As the morning commute rushed by on May 7, streams of yellow caution tape outlined the woods off West Eleventh Street and Division in Traverse City. After years of debate over how to respond to the growing number of unhoused people living in those woods in an encampment nicknamed “The Pines,” officials were enforcing a no-camping ordinance.

Residents of The Pines, which less than two years ago sheltered a quarter of the county’s unhoused population, were told they had to leave. The enforcement didn’t come as a surprise to the roughly one dozen people still living there, says Ashley Halladay-Schmandt, director of the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness. “Folks knew it was coming.”

That’s why over the last year, coalition field workers and members of Traverse City Police Department’s Quick Response Team (QRT) had been visiting The Pines to inform its residents of the upcoming change and to help them make relocation plans. For the first summer ever, Safe Harbor, the only emergency shelter within city limits, was an option. In this week's Northern Express - sister publication of The Ticker - writer Kierstin Gunsberg talks with local officials about where Pines residents went after vacating the site, the status of efforts to address local homelessness, the need for systemic change, and what comes next.

The Northern Express is available to read online, or pick up a free copy on newsstands at more than 650 locations in 13 counties across northern Michigan.