4 GROUNDCOVER NEWS HOMELESSNESS FEBRUARY 7, 2025 City of Ypsilanti funds relocation of homeless residents displaced by Water Street remediation LINDSAY CALKA Publisher On January 17, Marie woke up with a letter taped to her car. The letter was from PATH (Washtenaw County's Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness) informing her that her tent was scheduled to be cleared from the Water Street property on Friday, January 31. In the letter PATH offered help moving her campsite if she wanted it. Does this sound familiar? In a January 26, 2024 article, Groundcover News reported on a threatened sweep of the same site, the same campers, for the same reason: remediation and redevelopment of Water Street in downtown Ypsilanti. Community response to this threatened sweep resulted in an indefinite delay. Council called off the scheduled work until a better approach could be formulated. A year passed with no intervention, and ironically the sweep was scheduled for the second time in the last week of January 2025 — the coldest week of the year. So the Tuesday after the letter was posted, January 21, 2025, concerned community members attended the Ypsilanti City Council meeting and participated in public comment to urge Council to call off the sweep, again. Councilmember Amber Fellows introduced a discussion regarding the “Water Street Fence Repair and Tree Removal.” In this discussion the City employees argued against further delays of the remediation work because of time-sensitive funding and potential ramifications from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Water Street property is mostly contaminated land that can not be formally occupied, developed or used until all the contaminated soil is removed and replaced. The first step to this process was removing trees and repairing fences, work that could not be scheduled until homeless residents were removed. Council decided to delay the work by two weeks and make an effort to problem-solve with Washtenaw Camp Outreach and the affected campers, get more information on the scheduled work, and research available City properties for relocation. What the public hears Three days later, on January 24, Ypsilanti’s communication department published a release titled, “The City of Ypsilanti is moving forward with the Water Street Redevelopment Area.” The press release outlined the funding source for this project, which is a combination of time-sensitive funds from MDEC and HUD’s Economic Development Initiative. The press release continued with a timeline for the work that would be done in 2025 and the funding sources for each of these steps. "This is a long-awaited project and one of the city's last pieces of undeveloped property. We are excited to leave it better than we found it, redevelop it, and return it to the city's tax rolls, making it profitable for the City of Ypsilanti and benefiting its residents," said Mayor Nicole Brown in the release. “This funding is crucial for the redevelopment of the Water Street project, as it provides us with the unprecedented opportunity to address the contamination on the property and prepare it for future development. By excavating and revitalizing this site, we are removing environmental hazards and paving the way for new opportunities,” said Andrew Hellenga, City Manager of the City of Ypsilanti. The press release contained no referto the potential ence delay or displacement, signalling the threat of the sweep was truly imminent. Negotiating compensation Friday, January 31, Councilmember Steve Wilcoxen, Councilmember Amber Fellows and City Manager Andrew Hellenga met with Washtenaw Camp Outreach members Jim Clark and Sheri Wander; Country who lives on Water Street; and KJ from Homelessness Solidarity Network. WCO presented demands from the campers — which, in sum, was compensation for the displacement from their homes. The City representatives claimed that they couldn’t do much themselves, but offered to reach out to PATH, Washtenaw County Commissioners and staff, and even donate personal items. After the close of the meeting Wander reflected, “They walked away with an acknowledgement that they need to take personal and institutional responsibility for the situation we’re in." Tuesday, February 4 — the scheduled follow-up discussion during the City Council meeting itself — arrived see WATER ST next page "Where I Slept Last Night" by Kaleaf
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