Consolidated Shelter, Funding Plan Top Homelessness Task Force Recommendations

The Housing and Homelessness Task Force – a group led by the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness that includes representatives from the City of Traverse City and Grand Traverse County and is backed by a Rotary Charities grant – presented its draft strategic plan Wednesday at the county commission meeting and two public open houses. The plan includes more than a dozen recommendations to reduce homelessness and increase “deeply affordable housing options” in Grand Traverse County. Chief among the recommendations is consolidating shelter operations currently spread out among multiple sites onto one campus – potentially the Goodwill Inn property on Keystone Road.

The task force met throughout 2025 to “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. Work groups focused on specific areas including safety net services, emergency shelter and services, and housing solutions. The task force presented its proposed plan for feedback Wednesday ahead of a targeted February adoption.

Recommendations went through a “funnel” that scrutinized their impact and viability before being included, according to Task Force Support Coordinator Christie Minervini. Criteria included being “data-informed and achievable by the city, county, or nonprofit community,” aligned with the “task force values and housing-first principles,” leveraging partnerships “without harming anyone,” benefiting “multiple stakeholders,” and providing “measurable outcomes.”

The task force’s top two recommendations on a list of 14 are to create a sustainable shelter funding plan for the region – one that “reduces reliance on crisis fundraising and one-time grants” by blending federal, state, philanthropic, and local government funding into a coordinated budget to “achieve long-term stability” – and consolidating shelter operations. A centralized campus could offer a one-stop-shop for services for the unhoused, including both day and overnight services year-round now offered across multiple entities like Safe Harbor, Jubilee House, Central United Methodist Church, and Goodwill Inn.

The most likely location is the Goodwill Inn property on Keystone Road in Garfield Township. The Coalition’s Ashley Halladay-Schmidt said Goodwill owns enough land for an expansion and that all partners involved are “open to this recommendation,” but emphasized it’s still in the exploratory phase. The next step is to hire a consultant to lead a feasibility and cost study to explore consolidation – a process that could also include evaluating alternate sites or the possibility of expanding Safe Harbor to add 30 beds.

Halladay-Schmidt said the task force has enough funding to pay for the consultant and could hire one in the next week. An expanded campus is envisioned to host 165 beds – more than the current 78 Safe Harbor beds and 64 Goodwill beds combined. Halladay-Schmidt clarified the 165-bed figure does not include families, with family housing options also to be evaluated.

Whether Goodwill or another entity would be the actual facility operator is still to be determined, she said. Transportation and other issues will also be considered. She noted that Goodwill Inn has been operating as an emergency shelter since 2006 with transportation available for guests, so locating such a campus outside city limits isn’t necessarily a sticking point. However, the task force wants to ensure such a campus is not just “serving special interest groups, it’s also better for the guests,” Halladay-Schmidt said.

What would happen to the Safe Harbor property in the event of consolidation is yet to be determined. When asked if the property could be converted into permanent supportive or other housing -- or sold, with proceeds put toward the new campus -- City Manager Benjamin Marentette said no decisions have been made but that it’s “definitely (a conversation) we will end up having.” Safe Harbor received unanimous approval from city commissioners last May to operate as a year-round shelter while the task force completes its work.

The draft plan has several other recommendations, including expanding permanent supportive housing and “deeply affordable housing” options, defined as housing for those earning between 0 and 30 percent of the area median income (AMI) – or a household income of about $22,000, Halladay-Schmidt said. Local and state support could be key given instability in federal funding. Accordingly, exploring “innovative funding mechanisms” locally like millages, tax increment financing (TIF), and payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreements is another recommendation.

Others on the list include having an integrated care team for permanent supportive housing, standardizing trauma-informed shelter services, increasing zoning and density flexibility, focusing on upstream prevention and early detection, offering an incentives toolkit and developer checklist, integrating trauma-informed behavioral health, and improving system navigation and coordination. Some recommendations are already in motion, like implementing countywide QRT (Quick Response Team) and outreach coverage and expanding mobile health and crisis response.

Marentette said he recently met with the city manager of Palm Springs, a community that has seen a 63 percent drop in unhoused individuals living on the street since 2023, according to the Palm Springs Post. He said Palm Springs has taken a “very similar” approach to many of the recommendations in the task force’s plan, with a focus on collaboration across entities and building a centralized campus. “They’ve made great progress,” Marentette said. “I really believe we’re on the right track based on the success they’ve had.”