Kalamazoo Housing Advocates strives to provide one-on-one supportive services, where instead of just offices and forms, a person in crisis can call on someone to help navigate the steps toward a more stable environment. And love is built into the organization.
The people behind Housing Matters are volunteers. Together with local officials and area agencies, they are looking for what's next in terms of getting and keeping people housed in Kalamazoo County.
'Quieting' downtown streets is a noisy process. Change can be unsettling. Ask any Kalamazoo resident. But South Bend, Ind. has completed the transition of urban one ways to two ways. The results are encouraging: downtown reinvestment, beautification projects, and increased community pride.
"At the 2020 presidential election, I was observing the Kalamazoo County Board of Canvassers.... They spent an entire hour because there was a one-vote discrepancy in one of the precincts." When they figured out the discrepancy, "everybody broke out into applause."
Kalamazoo has a plethora of arts organizations and a rich array of artists. The Artist Job Fair, sponsored by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo and KRESA's Education for the Arts, is bringing the two together for a networking extravaganza at Bells Eccentric Cafe.
"We had a liter bottle of Hungarian wine. As we were finishing the bread, and finishing the wine, we said, 'Man, this (bread) is good! You know, we could sell this!' And that's why you shouldn't drink too much."
"What you have told us basically is that hope comes from having some action you can take to make things better, either for people close to you or for the world or whatever... You've shown us that hope comes through feeling like you can do something."
One-ways to two-ways. Bike lanes. Slowed traffic. Taming of stroads (streets acting like roads). Change can be messy, but one local group hopes it's just a few bumps on the road to Kalamazoo becoming a Strong Town.
The City of Kalamazoo wants to see if it can get more landlords to accept tenants whose rent is subsidized by federal housing vouchers with a pilot program to help landlords pay for the renovations needed to meet the standards that come with accepting rent in this manner. This is a story Mark Wedel has been working on since 2022.
A formerly littered path along Portage Creek in Edison is transforming into Literacy Trail and a street near a former dumping ground will become a closed-off playstreet called Literacy Lane — thanks to the Kalamazoo Literacy Council, Edison Resident Scholars, the City of Kalamazoo, and other partners.
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