- In 2023, the City of Lansing Human Relations and Community Services Department brought in Public Policy Associates (PPA) to conduct a study centered around homelessness in Lansing
- Tuesday evening, PPA shared those results with neighbors and also offered recommended solutions to solve these issues
- 2,371 people were homeless in Lansing in 2023, with 41% of those people being families with children
- The causes for homelessness and barriers for exiting homelessness were cost of housing, loss of income, mental health barriers, and domestic abuse
- In the attached story, I took a look at the results from the data and spoke with Mark Criss with City Rescue Mission Lansing about the need for solutions
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
Throughout the years, our neighborhood reporters, including myself, have covered the topic of homelessness in many different stories, but Tuesday night, Lansing housing officials revealed data they collected pertaining to homelessness in 2023 and encouraged neighbors to voice their opinions on how to move forward.
I'm your Lansing neighborhood reporter, Asya Lawrence here with those results
"City Rescue Mission is currently running at capacity," said Mark Criss, executive director of City Rescue Mission of Lansing.
Mark Criss is the executive director of City Rescue Mission here in Lansing.
The organization offers shelter to people who are experiencing homelessness, and being on the front line, Criss knows the needs that exist.
Which is why they are expanding to Kalamazoo Street.
"We'll have 300 beds plus another 100 for people coming off the streets in the evening," Criss said.
The city of Lansing's housing department recognizes these challenges as well, which is why they contracted an outside group to conduct a study on an overview of homelessness in 2023.
"In 2023, 2371 people experienced homelessness in the city of Lansing," Public Policy Associates data showed.
Information gathered from local shelters and those experiencing homelessness showed that the main reason for this high volume of people is due to the cost of housing, loss of income, and mental health barriers.
"We've been on both ends, we've been homeless and now we've owned our own home for the past 3 years," said Carol Tilking.
Carol Tilking and her husband know firsthand how difficult it is to get out of homelessness and that experience was backed up by the reported data that showed more people were entering homelessness than getting into permanent housing in 2023.
"We also saw that rental assistance really is playing a critical role in housing stability so around 3 of 4 people who exited homeless in 2023, exited with the support of rental assistance" PPA data showed.
Assistance programs such as this and many others are what neighbors are hoping to see more of as the city of Lansing takes this data and applies it to try to lower homeless rates throughout the neighborhood.
"We're going to get this work done, and we're going to make sure it's done right, and the only way that's going to happen is including as many people as possible in this process," said Kim Coleman.
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