9/20/23: This story was edited to remove a mention of the Ypsilanti Public Library.

by Monica Ross-Williams

“I’m 83-years-old, have lived in Ypsilanti all my life and I’m afraid to visit downtown Ypsilanti,” an Ypsilanti community Elder confided to me during a recent event.

A growing number of homeless men and women in need of shelter and wrap-around services have set up makeshift encampments in front of a former furniture store in downtown Ypsilanti on Washington Street and across the street at a property owned by local non-profit Growing Hope at its abandoned Farmers Market location. Most of the homeless individuals encamped near Washington Street area (the street was recently renamed “Black Lives Matter Blvd.”) happen to be of African-American/Black descent.

The homelessness crisis in eastern Washtenaw County, including Downtown Ypsilanti, impacts all who live there: seniors, young people, families, children and small business owners. The growing crisis crosses the borders between (and impacts) Ypsilanti Twp., Pittsfield Twp., Superior Twp. and the City of Ypsilanti.

The homelessness crisis also impacts the use of public transportation and citizens who need to use buses connecting eastern Washtenaw County to other parts of the County. Safety issues and crime at the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority (AAATA) Downtown Ypsilanti Transit Center (YTC) have become a problem. As a result, overall ridership originating at the YTC has decreased.

Historic Washington Street is across US-12/Michigan Avenue, near a small business now known as “The Mix.” The building that houses the business is where Frederick Douglass gave one of three speeches in the City of Ypsilanti starting May 17, 1866. 

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason, ” Frederick Douglass.

“The control of events has been taken out of our hands…we have fallen into the mighty current of eternal principles-invisible forces-which are shaping and fashioning events as they wish, using us only as instruments to work out their own results in our national destiny,” Frederick Douglass

Small business owners in downtown Ypsilanti suffering revenue setbacks from the COVID pandemic and road construction, are now forced to absorb further erosion of their businesses by the loss of customers. Business owners say their customers now refuse to visit their establishments due to aggressive panhandling, increased crime and unsafe surroundings.

Who is responsible for this burgeoning crisis? The majority of our elected officials on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, a mix of local politicians in the City of Ypsilanti, the County Sheriff and the Ypsilanti Police Dept. These officials have ignored the pleas of residents, business owners, public transportation riders, Ypsilantians in the City and Township plus the public at large. These people have begged officials to curb crime and address homelessness in downtown Ypsilanti.

Only County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi – District 8, spoke up for a solution to homelessness in Ypsilanti and the eastern part of the County. He has called, “for the county to invest in a physical building for sheltering families, given the high price tag of hotels, as well as create a county housing commission.” Rabhi said this at the April 5, 2023 meeting of the County Board of Commissioners during a discussion about homelessness.

Commissioners Have Had Their Heads in the Sand Since 2015

The County Administrator (Greg Dill) and Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners have known since 2015 that a crisis of homelessness could explode in eastern Washtenaw County. The current disaster was revealed in a series of reports the County Board of Commissioners paid for with public tax dollars. The 2015 Board of Commissioners included Felicia Brabec (now a State Rep.), Andrew LaBarre (still in office), Ken Martinez-Kratz, Ronnie Petersen, Alicia Ping, Yousef Rabhi (currently in office), Ruth Ann Jamnick, Conan Smith and Dan Smith.

First Warning: Housing Affordability and Economic Equity – Analysis, 2015

In 2015, the County Administrator and the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners received a comprehensive report from czb Planners, a highly-regarded community planning organization with offices in Maine, Virginia and Colorado. This report was commissioned by the Washtenaw County Office of Community and Economic Development, and was funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the City of Ann Arbor, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority and Washtenaw County.

The Housing Affordability and Economic Equity Report highlighted the following information on the second page of a 55 page report:

The imbalance in income, education and opportunity between the jurisdictions along with the segregation that goes with it will hamper the regional economic growth potential of the area. Regions that experience strong and more stable growth are typically more equitable, have less segregation and better balanced workforce skills within them.

Seems simple to understand. Inequities lead to less economic growth potential and increased disparities impacting long, medium or short term equitable growth and workforce development. This fits as a perfect corollary with the definition of Opportunity Costs, “The added cost of using resources (as for production or speculative investment) that is the difference between the actual value resulting from such use and that of an alternative (such as another use of the same resources or an investment of equal risk but greater return).”

In order to increase Opportunity Costs for all in an equitable manner, the political goal must be to uplift a community at its base, to deal with core challenges. Using this theory, then, to address the homeless crisis impacting eastern Washtenaw County and downtown Ypsilanti, the core problem is a lack of shelter, transitional housing and wrap-around services.

Solving these problems calls for building more County-managed and County-maintained emergency shelter resources for individuals and families in need of temporary and long-term housing. 

Wrap-around services would address other needs: employment, substance abuse counseling, legal matters, education, budgeting, transportation and more, providing an actual hand up out of poverty. What we’ve gotten, instead, from elected officials are inadequate and ineffectual handouts. This includes the de facto gathering space without proper shelter on “Black Lives Matter Blvd”/Washington Street” in downtown Ypsilanti.

Next, it is important to highlight page 3 of the 2015 55-page report by czb Planners:

The fuller story is that while Washtenaw County’s housing market today is basically healthy, it won’t be for long, as it is likely to become considerably out of balance.

And while the county is fundamentally affordable today, housing cost increases are going to so outpace income gains that affordability will be a real challenge in the future as regards both housing and transportation expenses.

The reality is that Washtenaw County has two distinct housing Markets. One is fundamentally strong – anchored by the City of Ann Arbor. The other – the City of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township – is fundamentally weak and in some respects in abject distress.

The former has a high quality of life and excellent public schools. The latter faces real challenges. The former does not have a perception problem when it comes to safety and housing equity, the latter does.

The planners’ 2015 report, commissioned by the County Board, accurately predicted the serious problems now adversely impacting downtown Ypsilanti, eastern Washtenaw County and a growing number of localized areas within the County.

From page 3 of 55 of the Housing Affordability and Economic Equity – Analysis report:

“At this unblended scale, these are two markets going in opposite directions with three very probable outcomes, barring a significant change in policy at the local jurisdictional or countywide level.

• First, Ann Arbor will become more costly, and less affordable, especially to non-student renters in the short run and eventually, to aspiring buyers as well. The driver for higher costs is a combination of high livability and quality of life, great public schools, resulting sustained demand by households with discretionary income, and resulting expectations of stable and continually rising property values.

• *Second, Ypsilanti will become more distressed and thus more affordable, especially to at-risk households. The reasons include unstable and falling property values and the impacts of disproportionate concentrations of struggling families (crime, lower levels of property maintenance, fiscal stress).

• *Third, as housing costs in the Ann Arbor market outpace the incomes of working families employed in Ann Arbor but not able to afford to live there, those families will commute to housing they can, particularly on key corridors. This will increase congestion, compromising lower environmental quality and market appeal. And since more and more of the area’s very low income families (working, as well as unemployed) will locate to the City of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township for pricing advantages, those markets will be at increased risk for even higher concentrations of struggling households. In turn this will further weaken those jurisdiction’s fiscal capacity.

The 2015 members of the County Commission, Ann Arbor City Council, Ypsilanti City Council and the current members of those bodies did not have to read beyond page three of the 2015 Housing Affordability and Economic Equity – Analysis report to know what the future held. Those elected officials and the County Ann Arbor City Administrators, as well as the Ypsilanti City Managers should have anticipated the forecasted homelessness crisis. From the report on page 38:

• Ann Arbor needs to focus its attention on the preservation and production of affordable non-student rental housing for low and moderate-income workers who are helping to keep so much of the Ann Arbor economy vibrant.

• Pittsfield also needs to focus its efforts on existing and future demand for affordable non student rental housing for low and moderate-income workers.

• Meanwhile: Ypsilanti cannot remain the de facto affordable housing policy for Ann Arbor and Pittsfield; continuation of this default way of operating will ensure further decline of property values and fiscal stability. Ypsilanti must find partners to intervene in the destabilizing cycle of foreclosure, disinvestment, abandonment, flipping, and distress.

Despite the warnings, little was done to tackle what has become growing homelessness in Washtenaw County, before, during or after the end of Federal and State COVID based Eviction Moratoriums.

The COVID Pandemic and Local Homelessness

During the COVID Pandemic in early 2020, a litany of Executive Orders was issued by Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The U.S. Congress passed the CARES Act Eviction Moratorium and it began on March 27, 2020, and concluded on July 24, 2020. Qualifying tenants could not be forced to vacate, and landlords could not file notices to vacate, until 30 days after the expiration of the Moratorium. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) eviction moratorium took effect September 4, 2020, and was initially slated to extend through December 31, 2020. It was extended legislatively through January 31, 2021, and extended again by CDC through March 31, 2021.

On March 29, 2021, the CDC extended the Moratorium until June 30, 2021. The United States Supreme Court in August 2021 and September 2021 struck down the Eviction Moratoriums.

Second Warning: Washtenaw County Continuum of Care Reports, 2017, 2018, 2019-2021

Only one out of eight current Commissioners, Commissioner Andy Labarre – District 7 in office since January 1, 2013, was on the Board when the 2017 and 2018 Continuum of Care reports were issued. County Administrator Greg Dill was re-hired by the County as Administrator in Oct. 2016.

The 2017 Continuum of Care report noted Washtenaw County officials took an active role in the Built for Zero National change movement. That same year, Washtenaw County committed to ending both Veterans and chronic homelessness. County Government resources dedicated to the Built for Zero Movement housed 241 veterans and 433 people experiencing chronic homelessness in Washtenaw County, the report noted.

According to the data in 2017, Washtenaw County government claimed a 29 percent drop in chronic homelessness from 613 individuals in 2015, to 540 in 2016, and 433 in 2017. The 2017 report also claimed a decrease in the total number of people becoming homeless in the County. The 2017 report claimed that number was lower than ever before with 1,402 individuals becoming homeless in 2015, 1,323 in 2016, and 1,025 in 2016.

This report claimed an overall decrease in homelessness levels. Yet, in the Consortium of Care 2017 Homelessness In Washtenaw County Annual Report, on page 1 of the Executive Summary and page 3 of the report, there were still more dire warnings about homelessness and a dearth of low-income and affordable housing:

Executive Summary Page 1, excerpt:

While our system is making an impact, we know that current resources for addressing homelessness are insufficient to meet the demand for housing and services. To better meet this need, the Continuum of Care also looks for opportunities to increase the resources available to address homelessness, to improve the quality and efficiency of our services, and to engage more of the community to work toward our mission of ending homelessness.

Moving Forward: Goal Four – Increase Funding and Resource, excerpt: 

We need more permanent housing resources to build a system that fully meets the need for services.

Washtenaw County 2018’s Continuum of Care report contained a latitude of reach goals versus points of quantifiable metrics for Washtenaw County Governments’ stated alignment with the Built for Zero National Homelessness change movement.

2018-2021: The Number of Homeless Explodes, Murders Skyrocket While Politicians Raise Their Pay

Chronic homelessness in the County rose from 433 in 2017 to 480 in 2018 representing a net .9 percent increase–47 Washtenaw County residents. Shelter space was still severely limited, a fact elected officials knew, and a reality that undermined the somewhat grandiose and disingenuous political promise to “end” homelessness in Washtenaw County.

By 2018, there were 1,785 single adults, 661 families, 329 youth and 193 veterans experiencing homelessness, an 18 percent increase in the number of people returning to homelessness, after having been housed.

The data provided to County Commissioners and other appointed and elected officials in 2018 continued to document a growing housing affordability crisis in Washtenaw County.

Washtenaw County Government’s 2018 Continuum of Care report included a policy decision that can only be described as a form of The Hunger Games. While citing the limited emergency shelter options in the County, a prioritization matrix took shape that would impact who would receive emergency shelter housing. From page 6 of the 2018 report:

With limited shelter space, people with greater needs are prioritized.

Homelessness increased in the County but the County’s elected officials made no plans for additional emergency shelters for families, youth or women.

By time the combined three year 2019-2021 Continuum of Care report was released, it was clear in the background summary on Page 1 of the report, Washtenaw County government had failed to reach its stated Build For Zero goals. The County Administrator and elected officials had not adequately addressed the warnings laid out in the Housing Affordability and Economic Equity Study in 2015:

Homelessness has many causes, but high housing costs in Washtenaw County continue to be a major factor. According to 2021 data from the US Department of Housing & Urban Development, Washtenaw County has the highest Fair Market Rents in Michigan, with a 1-bedroom costing 61% more than the state average. US Census data show that only one in five households making under $35,000 per year are housed affordably.

Washtenaw County’s CoC work is grounded in the principles of Housing First. This approach makes providing permanent housing the highest priority. The CoC does not mandate participation in supportive services to access or remain in housing and believes that clients are most successful when given the opportunity to choose supportive services aligned with their personal goals. Our shared belief in Housing First guides our common work to end homelessness.

Then, the 2019-2021 data collected on homelessness in Washtenaw County showed that the unaddressed crisis had reached a tipping point.

The report noted a 34 percent increase in chronically homeless housed since 2017. A net increase of 69 individuals or 0.9% in the total households served grew from 431 in 2018 to 500 in 2019-2021. In total, 2,298 people found themselves in need of emergency housing between 2019-2021.

A hike in the number of nights shelters provided housing in the County, increased as well from 89,827 in 2019, 89,275 in 2020 to 92,735 in 2021.

Meanwhile, between 2016 and 2023, County Commissioners doubled the County Administrator’s pay to $300,000 and hiked their own pay by 115 percent.

In 2021, The Ann Arbor Independent published the first in a series of articles about the chronic mismanagement of the County’s Domestic Violence shelter, SafeHouse Center. The mismanagement resulted in victims of domestic violence and their children being turned away, and evicted from, the shelter. County Administrator Greg Dill was the vice President of the Board of Directors of SafeHouse, and the County owned and was responsible for the undone repairs of the crumbling building in which SafeHouse was located. By Jan. 2022, an independent investigation had confirmed the newspaper’s reporting and long-time SafeHouse Center Exec. Dir. Barbara Niess-May was forced to resign. The County was forced to spend over $350,000 on repairs, including the installation of a working security camera system.

The 2019-2021 report cited CARES Act Funding and Eviction Moratoriums during the COVID Pandemic as temporary stop gap measures to combat homelessness in Washtenaw County. The County Commissioners, like deluded Blanche Dubois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” relied on the kindness of strangers to mitigate a homelessness crisis of their own making. Worse still, the BOC members and County Administrator Greg Dill during this same period neglected to put forward any longer term strategic solution. Yet, County officials took credit for the reduction in homeless individuals:

In June 2021, due in part to [federal] eviction moratorium and shelter in place mandates, the Continuum of Care (CoC) Team saw the lowest number of individuals experiencing homelessness since 2018 with 275 people on the by-name list. This success can also be attributed to a number of key programs aligning: rental assistance through CERA, additional housing choice vouchers through CARES funding, and new housing units with permanent support services coming on line at the same time.

There are no additional Continuum of Care on Homelessness in Washtenaw County Annual Reports after 2021. The latest about homelessness in Washtenaw County is from the July 2023 “Joint Leadership Quarterly Data Report.” That report documents a 138 percent increase in the number of individuals experiencing homelessness, and a 16 decrease in individuals permanently housed since June 2022.

2023: Homelessness Has Jumped by 138 Percent, Number of Homeless Housed Has Dropped 16 Percent — A “Success”

The failure of Washtenaw County’s elected and appointed leadership to anticipate the current crisis in homelessness in eastern Washtenaw County, and calling their abject failure “success,” is a perfect example of the saying that “data can be manipulated for a desired result.”

No Annual Continuum of Care on Homelessness reports have been issued in Washtenaw County since 2021. It’s no wonder: the current leadership in this County has failed its most vulnerable residents over and over. The data presented in the 2015-2021 reports shows that Washtenaw County officials have failed to create any long-term solution to deal with the crisis predicted in 2015 related to housing affordability and homelessness.

Between 2020-2023 average rental rates in Eastern Washtenaw County jumped from $650-$1050 for a one bedroom apartment, to $975-$1450 for the size apartment with little to no upgrades. A single person making $15.00 a hour, or $31,200 a year before taxes would pay $11,700 a year at $975 a month and $17,400 at $1,450 a month to live in a one-bedroom apartment in Eastern Washtenaw County. 

In each case, individuals would pay more than 30 percent of their yearly net income (37 percent or 55 percent, respectively) for a place to live. This doesn’t include paying taxes, FICA, health insurance premiums, food, clothing, auto insurance, gas, utilities and other basic needs.

To make matters worse, inflation rose in September 2023 to 3.7%.

For Greg Dill and the homeowners on the County Board of Commissioners, while rents in Eastern Washtenaw County have increased between 40-60 percent, and while exponentially more people are homeless, Assessors’ records show property taxes on the homes owned by Dill and the County Commissioners increased between five and seven percent between 2021-2023. While wages stagnated for County employees and constituents, County Commissioners raised Dill’s pay 100 percent and their own pay 115 percent, respectively.

Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership is what Washtenaw County taxpayers deserve, particularly residents in Ypsilanti and Ypsi. Twp. What the reports mentioned above demonstrate is a stunning lack of servant leadership by the majority of the current crop of County Commissioners. In failing to address homelessness, in jacking up their own pay, in failing to to tackle housing affordability and by their inability to use sound judgment, the citizens in Washtenaw County have suffered.

The Center for Servant Leadership at the Greenleaf Center, a nationally acclaimed organization, defines Servant Leadership as:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?“

A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

It’s time for voters to hold these elected officials accountable for their failures, starting at the ballot box in 2024. We simply can’t afford to be stuck with the neglectful County Commissioners we have.

The fleecing of Washtenaw County taxpayers did not just stop at the County Administrator as noted in The Ann Arbor Independent:

“The Commissioners voted unanimously to raise the Sheriff’s salary to $170,667, and to raise the pay of the County Prosecutor, Treasurer, Water Resources Commissioner to $160,000 each. When Dill was hired in 2016, the Sheriff’s salary was $122,869 as was the salary of the County Prosecutor. The Treasurer and Water Resources Commissioner (women) earned $104,755.”

Back to “Black Lives Matter” Street

Traveling back “Black Lives Matter Blvd”/Washington Street” in the City of Ypsilanti, a homeless encampment keeps at least one County taxpayer, an 83-year-old woman, from visiting downtown Ypsilanti to support its small businesses owners. Business owners say the increase in homelessness and crime in downtown Ypsilanti and on Washington Street, that the 83-year-old is among many avoiding what is a historic area of the City. “Black Lives Matter Blvd”/Washington Street” has become an outdoor homeless shelter absent any services. There is open drug use, homeless people defecate in public, they panhandle aggressively and police are called to the area to protect business owners’ property and their employees.

Fewer people are using  AAATA’s buses at Ypsilanti Transit Center due to feeling unsafe and rising crime. Long-time Ypsilantians are in a state of shock disbelief over what elected officials have allowed to happen to the downtown community they love.

The Washtenaw County Administrator, County Sheriff and the Board of Commissioners must be held accountable.

Let’s be clear: a 138 percent increase in homelessness is not a success of leadership by any measure. An open air homeless encampment on Washington Street with rampant drug crime, human feces in the street, and lawlessness is not acceptable.

The accountability begins and ends with your vote to remove the Commissioners, particularly the Ann Arbor Commissioners Andrew LaBarre and Katie Scott. The following Commissioners’ terms end in 2024: Jason Maciejewski, Shannon Beeman, Caroline Sanders and Katie Scott; they must be removed from office. The economic survival of Washtenaw County, particularly the eastern part of Washtenaw County, demands voters elect servant leaders to replace these self-serving political opportunists.

Monica Ross-Williams, MBA, is a former Trustee in Charter Township of Ypsilanti (2016-2020) and Park Commissioner (2011-2016).