MichiganRadio

GR coalition hopes to end homelessness by 2014 GRAND RAPIDS, MI (Michigan Radio) - In 2008, the state estimates there were a little more than 86,000 people in Michigan without a home. Half of them were families. A coalition in Grand Rapids is changing the way they approach solving the problem.

Janay Brower is coordinator of the Grand Rapids Coalition to End Homelessness. She says their approach in the past has been to provide temporary housing and support services to push people into more permanent housing. "But we flip that to say well let's worry about how to get them into housing first. How they can see themselves in housing, how they can see that they deserve that and then wrap those services around them so they can ultimately be successful in that housing," Brower said.

More than 5,000 people in Kent County are homeless. The Grand Rapids Coalition to End Homelessness hopes to get that number to zero by 2014. The group's coordinator Janay Brower notes more than one in five of those 5,000 people are children. "We don't think that's ok so we're trying to ensure that not only this generation but the next generation does not have to experience that crisis. And that we can use our dollars more effectively and focus on housing and get better results," Brower said.

Brower says the new approach is much more cost effective and it prevents the trauma of being without a home. Last year 15% fewer people became homeless in Kent County than the year before.

The main reason people are homeless in Kent County is because they cannot afford housing.
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