Commissioners Unanimously Approve Safe Harbor Year-Round Permit; Pines Enforcement Starts Today

Traverse City commissioners voted unanimously Monday to approve a special land use permit that will allow Safe Harbor to operate its emergency shelter on Wellington Street year-round. With the facility now available this summer to individuals experiencing homelessness, the city plans to start enforcing its no-camping ordinance today (Tuesday) – including at the Pines encampment off Eleventh Street, where individuals could face citations and eventually arrest if they don’t depart.

Safe Harbor’s new permit will allow the nonprofit to operate between May 15 and October 15, something it wasn’t able to do under its previous permit. To help address the city’s homelessness crisis, Safe Harbor raised $1.1 million in commitments from various community and municipal partners for each of the next two years to operate year-round. The expansion is being positioned as a pilot project to provide an immediate alternative to the Pines – which Mayor Amy Shamroe said Monday was “not livable” and “not humane” – while community leaders explore longer-term solutions, including a potential alternative shelter site and more permanent supportive housing options.

The provisional nature of Safe Harbor’s expansion was emphasized by leaders, particularly after Boardman Neighborhood residents objected Monday to the shelter operating year-round. Residents said they’d had numerous interactions with aggressive, drunk, disoriented, or confrontational shelter guests in their neighborhood and didn’t feel safe letting their children go outside unsupervised. Trespassing, loitering, and littering – including discarded needles and other drug paraphernalia – were cited as ongoing issues. Betsy Corbett, who sits on the Boardman Neighborhood board, said the city needed to “pair compassion with responsibility” by considering the wellbeing of neighborhood residents as well as the unhoused.

“Our children, our elderly, and our families are vulnerable, too,” she said, urging the city to explore options for a non-residential centralized location to establish a year-round shelter.

Grand Traverse County Commissioner TJ Andrews – who represents and lives in Boardman Neighborhood – noted that Safe Harbor’s expansion is intended to be neither “permanent nor sustainable by design.” That’s also true of the county commission’s recent funding commitment of $400,000 – $200,000 annually for the next two years – to Safe Harbor, which was approved with “strings attached,” Andrews said. Those conditions were designed to increase transparency on the pilot project and include required regular written reports to commissioners and data collection on guests by Safe Harbor. Stating that it was important for the community to act to address the crisis and “move this forward,” Andrews said that a local task force has been formed to explore more permanent solutions “in tandem with” Safe Harbor’s year-round expansion.

The Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness recently announced the launch of that initiative, called the Housing and Homelessness Task Force – a “collaborative, community-wide initiative designed to create a long-term, effective, and coordinated response to homelessness,” according to the organization. The leadership team is comprised of Coalition Director Ashley Halladay-Schmandt, Christie Minervini (Task Force Coordinator), Sakura Takano (CEO of Rotary Charities), Nate Alger (Grand Traverse County Administrator), Liz Vogel (Traverse City Manager), and Ryan Hannon (Director of Outreach at Central United Methodist Church). Public engagement sessions and stakeholder meetings – including input from a variety of community sectors – are planned as part of the project.

“The task force will focus its work from May through September 2025, during which time specialized work groups will assess gaps in current systems, identify effective strategies from other communities, and develop an actionable plan tailored to the unique needs of Northwest Michigan,” according to the Coalition, noting that the project is backed by grant funding from Rotary Charities. “These work groups will focus on three central areas: strengthening the safety net to prevent homelessness, improving emergency shelter and crisis response systems, and expanding long-term housing solutions. The resulting community action plan will serve as a roadmap to guide coordinated implementation efforts beginning in 2026.”

City commissioners expressed a willingness to explore options to help ensure Safe Harbor’s success – such as boosting neighborhood patrols by police officers or installing more trash cans – and to also look at funding commitments for longer-term options. Commissioner Mi Stanley asked whether the city could financially support a shelter facility if one opened in another municipality (some community members have been exploring options in Garfield Township, but nothing concrete has yet materialized there or elsewhere). City Attorney Lauren Trible-Lauch said she wasn’t sure but was willing to research options for the city. “I love creative solutions,” she said. “If there is a way to do that, we can try to find it.”

In the meantime, the commission’s Safe Harbor vote Monday means the city will begin enforcing its no-camping ordinance in city parks starting today – including at the Pines. Traverse City Police Department (TCPD) Chief Matt Richmond was at the Pines Monday with numerous other volunteers cleaning up abandoned campsites and reminding residents that enforcement would be starting soon. Many Pines residents had already departed or were preparing to relocate – some to Safe Harbor, some to homes of friends or family members, some to other communities. However, others were staying put with their belongings as of end of day Monday. Richmond estimates volunteers removed 10 dump trucks – or approximately 100 yards – of items from the Pines, but acknowledges more trash and several active campsites remain.

The TCPD and its Quick Response Team have been warning Pines residents for weeks of the looming no-camping enforcement, Richmond says. Starting today, any remaining residents would first receive a verbal warning to depart the Pines. They can then be issued citations if they don’t leave. If they continue to resist departing, they can be arrested for trespassing. That is a notable new development, as city commissioners recently declined to update the city’s park ordinance to allow police officers to make trespassing arrests in city parks. Had they approved that change, the TCPD could have made such arrests and submitted them to Trible-Laucht’s office, allowing the city to handle those internally.

However, because commissioners rejected the ordinance change, the TCPD is now working with County Prosecutor Noelle Moeggenberg to process arrests under state trespassing laws. Both Trible-Laucht and Moeggenberg confirmed to The Ticker that is how such arrests will be handled going forward – which applies not just to the Pines but any other city parks where camping might occur. Arrests could result in a 30-day misdemeanor charge, according to Moeggenberg. She says she agreed to the enforcement measure because the Pines site has “become so unsafe.” However, Moeggenberg also emphasizes – as does Richmond – that the city is “doing everything possible” to warn individuals first and help connect them to support services, with arrest serving only as a last resort.