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4 GROUNDCOVER NEWS HOMELESSNESS voucher FEBRUARY 21, 2025 Intersection of formerly incarcerated and homeless people ELKA CHAMBERLAIN Groundcover contributor While considering the impact of the carceral system on homelessness, common, cyclical themes present themselves. Among them is the need for balancing speed — sometimes it’s important for things to be done quickly and sometimes they take a while — and the slower nature of these cycles. Particularly traumatic for formerly incarcerated people is the intersection of homelessness with aspects of the legal system. Regardless of which aspect of the legal system a person is processing through, "Jumping through hoops" the impact of being incarcerated, especially when considering other institutional gaps, results in particularly long periods of severe deprivation due to an overall decrease in “potential recovery capital” (the ability to find resources). Put more plainly, people who have been incarcerated are less likely to experience a single and brief homelessness experience and are more likely to experience a bad decade or decades. Sadly, many who earn enough to afford housing report frustration navigating intrusive rental applications, management company background checks, and credit histories. (For the purposes of this article, a person who I spoke with on this subject will be referred to as a “buddy.”) One buddy stated that you “... have to settle, and there should be a state or county fee for applications instead of paying individual fees, when you won’t qualify even with full cash in hand.” A buddy who is on a fixed income at the poverty line (in the form of Social Security) and has a Housing Choice Voucher fell victim to the following predatory application process. This buddy was told there was a $40 online application fee, only to be informed later of an additional $1.20 convenience charge for paying online, and then the final cost after the application was $46.20 — all lost when they did not get the apartment. The reason given for denial was a low credit score. Another rental company’s rental application figures do not even add up correctly. Even with vouchers, landlords may post signs that claim not to discriminate, then continue to discriminate based on not "liking to work" with specific management companies. For those able to handle the trials of the number games, experience shows that while it may be legal to represent oneself in a landlord-tenant case, judges overwhelmingly side with landlords, who appear with paid lawyers. While thus far much of the transition from homelessness has focused on renting, there are many people who have been incarcerated who have a dream of both home and business ownership. Yet part of the stepping stones still include renting while trying to build and/or rebuild. However, not everyone has the same opportunities. One formerly incarcerated buddy dreams of having a shared space to fill in community gaps. On a surface level, veterans appear to have more affordable opportunities. One buddy explained they have been struggling since being released on parole over a year ago. As a vet, they were able to claim one of the available contracted shelter beds, but they were later discharged from shelter programming for being "AWOL" from the shelter (a military term for Absent see HOUSING page 8  Hear me out: Police precincts aren't shelter BOB DAY Detroit Eviction Defense I watched some of Mayor Duggan’s press conference today on the two children who froze to death in a van yesterday [Monday, February 10] in Detroit. Duggan said that their mother, who had five children, had called the city for help on November 25. During that phone call she explained that she was homeless with five children. According to Duggan, the city took no action and did not offer her any help. The city did not consider it to be an emergency, and no one from the city ever followed up or did any checking back with her. The mother, homeless with five children, reached out for help, and the city refused to help her. Duggan and the City of Detroit government are criminals and are responsible for the deaths of these two children, ages nine and two-years-old. The mother, like many others, reached out for help to the city because she had no housing and got no assistance, got no help, got no shelter. Duggan claimed it should not have happened because there is shelter available. But people calling the city for help continue to report they are told there is no shelter available, that the shelters are full. The Housing Resource helpline, the place to call for emergency shelter, is 866-313-2520. And what was Duggan's big announcement, his big response to these children freezing to death in a van in the parking garage at the Greektown Casino? Duggan's advice for people without housing, for families without housing and in need of emergency shelter is to turn yourself into the police at a police precinct station. The police are not our friends and regularly accost and threaten people who are without housing. This is why Dan Gilbert and the Illitch family and Ford and GM and the rest brought Duggan in and continue to keep him around. Duggan's job was to beef up the police; attack and clear out Black people, poor people and the working class; and to make downtown Detroit open for rich folks and people from the suburbs to come to the arenas and sports teams. People who are homeless — people who are in crisis — do their best to avoid the police and for good reason. The police will tase you or arrest you or shoot you down. Ask the families who called 911 for help because a family member was having a mental health crisis, only to see the police arrive and open fire and kill a family member in crisis. See what the police did when the bailiff called for help to evict Sherman Butler from his apartment in Palmer Park. Sherman Butler had been in the hospital and did not know about any eviction order. He had his toes on one foot amputated while in the hospital and was trying to recover and manage to stand and get around again. The cops arrived, helped the bailiff bust in the door, and tased Sherman Butler while the 36th District Court bailiff shot him down and killed him. And the prosecutor said the murder of Sherman Butler was justified and filed no charges against the killer bailiffs or his cop accomplices. Turn yourself in to a police station? Why, so they can tase you or shoot you or arrest you? The city’s offer for help during this housing crisis — with thousands living in cars or on the streets or in vacant houses — is to turn yourself and your family in to the killer cops of Detroit. To hell with Duggan and Dan Gilbert and their damn police. We need emergency shelters for people and families without housing. The city needs to put them up in motels or open up the Coleman A. Young Center for emergency housing or open up the vacant, boarded-up units at Detroit Housing Commission complexes like Diggs or Brewster. Open up the The Renaissance Center; it's huge and mostly vacant. Children are dying, freezing to death in this city because Duggan and the City Council and the city government and the nonprofits they support are not doing their job, not doing their job at all. Children and people are dying, and all Duggan can propose is turn yourself in to the police. Do not allow this to continue. Duggan and the government are enemies of the working class and the Black community and poor people and our children. We need to take action and open up housing and emergency shelter for people who need it, now.

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