One year after The Pines cleared, Traverse City shelters still strained

One year after Traverse City cleared The Pines near Division and 11th streets, the shelter system was still running flat out. Safe Harbor of Grand Traverse, Inc. had moved into year-round operation, but its beds remained at capacity, a sign that the city’s promised homelessness response had not fully matched the need left behind.

That shift began after the Traverse City Commission approved a special land-use permit in 2025 to allow Safe Harbor to stay open year-round. The change came with a larger budget, which doubled to $1.1 million, backed by Traverse City, Grand Traverse County, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and community donors. Even with that support, the shelter was still full, and a January 2026 report said people were still sleeping outside, just more out of sight.

The Pines had once housed as many as 70 people before the city’s no-camping enforcement action in early May 2025 cleared the camp. Officials said residents would have places to go, including Safe Harbor or the Goodwill Inn. Instead, the need spread across Traverse City and beyond, making it harder for outreach workers, mobile medical teams and case managers to track people and connect them with beds, food and health care.

Jubilee House, the downtown drop-in center run through Grace Episcopal Church, had to expand food and navigation services as people who had lived at The Pines did not all move into the same programs at the same time. Without a central place to find clients, transportation became a bigger problem too, leaving more people scattered across the city and harder to reach.

The broader need has not gone away. In June 2025, the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness counted 251 people living without shelter in the region. That number underscored what service providers have seen on the ground in Traverse City: clearing one encampment did not end the crisis. It shifted the burden onto a shelter system and outreach network that were already stretched, and left the community still managing the fallout rather than closing the case.