Grand Traverse County and Traverse City commissioners will have a rare joint meeting tonight (Monday) at 6pm at the Governmental Center to discuss a new report from the Housing and Homelessness Task Force.

The detailed 100-page strategic plan – created over 15 months though 50-plus meetings with local stakeholders and community leaders, including five listening sessions with individuals experiencing homelessness – outlines eight key housing recommendations along with potential budgets and funding sources. One such source, a county housing millage, could head to voters this fall for consideration.

The Housing and Homelessness Task Force – a group led by the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness, featuring city and county representatives and funding from a Rotary Charities grant – met for over a year to create a housing plan tailored to northern Michigan. Work groups focused on different areas including Safety Net Services, Emergency Shelter and Services, and Housing Solutions.

Throughout the process, “two major system needs became clear,” according to a Task Force release. “Grand Traverse County is short of approximately 30 emergency shelter beds and 178 permanent supportive housing units to respond to the current need.” In addition, “emergency shelter and housing must be addressed together,” the Task Force said, with a “growing understanding that homelessness is a regional challenge requiring shared responsibility and coordinated solutions.”

In January, the group presented the first draft of its strategic plan at two public open houses. The final report highlights eight key recommendations aligned with the work group focus areas. In the Safety Net category, for instance, recommendations include “strengthen coordinated system navigation and outreach to reduce inflow and returns to homelessness” and “invest in targeted prevention and housing stabilization to reduce first-time homelessness.” That includes steps like growing the Street Outreach and Quick Response teams, enhancing mobile health access, broadening wrap-around services, and centering trauma-informed care and standardized screening across agencies.

Under Emergency Shelter recommendations, creating a single campus for shelter operations with 165 beds – potentially through expanding Goodwill’s Keystone Road operations, exploring new locations, or adding 30 beds at Safe Harbor – is a key solution. Such a campus could have “a single set of operations, clear roles, streamlined client flows, shared data, joint funding, and strong governance to deliver consistent, dignified access, and faster movement from intake to housing,” the report states. An estimated budget is $3 million per year – inclusive of day-time drop-in services, though capital costs for a buildout are TBD – with potential funding sources ranging from city/county general funds to marijuana/opioid dollars to grants, donations, and township/state contributions.

Creating a sustainable budget and funding plan through blended funding sources is another Emergency Shelter recommendation, as is developing consistent care standards across all local shelter operations. That includes establishing a universal definition of “shelter,” standardizing data reporting, aligning funding access with baseline performance criteria, and committing to quality improvement based on guest feedback and industry best practices.

Finally, the report shares three recommendations under Housing Solutions. One is aligning local financing tools and development incentives – like payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreements, TIF, and land deals – to increase production of “deeply affordable housing.” The report calls for stabilizing and expanding permanent supportive housing and pushing zoning and land-use policies that allow for increased density and construction flexibility to build more low-income housing.

“The recommendations in this strategic vision represent a shift from managing homelessness to ending it,” says Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness Director Ashley Halladay-Schmandt. “That will require continued collaboration, sustained investment, and a clear commitment to what we know works.” Halladay-Schmandt says local partners “have an opportunity to make homelessness in Grand Traverse County a rare, brief, and one-time event.”

Several recommendations in the plan list a county millage as a potential funding source. Kate Redman of Nest Community Partners, a nonprofit that recently received a city PILOT agreement for 16 workforce apartments on Eighth Street, has been working with other housing advocates to bring such a millage to the ballot. County commissioners will likely see the proposal in July for consideration of putting it to voters in November.

The millage as proposed is a 1-mill levy that would raise approximately $7.5 million in the first year and cost the average county homeowner $133 annually, Redman says. It would provide funding for key Task Force recommendations – notably the year-round shelter campus and in-home support services to help residents with disabilities or health challenges remain housed – plus go toward new construction and rehab for rental/home ownership. Such housing would be targeted to residents earning less than 80 percent of the area median income (AMI), or under $31/hour, with long-term affordability restrictions in place to prevent units from being converted to market-rate or short-term rentals.

Redman says the millage is supported by multiple housing and community groups, with dollars to be matched “at least four to one with outside dollars that we need to make projects work. Local organizations have shovel-ready projects that could move forward if we had this gap funding source.” She says there is a major gap between what an average essential worker earns and what it costs to build starter apartments or homes in Traverse City. A firefighter starting salary of $60,000 equals an affordable rent of $1,200/month or a $180,000 mortgage, but the average local rent is $2,000 and the cost to construct a “modest, 1,000-square-foot” home is $300,000, Redman says. The millage could help broach that gap and focus new housing “where townships, cities, and villages want it.”

Redman says local advocates are not “reinventing the wheel,” pointing to similar housing millages that have been successful in Ingham County, Kalamazoo, and Ann Arbor. “Those have made a big impact on their housing challenges,” she says. “It’s important to do something, and this seems like the most readily available local solution.”