This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's series on solutions to affordable housing and housing the unhoused. It is made possible by a coalition of buyers funders including Kalamazoo County, the city of Kalamazoo, the ENNA Foundation, and the Kalamazoo County Land Bank. 

KALAMAZOO, MI — A local advocacy group is working to provide a safe and warm Christmas setting for up to 100 unhoused people in the greater Kalamazoo area.

Kalamazoo Together for the Unhoused is working to raise money, collect contributions, and schedule volunteer efforts for its third annual Heads in Beds for Christmas.

The event will provide hotel rooms from Dec. 24 to Dec. 27 for people who are living outdoors.

“These will not be for people staying at the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission or who have other placements,” says Judy Lowery, the event’s organizer.

Courtesy photoRyan Smith is among volunteers of Kalamazoo Together for the Unhoused who does outreach work and distributes free meals to the unhoused.Kalamazoo Together for the Unhoused is a grassroots organization started in July of 2021 by Lowery to help the dozens of people who clustered in two large make-shift encampments in downtown Kalamazoo. Since those camps were disbanded by authorities about two years ago, “We do daily mobile outreach,” Lowery says. “We drive around … and we take people sack meals. And we take out winter coats, and gloves, and hats. It just depends on the season — what items are necessary for survival.”

The organization's main goal is to save life and limb, she says. They concentrate on services not already offered by other organizations, especially in the outlying areas where many services are scarce.

But the group’s efforts are also focused on providing help “with dignity and kindness and compassion,” she says.

Courtesy photoVolunteers with Kalamazoo Together for the Unhoused have a meal train that distributes soups, fruits, sandwiches, and other items.Lowery says the Heads in Beds project was started after she learned there was no community-wide plan to help the unhoused when a blizzard and sub-freezing temperatures threatened the area during the winter of 2021-22.

“I was just sick over it,” she says. But she and her volunteers were able to allocate money from another program to pay for hotel rooms to help some people who were living in rough conditions outdoors.

“That year we put up 70 adults and a newborn,” Lowery says. “And then after we did it once, we decided this was going to be our (annual) Christmas gift. So the first year we did it out of survival. We wanted people to live.”

Since then, the former elementary school teacher has been working throughout the year to provide tents, tarps, clothing, and other necessities to the unhoused, concentrating on areas outside of downtown Kalamazoo.

With the Heads in Beds for Christmas, she says, “We provide all basic needs — food, clothes, hygiene products, personal items, transportation, laundry, meals, and food for their rooms.”

Courtesy photoVolunteers are shown preparing to distribute meals at the 2023 Heads in Beds at Christmas event.Kalamazoo Together for the Unhoused is working with a hotel to provide rooms but it will not announce the name of that venue until just before check-in time to prevent it from being inundated with early inquiries and to ensure the safety of those participating.

The organization has secured donations to cover the cost of 20 rooms (at $504 per room for the four-day stay). But the group needs 10 additional rooms to accommodate 100 unhoused people and the volunteers to help them on-site.

Each room will house a family or four adults. Six of the rooms will, thus far, accommodate families primarily those referred by Integrated Services of Kalamazoo. The balance of the rooms, for those not in a family unit, will hold four people each.

During Christmas of 2023, the Heads in Beds event provided rooms for 104 people. This year it is expected to draw unhoused people from all over Kalamazoo County, Lowery says.

They will be primarily from Comstock Township, Oshtemo Township, and Portage, as well as the city of Kalamazoo. People who are struggling in some of those areas, are far less visible than those in the downtown, and have less access to assistance, she says.

Among other things, Kalamazoo Together for the Unhoused tries to align unhoused people with already existing services and tries to avoid duplicating those services. It organizes a meal train that provides daily meals. That typically includes about 600 sandwiches per week. Its volunteers also distribute water, clothing, personal hygiene items, socks, gloves, and other outdoor survival gear.

Courtesy photoA car is shown packed with some of the supplies that will be necessary to help feed people at the Heads in Beds for Christmas.The organization has a core of 18 to 20 volunteers who work in pairs using their own vehicles to do outreach work. They provide help to people who are living outdoors in everything from tents to trash dumpsters. Another 10 volunteers provide help behind the scene, Lowery says. They include a woman in her 80s who regularly cooks soup for the unhoused.

Other efforts are regularly made by a local church whose members prepare 100 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the first Sunday of the month and an individual volunteer who provides 100 sandwiches on the third Sunday of each month.

The epicenter of Kalamazoo Together’s operation is Lowery’s garage in Kalamazoo’s Milwood Neighborhood. She left teaching to cope with a disability that requires her to use canes or a wheelchair to move about. But at age 57 she says she loves the volunteer work.

Those interested in volunteering to help the project from Sunday, Dec. 22 to Friday, Dec. 27 May sign up here.

Those able to provide financial contributions may do so via:
PayPal - Loweryjudy98@yahoo.com
CashApp - $Jujuscash1
Venmo - @Judy-Lowery-5
Please put “Heads in Beds” in notes.

The Heads in Beds for Christmas program is also intended to give participants a sense of community, Lowery says. There will be a games night and haircuts will be provided to those who want them. A Christmas dinner is to be supplied by a local restaurant.

Lowery continues to be extremely worried about how the unhoused will survive the winter.  She says she would like to see an organized, permanent camp established. And she says she thinks more affordable housing is needed to get people off the streets.

“We literally have people that are sleeping in dumpsters in Kalamazoo because they’re cold,” she says. “They are not only eating out of the dumpsters because they are hungry, but …”

She worries about people losing their fingers and toes as a result of frostbite. And she worries about them dying from hypothermia “because we can’t get to them.”

But she is optimistic about the potential for positive change in the near future. And she optimistic about the Heads in Beds project.

“The hotel we’re with this year is comping my room,” Lowery says. “They”re providing it as a room just so I can check people in. So they won’t go to the counter. I will have all the room keys. They’re providing us a storage space in their meeting room. They’re letting us use their breakfast room to distribute things after breakfast, and also to serve dinner from. They’re treating us really well.”