Kalamazoo’s homeless face cold waves -- natural and political

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 funders including Kalamazoo County, the city of Kalamazoo, the ENNA Foundation, and the Kalamazoo County Land Bank. 

KALAMAZOO, MI – As people rush indoors from the cold, turn up their thermostats, and shake their heads at sub-freezing weather forecasts, many others continue to have no permanent place to go.

They are also facing the harsh possibility of a loss of services from local and state organizations as the new Trump administration looks to freeze federal grants and loans.

“They are struggling,” Judy Lowery says of unhoused people who have faced single-digit and sub-zero weather during the last few weeks. The founder of grass-roots advocacy group Kalamazoo Together for The Unhoused says the homeless manage by living in tents, cars, self-made shelters, and on the sofas of friends or family.

Her nonprofit organization, which was started in July of 2021 to provide unhoused people with sack meals, coats, gloves, and other items needed to survive outdoors, has been able to help recently by raising funds and landing grants to allow dozens of people to escape the cold during three of the last five weeks. Together for The Unhoused has worked with a local hotel to provide rooms for up to 155 people at any one time during the last few weeks, with two to four people per room.

Al JonesThe Kalamazoo Gospel Mission continues to be the area’s primary overnight shelter.“We did Christmas (week), then we did a week in January because of the cold,” Lowery says. “And then we did last week again.”

She is among human services advocates who are worried about an abrupt attempt by the Trump administration this week to temporarily freeze federal financial assistance programs until they are determined to be consistent with the president's new policies and requirements. Minutes before the freeze was to start at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, a federal judge blocked it. That occurred after the National Council of Nonprofits and attorneys general of at least 22 states filed suit. They argued that thousands of people could be negatively affected and that the U.S. Constitution does not grant the president the power to halt programs approved by Congress.

A memorandum from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget indicated that the freeze was necessary to ensure that the spending of federal funds allocated to local governments, schools, nonprofits, and other organizations complies with a wave of executive orders issued by Trump since his Jan. 20 inauguration.

There is great confusion over what the halt may mean for educational grants, school lunch/breakfast programs, and funding for such things as Community Development Block Grants, Meals on Wheels, Head Start, Medicaid, and WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children).

Chris Sargent, president and chief executive officer of the United Way of South Central Michigan, says that umbrella organization for human services is closely monitoring Trump's plan.

“While a federal judge has blocked the move temporarily, a lot of uncertainty remains,” he says. “If such a halt goes forward, it could quickly and severely impact local programs supporting basic needs, housing, health care, and education. We’re also very concerned for our nonprofit partners, who could face issues with cash flow and the ability to deliver services under that scenario.”

The freeze would affect some United Way programs as well. “Notably our work to address homelessness and hunger locally,” Sargent says. “The risk to people’s lives and livelihoods is enormous.”

Al JonesWhile most of us hurry into a warm house, unhoused people are depending on community resources and somehow finding their own way.Lowery says the stoppage would halt grants her organization and other nonprofits receive through the Kalamazoo County Continuum of Care. To help cover the hotel costs from Sunday, Jan. 19 through Sunday, Jan. 26, for instance — at about $43 per person, per night — Lowery says the City of Kalamazoo gave the organization about $22,000 and the Continuum of Care contributed about $15,000.

Attempts to contact Continuum of Care Executive Director Patrese Griffin on Tuesday were not successful. But in a memo sent to partner organizations, she warned about the possible disruption of reimbursements and activities associated with the execution of federal grants. 

"This includes funding for permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, street outreach efforts, and homelessness prevention," she wrote. She urged people to contact legislators and request that they stop the freeze.

The status of the funding freeze is fast moving with reports from the Associated Press late Jan. 29 that "President Donald Trump’s budget office rescinded a memo freezing spending on federal loans and grants, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country."

Ongoing efforts

Speaking of the hotel program and Thursday, Jan. 23, which saw overnight temperature lows in the teens, Lowery says, “We had, at one point, 127 adults and 29 youths (17 and under), which is way more than my team can handle.”

She explains that the unhoused people at the hotel need 24-hour support. Among other things, most are used to sleeping during the day and being awake at night to secure themselves.

“The people we put in hotels are used to sleeping in the rough,” Lowery says. “When you’re sleeping out in the rough, it’s dangerous to sleep at night.”

Aside from that, she adds, "For every one person that I had at the hotel, I had three that wanted a room." People found their way to the program by word of mouth and, with one exception, were given rooms on a first-come first-served basis.

Their stay at a local hotel during the week of Christmas was an extension of Heads in Beds, a program that Kalamazoo Together for the Unhoused does annually at Christmas. To pay the hotel bill, the organization uses the money it raises through crowd-funding as well as contributions from the Kalamazoo County Continuum of Care and others.

To manage Heads in Beds, she works with four volunteers, who are unhoused people themselves, to manage the Heads in Beds program.

“They are resilient,” Sgt. Amil Alwan says of the unhoused. But the head of the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety’s Community Service Team says, “My fear is just the cold.”

Al JonesThe Kalamazoo Gospel Mission continues to be the area’s primary overnight shelter.
He and team member Officer Mary Miller spend time talking to people on the street and trying to direct them to services. They encourage people to use daytime warming shelters in the area as well as the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, the area’s primary overnight shelter. Alwan says, “A lot of them do. They figure it out.”

KDPS Chief David Boysen says, “Ministry With Community is an option and a couple of churches have opened their locations up. Our officers have that information so they will be instructed to direct people to shelters if they come in contact with people overnight.”

Daytime warming centers include:
Lowery says that while the Gospel Mission helps a lot of people and does a good job, many street people avoid it because they do not do well in large groups.

“These are people who would never stay at the Mission,” she says. “I think The No. 1 reason is people don’t feel safe. Sleeping that many people in one place (the mission has the capacity to house about 500 people overnight).

Al JonesA tent, pitched recently on Pitcher Street just north of Kalamazoo Avenue, is not an uncommon sight as unhoused people brave the weather.Sgt. Alwan says, “We’ve heard of people upset with the rules there. We’ve heard of people upset with the religious aspect (the Gospel Mission is Christian-based). … But everybody and everywhere has rules. That’s a given.”

For others who decide to stay at the Mission, he says, “You get to a point where you give up and say, ‘I’m not going to listen to what anybody else has to say. I’m just going to go to the shelter.’”

In regard to the potential freeze of federal assistance, Lowery says, “We have received $30,000 from the Continuum of Care to shelter people in 2025 and it’s not even the end of January yet.”

That is money that may not be available going forward.

“That is federal funding,” she says.