Mar. 1—TRAVERSE CITY — After much public scrutiny and months of pleas to help the homeless, the Safe Harbor board announced Friday that the seasonal shelter will not stay open this summer.

In a letter addressed to Traverse City Mayor Amy Shamroe and city and county commissioners, the shelter’s board chair, Christopher Ellalasingham, wrote that he wanted to clear up misconceptions that Safe Harbor was a driving force behind the proposal to operate year-round.

“Going year-round has not been a goal of the organization,” he wrote, adding that the decision to keep the shelter open all year is one “that the community at-large and its elected officials need to make.”

The shelter will not submit a new Special Land Use Permit that would allow Safe Harbor to stay open through the summer months until the board has a formal proposal requesting it, according to a Safe Harbor news release.

Ellalasingham’s letter said Safe Harbor would need two months’ notice to hire and train staff for year-round operations.

The decision to close on its usual April 30 date doesn’t come as a surprise to most of those involved in the process. At a recent public meeting, city Planning Director Shawn Winter said it would take at least three months for a new Special Land Use Permit to reach commissioners for a vote.

“Both the city and Safe Harbor realized the timeline was too tight,” City Manager Liz Vogel said after Friday’s announcement. “This is one piece of a much bigger puzzle.”

A year-round operational plan and budget would need additional funding from other sources, Ellalasingham noted.

“It is also critical that the concerns of the neighborhood are heard and addressed via a public safety plan,” he wrote. “Our community and those experiencing homelessness are facing a crisis. Being a year-round shelter is a big task for us as we are largely dependent on volunteers operating as a nonprofit organization.”

Ever since city commissioners announced in mid-January that they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness and Safe Harbor, public meetings have been fraught with comment and concern from Boardman district neighbors about issues they’ve had with the shelter’s guests.

“The Boardman neighborhood has a constant flow of pedestrian traffic that loiters in alleys, harasses children, and litters alcohol bottles, cigarettes, hypodermic needles from drug use and human waste, urine and feces, throughout our neighborhood,” resident Megan Wick said at the last city study session.

Safe Harbor said in its news release that the board is sympathetic to its neighbors’ concerns. “These are fair and reasonable concerns that need to be heard and addressed,” it said.

Ellalasingham, however, expressed frustration about what has happened since the city announced the Memorandum of Understanding.

“Our staff have been harassed; trash has been dumped on our property,” he wrote. “Misinformation has been circulated as to our intentions and role in this matter and culpability for some of the problems in the neighborhood.”

Vogel said she, too, was disappointed that Safe Harbor staff had been harassed.

“The MOU was designed to be a transparent tool and open up dialogue — and it got manipulated,” she said.

Ellalasingham wrote that the city approached Safe Harbor and asked what it would take to remain open year-round.

“Safe Harbor remains the only viable option for the 2024 season,” information on slides presented at a Feb. 12 study session indicated.

Some of the reasons cited included its location, the fact that Safe Harbor is already a seasonal shelter, its cost-effectiveness, and the fact that the city would not have to purchase land.

This year, the shelter reached its capacity of 84 people on most nights, according to Safe Harbor data. Last year, it served 65 to 70 people a night.

According to Traverse City Police Department Chief Matthew Richmond, his officers have seen an increase in calls for service to Safe Harbor, the library and nearby Hull Park. Overall, he said, there is a 10-percent increase in homelessness this year.

Last summer, Richmond estimated there were between 75 to 80 people living in the Pines, a homeless encampment near Division and 11th streets that largely provided the impetus to keep Safe Harbor open year-round.

Richmond said the Pines remains consistently in the department’s top 10 locations for calls.

But Pines residents became more visible to the community after the city spent $15,250 last summer to trim low-lying branches, exposing the vast tent city that had been largely hidden from view.

“The crisis in the Pines will most likely repeat itself in 2024,” Ellalasingham’s letter said. “The conditions and safety of all, including healthcare providers, first responders, and those sheltering there is very concerning.”

Next steps for the city to address issues at the Pines — which observers say had a couple dozen people camping there this winter — remain unclear.

“I don’t see it’s realistic in the short- to medium-term that we’re emptying the Pines,” City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht said at the Feb. 12 study session.

City officials made it clear that Friday’s decision by the Safe Harbor board doesn’t mean that discussions about keeping the emergency shelter open all year would end.

Both Mayor Amy Shamroe and Vogel have said these discussions will continue, and Shamroe said there is a possibility that, in 2025, Safe Harbor might operate year-round.