Wayne County Community College District student Jennifer Carr speaks during an interview in Detroit in June 2017. Carr knew she wasn't the profile of a typical college student. The Detroit area woman was 37 and has battled alcohol and heroin addiction and has been homeless in the past. "I didn't have anywhere to go, I lived in my car, I didn't have my job anymore and I got evicted from my apartment," said Carr, who was in her first semester at the school. (AP file photo)

LANSING — The radio is silent in Greg Pratt’s van, but that doesn’t mean it’s quiet as dozens of styrofoam containers filled with food squeal loudly from the trunk with each bump and turn.

A former Marine, stay-at-home dad and Lansing resident, Pratt spends at least one night a week canvassing the city looking for homeless encampments to deliver meals to. How he delivers, and how often he goes out, is dictated by a mixture of available donations and the weather.

“Our biggest problem right now is, they’re going so far back in the woods, that nobody goes back” to help, said Pratt, who’s been doing outreach in the area for the last five years.

Lansing is among a growing number of local governments in Michigan and the country that are cracking down on homeless encampments, which Pratt contends has pushed some of the area’s most needy further into the trees.

The city is suing two businesses for “allowing” a homeless camp to expand on their property despite safety concerns, and it’s ticketing people for sleeping in public parks, including a pregnant woman two weeks ago.

The US Supreme Court last year ruled that cities can issue citations to homeless people for “public camping” even if there are no shelter beds available. Last month, President Donald Trump went further with an executive order calling for the forced institutionalization of homeless people deemed “a risk to themselves or others.”

States that don’t comply with the order could lose federal housing funds. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the order is a way to remove “vagrant criminals from our streets.”

Homeless advocates like Pratt say large-scale institutionalization is not feasible in a state like Michigan, which already has a psychiatric bed shortage. Ticketing people effectively for being homeless can add additional monetary and legal hurdles to obtaining housing, they say.

But cities attempting to keep order and serve constituents wary of visible homeless camps have been taking more aggressive steps.

Officials in Anchorage, Alaska, cleared two of the city’s largest encampments this summer, dispersing an estimated 100 people. In Bend, Oregon, officials recently undertook what one area advocacy group called the ” largest eviction of a homeless camp in recent history.”

In Michigan, debate over homeless services and institutionalization has intensified in recent weeks after a homeless man stabbed 11 people at a Walmart in Traverse City. His brother says he suffered from mental illness but “fell through the cracks” for decades.

Traverse City had dispersed a large encampment, known as The Pines, in May. Reviews are mixed on whether it was the best approach. Even with the city expanding shelter availability, it has not kept everyone off the streets.

“The net positive or the net negative is something that we’ll ultimately have to measure over years,” said Mitchell Treadwell, a Democrat and Traverse City city commissioner.

While forced closure of The Pines was difficult to see on a personal level, Treadwell said, he hopes the commission’s recent vote to fund a part-time shelter year-round will better serve the area’s homeless population.

Creating encampments

Nick Cook, policy director for the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness, frequently accompanies Pratt on his rounds of encampments in Lansing.

Together, he and Pratt pair make up the community advocacy group Michigan Helping Others with Purpose and Empathy, or Michigan HOPE. Pratt serves as president.

There’s no real way to know how many encampments exist in the city on any given night, Cook said, but there are a slew of reasons why a person may choose to camp rather than seek out a homeless shelter.

Want to sleep? Bed availability isn’t guaranteed. Married but don’t have kids? Can’t stay at the same place. Struggling with addiction or poor mental health? You could get banned from local shelters, Cook said.

Homeless encampments have long existed but the COVID-19 pandemic strained alternative systems: Some shelters were forced to further limit bedspace or close altogether, according to a 2023 report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at one point urged states not to break up encampments during the pandemic unless shelter space was immediately available.

About 33,226 Michiganders experienced homelessness in 2023, the most recent year for which statewide data is available. That was an increase of about 2%, or 521 individuals, from 2022, and an even larger jump from 2020, when the state reported 30,746 people experiencing homelessness. A record high 653,105 people additionally experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2023 according to national data from the National Alliance to End Homelessness — a 12.1% increase from the year prior.

‘There’s been no help’

While the state may not keep track of citations given specifically to homeless people, they are happening.

In Lansing, 41-year-old Crystal White was issued an $130 citation on July 31 for being in a closed park after 10 p.m. “or posted time.” She’s one of 26 people who’ve received such a citation since July 1, 2024, according to the Lansing Police Department.

White — who is homeless, six months pregnant and goes by the street name “Pixie Dust” — told Bridge she lives near Lansing’s Maguire Park with a handful of others she calls her family.

The way she tells it, White received a hotel voucher last month to get off the street for a few nights but ended her stay prematurely due to perceived mistreatment and guilt. She returned to Maguire Park where, around 3 a.m., a police officer woke her and told her she couldn’t sleep under the pavilion.

From there, White said she had a choice: Either move her sleeping bag out of the park and onto the sidewalk, where it was raining, or remain where she was at and get a ticket. She chose the latter.

A spokesperson with the Lansing Police Department confirmed the interaction, telling Bridge in a statement that an officer had been out to Maguire Park before the 3 a.m. ticketing to tell those at the pavilion they “needed to pack up and leave, as the park was closing.”

A delicate balance

While “everyone’s well intended” in thinking of ways to keep people from living on the streets, Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness Director Ashley Halladay-Schmandt said a proven way already exists — housing first.

The approach is simple: Put a person into some level of permanent, supportive housing as they work to address any mental or behavioral health problems, rather than offer housing as a conditional reward in the process.

It’s been a “proven, effective way to address homelessness for a very long time,” said Halladay-Schmandt, noting it’s overall cheaper for a community to house a person than incarcerate them. Which is why, she said, the president’s order openly calling to end “support for ‘housing first’ policies” concerns her.

“I’m just confused and baffled about what this means for us and the folks we serve,” said Halladay-Schmandt, whose organization works in five northern Michigan counties — including in Grand Traverse County, where The Pines encampment once stood.

Michigan is making strides toward addressing a lack of affordable, permanent housing, but the effort is a marathon, not a sprint. Many planned developments are focused on addressing housing stock for mid- to low-income earners, but not necessarily very low income earners like homeless individuals.

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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.