George G. and Ryan H. Two fantastic local community advocates for our homeless neighbors.
If you stand at the door to Ryan Hannon's office around 7:30am, you can see the guests of Safe Harbor beginning to disembark for the day. They're wrapped tightly in a collection of cast off clothes; incongruent ensembles of third-hand high-end apparel and Walmart bargain-bin finds. Most carry all their worldly possessions in worn backpacks or faded shopping bags held together with ducktape. Some walk together. Others venture out alone. All are moving from the certainty of a warm bed and a prepared meal into the cold unknown of Northern Michigan.
Some see them as bums, as vagrants, as objects of pity or sources of frustration. Unfortunate souls who, through some failing of their own, have fallen through the cracks. Derelicts who, for love of vice or lack of will, choose to stay homeless. Some identify them as a problem; a threat to a tourist town with a Pure image, a local blight to be assuaged with quick fixes or to be hustled off to some other town. Let those suckers down the road deal with em.
But Ryan see these overlooked humans for who they really are: men, women, young adults, individuals, members of our community who are fighting--sometimes minute by minute--for a better life. They are proud Northern Michiganders who embody our spirit of resiliency, of defiance, of hope. And Ryan knows each of them by their name.
Meeting our homelessness neighbors where they are.
Ryan Hannon is Goodwill Northern Michigan's Community Engagement Officer and an integral part of the Street Outreach program. You may find him at a local encampment. Maybe he’s with a support team providing medical treatment. Maybe he’s just sitting and talking with folks, listening to their stories and sharing in their lives.
Sometimes, on cold nights, you'll see him walking the streets and trails of Traverse City, looking for friends who haven't popped up lately in any of their usual places.
But you'll also catch Ryan coming out of city and county meetings advocating for housing and other support programs. Or meeting with law enforcement and social service groups to help guide their collaborative efforts.
Right now, Ryan smells like cigarette smoke. He's been sitting for the last two hours in a garage meeting at Dan's House, listening to residents and staff as they work through their shared challenges.
Ryan talks softly, yet passionately. He has a smile which is impossible not to catch and to carry with you through out the day.
"I sum it up by saying Street Outreach brings resources to help people in their homelessness right where they are," says Ryan. "Under a bridge, in the woods, an abandoned building, wherever it is, we bring resources to help end homelessness. And that can mean a number of different things depending on the person. We build relationships with that person."
"I sum it up by saying Street Outreach brings resources to help people in their homelessness right where they are."
"There's a lot of work that needs to be done and outreach before a person can even qualify to get actual help," he continues. "So we kinda do a lot of stuff that that doesn't get really noticed or thought about."
"We have housing programs, we have HUD money for helping people, but if you don't have outreach to go and get people to those resources... you know, the money's gonna get spent somewhere, but the people that really need it the most aren't going to get it. So there's a lot of work on that."
And with a very limited number of supportive housing options in our region, making sure our most vulnerable neighbors have the access they need is critical.
Ryan, and the Street Outreach program are an important part of the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness. This coalition works collaboratively to end homelessness by making homelessness rare, brief, and one-time. They address housing issues through a community-based process that develops a comprehensive, coordinated continuum of care to individuals and families who are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless in our communities.
The end goal for Ryan, and the coalition, is to help get anyone experiencing homelessness to into supportive housing. Then, with this very base need is addressed, folks can begin to focus on building health and stability in other areas of their life.
"We have housing programs and HUD money for helping people, but if you don't have outreach to go and get people...”
The coalition's effort to end homelessness are rooted values of collaboration, accountability and data-driven decision making. The latter value involves making system-wide decisions based on actual data rather than intuition or observations alone. It means using qualitative data gathered from persons with lived experience of homelessness.
But even within well established methods of helping people get into supportive housing, Ryan and others still understand the importance of individual agency and freedom.
"We try to promote choice as much as possible, because we've found, and evidence, shows people need to 'see' themselves living where they're going to live, or it doesn't work out," says Ryan. "So sometimes I gotta kinda try and advocate or help fight for choice for folks. But also at the same time there may not be very many choices that they have."
“People need to 'see' themselves living where they're going to live, or it doesn't work out.”
Despite increased community awareness around issues of homelessness, Ryan often hears similar concerns from people he talks to about his work.
"The biggest misconception I hear usually is people want to be homeless," says Ryan. "Or that people come to Traverse City to be homeless." he continues, referring to the belief that people travel to our area just to take advantage of local programs and support options. "But that's a myth in every single town in America."
"The biggest misconception I hear usually is people want to be homeless. Or that people come to Traverse City to be homeless."
"Another thing people think is that outreach is just going out and giving blankets to people. We very rarely do that, although we will if we need to."
To help meet basic and urgent needs--like appropriate winter clothing--Ryan works with other groups like Father Fred, Jubilee House, Central United Methodist Church, Salvation Army, St. Vincent dePaul, Safe Harbor, Addiction Treatment Services and others.
"Street Outreach is not trying to get all that stuff to give to people. That’s very time consuming and it's very hard work," says Ryan. "And it prevents [Street Outreach] from helping people get out of homelessness."
Increasingly, Ryan's time is spent on addressing the systemic causes of homelessness. He has parlayed his community recognition--earned through years of showing up and speaking up--into a valuable asset for advocacy.
"The reason I'm here in this [Commongrounds] building is to be down closer to the NOBO neighborhood. I'm working with the city police and their new police social worker Jen Campbell and the community police officer Justin Nowland to try to be part of an advisory [team] and to be able to come help intervene and be in this space to help."
Even as Ryan is spends more and more time working “upstream” of the immediate needs of our homeless neighbors, he knows that it’ll takes an entire community to create real change.
"We're just one pieces of the big puzzle of ending homelessness," says Ryan
Actions you can take to support Ryan, the coalition, and our homeless neighbors:
Sign up to volunteer at Safe Harbor or at Dan's House.
Help put together a "Welcome Home" basket full of essential goods for those moving from homelessness into supportive housing.
Learn more about the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness's work. (Also, here's a short video on what they do.)
Keep up to date on the coalition's work by joining their emailing list. (You can also read their past newsletters here.)
Hear more from Ryan and learn more about the coalition's work at the upcoming Rotary Charities event Stories of Change: How a Systems Change Approach is Transforming a Region, happening Thursday, January 26 at the City Opera House.
