LANSING, Mich. — Many residents took to the podium during Monday night’s Lansing City Council meeting to voice concerns about the city’s new warming center.
“It’s been a mess from he beginning,” said resident Luna Brown.
Earlier this year, the city received $800,000 from the state for a warming center. It opened at the Letts Community Center and is being run by the Detroit Rescue Mission ministries. We've told you about concerns with it being run by a faith based organization.
“Faith base organizations have a had a history of discriminating against people,” Brown said.
Now, advocates said there's a new issue.
“People are just going to be sleeping in chairs and have no cots or mats or anything like that,” Brown said.
The warming center city switched to helping adults instead of families. It’s open from 9 pm to 7 am all week, and through numerous phone calls to the city, we found out that guests are not allowed to sleep inside the warming center, because the location does not have a proper sprinkler system, which is required for beds,
We also reached out to Mayor Andy Schor, but his communication director told us he was unavailable.
Brown wishes the city would address her concerns and hopes future information about the warming center is shared with everyone.
