Carriage Town Ministries and Homelessness in Flint

Arthur Busch 0:11

Hello. Thank you for joining us. This is Arthur Bush, and I'm your host. This is Radio Free Flint, you're listening to. Today's guest is Cindy Johns, who's community engagement director for the Garrichtown Ministry. I want to talk to you about homelessness and how the Flint area is approaching the problem of homelessness. I want to start by just sort of understanding what the problem is today. What I'd like to get a picture of is the dimensions of the homelessness problem in Genesee County, and perhaps even talk about different types of homelessness that might exist. Some people may be homeless for a short period of time, a long period of time, intermittently.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

So people are homeless for a big variety of reasons. Some as simple as major crises in their lives, and they're unable to sustain their home expenses. And then others, of course, deal with issues in their life from addiction to mental health issues. And those individuals may have multiple experiences of homelessness. It takes a lot of work to change your life and to move from something like that into a self-sustaining lifestyle. So we do have people who rotate through the systems. We do experience a number of people who come to us and have a tragedy of some sort, and they go through our program and then they get back on their feet, and then they do not experience any more episodes of homelessness. You say tragedy, are you talking about home fires or illness or medical issues, people who have lost their jobs for some reason or another, those who have quit their jobs in order to care for family members, huge variety of things that would cause somebody to end up without their home.

Arthur Busch 2:13

When I was growing up in the south end of Flint by Fisher Body, there was a railroad track that went behind our house. There's trains all the time bringing in auto parts. And one point they started shipping cars from Fisher Body to Bowie. Along that railroad track was the old hobos, and that's what we called them hobos. And some of them were kind of scary fellas. Uh, I didn't see too many women. This isn't the population that you're really talking about, is it?

SPEAKER_03 2:39

No, it it really isn't. There are some people who are transient and travel the country, but most of the population that we deal with are people from Flint and Genesee County who have experienced a tragedy or difficulty in their lives.

Arthur Busch 2:55

In terms of the dimension of this, is this in every community in Genesee County? Is it just in Flint?

SPEAKER_03 3:01

I would say that it's in every community that there exists homelessness.

Arthur Busch 3:06

There's a number of ways to address homelessness. That is, you call the cops and hopefully they ship them down the road. We did have people who were what you call transients. At one point, the city of Flint had downtown foot what they call foot patrol officers, and they would counter these individuals and ship them on their way. In other words, don't stop here, keep going wherever else you can. We don't want you. Has that been one approach that the city takes today or any other city in the county, if you know?

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Um, that yes, that is an approach that you see. Um, unfortunately, it makes homelessness kind of a crime. Um, and in Genesee County, I think we're trying to work away from that, um, where homelessness is not a crime.

Arthur Busch 3:54

Panhandling is a crime of sorts.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Yes, it is.

Arthur Busch 3:58

And uh going to bathroom on the street, that's another crime.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Yes.

Arthur Busch 4:02

Occupying a street so that people can't go by it or a sidewalk, that's obstructing. There's another crime. Is that what you're saying? Those kinds of things we don't want to pay attention to anymore.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

So I think that those are a reality. So places like Carriage Town Ministries opens their doors so that people can come into Carrietown Ministries and use the bathroom. Uh, Catholic charities also does this. You can go in so that you don't so that you can avoid problems with the police or whatever. And we also provide enough beds so you can sleep in a bed tonight.

Arthur Busch 4:38

So your services basically involve shelter activity, which means if you don't have a place to sleep tonight and you qualify, you can come to Carrichtown Ministries.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Yes. Yeah, that is our our predominant service is shelter. We have many other services to assist those who live in extreme poverty as well. Now, in terms of what the capacity is in Flint, there are approximately 330 to 350 individuals on any given day in Genesee County who are considered homeless. Some of those are sheltered, so they're staying in one of the shelters, and then some of them are considered unsheltered, which means that they are sleeping on the streets or in abandoned houses. We do a count, it's called a point-in-time count. It's done in January, where we attempt to count as many people in Genesee County who fall into that category.

Arthur Busch 5:36

Obviously, that's imprecise because some of those people in that category may be at a rest stop off I-75.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

That is that is true.

Arthur Busch 5:45

So when HUD takes a look at this, they're looking at programs that they might have been funding or that they know are funded by the community, where such as the Y uh W or such as Carriage Town or Shelter Flint or something like this, where they're actually hosting people within their facility.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

That is correct. HUD does um send money into the community based on this count.

Arthur Busch 6:08

In Flint, and I looked at some of the places I had traveled recently: Seattle, Vancouver, British Columbia, Nashville, even here in the Tampa St. Pete area, homelessness in the nation has has seemingly come from out behind the bushes, and it seems to be more there's a sense by people, especially in the Northwest, that it's just overrun the city. Is this something that has happened in Flint?

SPEAKER_03 6:34

There are uh places where homeless gather and uh stay in their cars or in tents. So that is true. To say that it's overrun our city, I don't think that's true because the number of homeless population has decreased over the last 10 years. It has continued to decrease in Flint.

Arthur Busch 6:53

Well, that's amazing. Now, is that because of the programming that has been launched or what that's what we all hope, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:00

That's why we all exist is to try to help people move from homelessness to self-sufficiency and then not experience homelessness again. So I would say, yes, that's part of it. Obviously, people do leave the area.

Arthur Busch 7:14

What I saw at West was quite disturbing because you would see these tent cities that emerged along the expressways or the freeways. They were under bridges or near bridges, or they were near the downtown areas. They just set up, you know, shanty towns basically. Do we have that in Flint?

SPEAKER_03 7:31

There are a few places that that does exist in Flint and Genesee County.

Arthur Busch 7:35

So every once in a while in Seattle, they just come and take them down, and all you know, the DPW comes along, they pitch all their junk in the back of a garbage truck and away it goes. Problem in Flint with all of its unemployment, you would think would be more pronounced.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Yes, but our numbers show that it there are less homeless than there were 10 years ago.

Arthur Busch 7:57

Well, that's good news about Flint. Do you have any surmise about exactly what it is that's causing those people to go to Seattle or wherever they're going, or are they going some are they getting so much help that they they've become not homeless? I I don't understand what what's being done in Flint that's different than other places, because in other places, what I saw it was going up in the so um perhaps these are some of the solutions that we have had in Flint.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

We do work together, the shelters work together, and other agencies work together for the success of the homeless person, which would be to move into a into a self-sustaining lifestyle, a home that they can sustain. There also is an idea at Carrigetown to assist an individual with job training and coaching. Um, we hire transitional employees at Carrigetown, give them an opportunity to learn a cadence of work and to prove that they're a good worker, and then they can put that on their resume and get a job. Many of those who are at Carrigetown are able to get jobs. They have, you know, having an address is really key to getting a job. So if they're staying with us, they have an address. They have the opportunity to get a job with us for a low barrier transitional employment position. Work for us for six months or eight months, put it on your resume, and then you have a better chance of getting a sustaining job.

Arthur Busch 9:27

So Flint's providing wraparound services to these folks. They're providing mental health care, they're providing job job training and search skills.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

They're providing issues of homelessness are not just that you don't have a home. That the issues are bigger than that.

Arthur Busch 9:42

And what I saw in Seattle was some of the trendiest parts of their city downtown, where they have flagship uh headquarters of many corporations that are known across the globe. They have these people camped out in front of their buildings and their squalor there. And these are like, I mean, Flint doesn't really get it when it comes to compared to a big city like Seattle. It's not glittery, it's not as glittery in Flint as it is in some parts of downtown Seattle, but those parts are diminished by this problem. People feel it's not safe. Quite frankly, there were times when I worried about walking at nighttime there in Flint. Is it because we've had such a long history of unemployment here that we've gotten really good at homelessness? Because I wasn't expecting this when I thought I am surprised. This is a good story. Yeah, it's a good story about a bad subject. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Right. Carrie Town has been here since 1950. The number of people through our facility has gone up and down through the time. Um, we have added beds and then other facilities have opened. I don't necessarily know why it is that we are able to do a better job, other than I can tell you that we work together with other homeless facilities and try to coordinate care. That we have a continuum of care in the city, and all the agencies that work with homelessness attend a monthly meeting, all for the express purposes of helping somebody move from a homeless situation into a self-sustaining um lifestyle.

Arthur Busch 11:17

So when you're talking about we in the community, you're not just talking about some nonprofit someplace, but Carrigetown has had as its hallmark, as its calling card, involvement of the community. I mean, people come there, uh they volunteer time and they have since I was a little boy. I remember Carrigetown as a little boy.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Many people will say, Oh, I came as a child to serve dinner or something like that. Yeah.

Arthur Busch 11:44

The Carriage Town saved it's changed its name from the rescue mission to Carrichtown Ministries, and I'm not sure what the branding effort was there.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

So in the 1980s, we moved from the original building as it was down on the river into the Carriage Town neighborhood. So now, and we expanded services. So they chose to take the name of the neighborhood, Carrigetown. They chose the name Ministries because not only were we providing um a place to eat at night and a bed to sleep in, we had expanded services. So now from the traditional gospel rescue mission, a place to eat and a place to sleep, you can come in at night, you have a place to eat at dinner, you get showers, laundry facilities, case management, a safe place to sleep, breakfast, and then the ability to uh visit our computer center. We have healthcare facilities, we have job training, different types of classes, budgeting classes, things like that. So the ministry has expanded and not only to those who are homeless, but also to individuals in the community. So we run a, you know, a back to school program, we run a summer education program, the Christmas Adopt a Family program, which many places do. We wanted to expand out and provide opportunities for people in the community so that they wouldn't become homeless. And that was the driving force for our summer education program, is if children are more educated, the chance of becoming homeless is less.

Arthur Busch 13:24

You know, driving by the rescue mission, I would always I'd always stare at, I say, Mom, do you think that that's scary there? Or, Mom, do you think it's safe over there? Could and I never wanted to go in it because you know, I had these scary guys, you know, going up and down a railroad track behind our house. Do you think that stereotype has been a hurdle for your efforts to try and show people that homelessness isn't just some guy with a knapsack on his back wandering around on a railroad tracks?

SPEAKER_03 13:54

I think definitely the um face of homelessness has changed dramatically in the past 50 years. According to some national statistics, the average homeless person is now actually a woman in her 20s with two children. You know, I I do sometimes run across people who say, Oh, I didn't know you helped women. I'm like, Well, yeah, families um come too. Because she's younger, the children tend to be young. So the face of homelessness actually is is different. This the stereotype is an older guy with a beard. Um, that's the stereotype. Homelessness is much broader than that, and in fact, and much younger.

Arthur Busch 14:37

We had some strange names as kids for those guys, too. As I remember we called them winos because if they got any money, somebody would give them money, they would go right away and buy Boone's Farm or something like this, some cheap wine they got at a convenience store. Again, I worked in Flint for almost 25 years in the downtown. I remember walking down Saginaw Street one day with Joe Wilson, who was the sheriff. It was about lunch hour, and some guy was hanging around Halo Burger downtown, and he was panhandling essentially. And Sheriff Joe reaches in his pocket and gives a guy a five-dollar bill or something. I look at him and I said, What are you doing? He's a really generous, understanding Christian man, but that guy is not gonna go buy food for that money. I knew that from growing up.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

That is sometimes true. Um, and I would recommend that you give them a granola bar, a card with the address to carry town ministries.

Arthur Busch 15:33

That's exactly for two and a half decades, exactly what I told them when they would come up to me. I would say, you know, there's a place just a few blocks away where not only can you get a few bucks, you could probably get some food and a place to stay for the night.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, you know. Yes.

Arthur Busch 15:51

I remember they held church services there because our church had people who went there and they sang songs and you know, all that kind of stuff. But Carrichtown has a rich uh history and affiliation with the religious community in Flint.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Yes, we definitely do. Yeah, we are a faith-based Christian ministry. We still hold uh each weeknight, we hold chapel that is available for anybody to go to, including people in the community. Obviously, because of the pandemic, we have had to close in, but it will be opening up soon in order for the public to come in for nightly chapel services. And chapel is done by a variety of churches in our community. We also do provide morning devotions uh for our residents if if they choose to attend.

Arthur Busch 16:42

So these churches come from all over the county. They're also supporting Carrigetown ministries financially, I assume that you you have you do accept donations, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Uh yes, we have um about 100 churches who support us financially.

Arthur Busch 16:58

So if somebody wants to donate, people aren't looking for old socks or you know, looking for old toothbrushes or something like that. What kind of donations would you accept? And where do you make those donations?

SPEAKER_03 17:09

We accept all kinds of financial donations. And then we also take donations of anything new that could be used for people from clothing, shoes. Then we do accept used items as well, and as far as clothing and linens and towels.

Arthur Busch 17:26

And so if somebody wants to make a donation to Carrigetown Ministries, how would they do that?

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Um, if you want to make a financial donation, you can go onto our website, which is carriagetown.org. If you want to drop off items, you can we are open on Wednesdays from 10 to 4, and you can drop them off at our donation center. The information is on our website as to where the location is, but it um we have a campus of two buildings and five houses, and it's right here on our campus.

Arthur Busch 17:54

Flint, as as we spoke about earlier, is highly collaborative in addressing homelessness issues and apparently has been quite successful uh in its efforts. Just recently, I learned about an effort made by Judge David Gwynne, who's a 68th district court judge, and he has been working with the Genesee County Friend of the Court and some other partners to deal with homelessness and has started a specialty court that deal with this population. In other words, if they're arrested on the street for doing the things I was mentioning earlier, uh, which are crimes, they might be brought in by the police and then taken in front of this particular judge, where he has a whole bevy of solutions that might be brought to bear, or at least tools, because this is a special population, whether it's drugs, mental health, uh social work needs to be done of one kind or another. What do you know about that program and has it been effective?

SPEAKER_03 18:52

So, our this is a new program in Flint. We are definitely in favor of this. We have seen good success in the other specialty courts. So we have worked with uh Veterans Court. We have had veterans who have volunteered here at Carrigetown through Veterans Court, mental health court has also been successful, and we have had people who have volunteered here through mental health court. So I truly expect that this is going to be a very effective uh way to do the court system.

Arthur Busch 19:23

And one of the articles I read, the friend of the court, had actually begun to work to try to uh get rid of the warrants. Some of these people don't pay child support, and they actually, because of the way the system's run in Michigan, it actually sets people up for being bankrupt without people to go to bankruptcy court and they're not waivable in bankruptcy because they simply have no means to pay. They have gone as far as to forgive of some of this stat, if not all of it, in order to get people back into society because they've dropped out entirely. So that's very promising. Could Flint become Seattle or Portland? And I think the answer is it's done everything it it possibly could do to make it not like Seattle.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

I think that we have a good community collaboration to try to avoid those types of situations.

Arthur Busch 20:09

The last question I I have for you uh deals in the realm of more global and more global concerns, and that is the overall economy of Flint with uh deindustrialization, the loss of employment and so forth, and the transition uh to a different kind of economy. What kind of impact has that had on the homeless problem in Genesee County?

SPEAKER_03 20:33

So definitely the loss of jobs over the years has been a problem that has perpetuated caused homeless situations and the lack of, you know, as industry moves out and then jobs are not available. So individuals need to retrain. I would think that that was kind of a driving force for our transitional employment program, is to give an opportunity for to an individual to retrain and to come out of our program with uh experience in food services. Um, so with a serve safe certificate experience, and then move into a job that is now available because now there are quite a few jobs available, and many of our residents are working.

Arthur Busch 21:21

Have you lived in the Flint community most of your life?

SPEAKER_03 21:23

I have.

Arthur Busch 21:24

What high school did you go to?

SPEAKER_03 21:25

Southwestern, Southwestern Colts.

Arthur Busch 21:28

What class were you in?

SPEAKER_03 21:29

78.

Arthur Busch 21:30

All right.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

I went to McKinley and so did he.

Arthur Busch 21:33

So you're a McKinley Falcon on top of all that?

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Yes.

Arthur Busch 21:36

Let me ask you this. You know, there's a lot of people in Flint that that refer to themselves as Flintstones. Have you heard that before?

SPEAKER_03 21:43

I have, yeah.

Arthur Busch 21:44

What's that mean?

SPEAKER_03 21:45

I don't know.

Arthur Busch 21:47

Are you a Flintstone?

SPEAKER_03 21:48

I assumed it just meant you are from Flint, so but that's all I know.

Arthur Busch 21:53

No, I asked you a question. Are you a Flintstone?

SPEAKER_03 21:56

So, what's the term mean? Is it just mean you're from Flint?

Arthur Busch 21:59

It derives.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

I would probably use the wording around innovative. I see innovation coming in downtown. So it is going to be prosperous again.

Arthur Busch 23:06

The Lord's work there in the Caritown Ministry because you're you're taking the hard counters of the definitions of the New Testament just to love your neighbor as yourself. That's the end of our show. I have one favor to ask of you. If you would please subscribe to our podcast episode. You will get free episodes every week as a release. Also visit our website at www.radiofrequent.media.media, where you find all episodes and other stuff. Song you're listening to next is Take the Children and Run by Mustards Retreat. In uh memory of those children who have been damaged and injured as a result of the Flint Water Crisis. Thank you. Take the children and run.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Take the children and run. Most politicians lying through their teeth. Say there's nothing to fear Except fear itself. And none of them can tell us if it may stop. And they may come in visitors, but they won't drink the drop. Take children and ride. And you're sixty years old. You make a deal with the devil, and your profits unfold. But twenty years down the line, and that little girl is in the prime of her life. And her blood cells grow wide. I saw people lined up in the morning haste To find enough water to get through a day. And we know the truth. And we won't forget.