LANSING, Mich. — The Fledge founder Jerry Norris expressed his frustrations to Lansing City Council this week after getting a letter from the city saying The Fledge must close its warming center within seven days.
“The letter basically said that we did not have a special use permit to operate as an overnight warming shelter,” Norris said.
Norris admits he knew he needed a special land use permit to start the warming center, but he said applying for one wasn’t top of mind and that his focus was on providing people a safe and warm place to go outside of the faith-based organizations the city collaborates with on cold nights.
“What we were doing was looking at the situation, saying the weather is going to get to -15 degrees, and the last time, we didn’t have a warming center opened up, two people died one on Christmas Eve and another on Christmas Day,” Norris said.
Sparrow Hospital confirmed that there were at least two weather-related deaths this past winter.
We reached out to the city of Lansing for comment.
They said in a statement, “the city appreciates all of the hard work that The Fledge does for the community, however, that doesn’t make them exempt from following the law. They are not zoned to be a 24-hour shelter, and they received a letter from the city indicating how they could request a zoning change to do that.”
That process includes an application that goes through the city's Board of Zoning Appeals and then City Council. We’re told the timeline for the process varies.
But Norris said he doesn’t plan to go through that process, and if cold temperatures come again, he’ll open his warming center back up.
“If they want to fine me, they want to shut me down or whatever they want to do, I am not going to turn people away from that door when it’s freezing cold out when they are facing death," he said. "Who in their right mind could do that?”
