center. Karl said the photo was take on Monday evening.
“Everything I do is to bring awareness to a situation,” Karl said.
Karl believes the photos represents a lack of people taking advantage of the warming center, which opened back in December after the city of Lansing secured 800 thousand to start it. Tuesday the Detroit Rescue Mission Miniseries, the organization running it, told us an average of 19 people visit the center each night.
“Thats not a lot of people,” Karl said. “There are more people in camps.”
We reached out to the City of Lansing to see what they're doing to get more people into the warming center and they told us they’re promoting it on social media, telling community partners about it and even providing transportation to the location when the Cold Blue plan is activated. But Karl said, more outreach needs to be done to increase the center’s numbers.
“Go to the encampments, build relationships with people,” Karl said. “Go to the camps and help people move their stuff so they don’t lose their information or ID.”
We reached out to Lansing mayor Andy Schor for this story and he provided us with this statement saying: “I strongly encourage anyone who’s without housing or sufficient heat to get shelter during the day and night to get out of the intense cold. We activated Code Blue so that shelters and warming centers can increase their capacity to accommodate as many people as possible. The City of Lansing Nighttime Warming Center extended its hours over the holiday and has done so again for Saturday and Sunday of this upcoming weekend, and we will continue to look at options. Bus passes to the warming center are also available for those in shelters and community centers. We’ll do what we can to get as many people the help that they need.”
