News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Kody Pribbernow stands outside his trailer at the Alpena County Fairgrounds next to his dog Karma.

ALPENA — Kody Pribbernow lives in a trailer at the Alpena County Fairgrounds with his wife Kayla, his two children, and his two dogs — an older German Shepard husky hybrid named Riddick and an 11-week-old husky named Karma — both rescues.

Pribbernow, who refers to himself and his family as homeless, works at MediLodge of Green View for $15 an hour and is looking really hard to find a house.

Homelessness is an issue in Alpena County that many individuals and organizations are taking seriously and continuing to look for solutions on. Some families, like Pribbernow’s, have struggled for some time to find housing available to buy or rent.

In 2022, the Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency performed 287 unique homelessness assessments — reports that provide estimates of homelessness and demographic characteristics of homeless people.

In those nearly 300 assessments, 155 of the individuals or families were counted as being homeless and 137 of the individuals and families were counted as being at risk of homelessness.

When describing his experiences with homelessness, Pribbernow emphasized the everyday struggles that lacking a home can cause. He described tasks that those with adequate housing may view as simple, like doing laundry, washing dishes or keeping their space clean as becoming far more difficult when the resources that are necessary to complete those tasks aren’t as consolidated.

“It’s a lot different than living in a house where you got central air, you got heat, you got propane or you got natural gas so you can cook,” Pribbernow said. “When you have to truck in water just have drinking water. It’s kind of rough.”

When asked what he believes to be the major contributor to his current situation, Pribbernow was quick to identify affordable housing availability as the primary reason.

“If you have pets, they don’t want to rent to you, if you have children, they don’t want to rent you, if you don’t make two and a half times house rent plus deposit, they don’t want to rent to you,” Pribbernow said. “They figure you are gonna fall behind because of poverty.”

Last fall, dozens of people in the Alpena area did not have a home, according to NEMCSA officials, landing many families at the fairgrounds and making homelessness and an ongoing housing shortage more visible.

Amid the ongoing concern for homelessness in Alpena County, current data appears to show some significant improvements locally.

In the final report of the Housing Needs Assessment performed by Community Research Services, LLC in March, a section outlining homelessness in Alpena County — which used data obtained by NEMCSA — appears to show that homelessness in Alpena County seemingly decreased by nearly half.

The method used by NEMCSA to evaluate homelessness is something called a point-in-time assessment, which is essentially a head count of those in various states of homelessness during the final week of a month.

The data presented in the Housing Needs Assessment showed that in January 2022, there were 57 people experiencing homelessness in Alpena County with 35 of those 57 being adults and 22 of those 57 being children. Thirty nine of the 57 were in transitional housing and 18 of that 57 were in emergency shelters. Additionally, 28 of the 57 were veterans, and 16 of the 57 were identified as disabled.

In the data obtained for 2023, the number of people experiencing homelessness was just 28 with decreases in every category except for disabled which remained the same, and those in emergency shelters, which went up.

Housing availability is still an oft-cited reason for homelessness by those who do work in alleviating homelessness like Ned Heath, a casework specialist for the Salvation Army Alpena Corp.

“Right now, one of the biggest obstacles is the rent prices. Not only the prices of them, but the lack of availability,” Heath said. “Oftentimes, if somebody is looking for assistance to get into a place, there’s several landlords that don’t want to work with them.”

The report also mentions that homelessness in Alpena County is primarily the result of substance abuse and domestic violence — a point elaborated on by Valerie Williams, the executive director of Hope Shores Alliance, an organization that specializes in assisting victims/survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.

“I think that most of the time when we’re working with someone who’s in crisis, and “fleeing” a situation is their number one goal, homelessness is always on the table as a main concern,” Williams said.

Hope Shores assists in dealing with homelessness for domestic violence survivors by providing them with emergency and temporary housing.

“Typically our homeless support looks like emergency shelter services, if that’s appropriate. So if somebody is fleeing a situation or if their living situation isn’t ideal, then our emergency shelter could be an option for them,” Williams said. “If, if not, we sometimes offer motel vouchers for people if an emergency shelter isn’t really something that suits their needs.”

Hope Shores also collaborates with other homelessness programs in Alpena like Sunrise Mission, a private Christian homelessness shelter, and NEMCSA.

In addition to collecting data on homelessness in Northeast Michigan, NEMCSA also helps those dealing with or who are at risk of dealing with homelessness by offering assistance in locating housing and even providing financial assistance in the form of vouchers for those who qualify.

Despite programs like NEMCSA’s efforts to help, there can still be moments of friction and dissatisfaction for those dealing with homelessness.

“We tried going through NEMCSA. They gave us a voucher for a two-year house for paying rent,” Pribbernow said. “Then they turned around and canceled on us because she [Kayla] was working when I was working so both of us working at MediLodge was over income.”

NEMCSA officials could not be reached for comment.

For those who work to fight homelessness, an important element they encourage from individuals is to not be judgmental.

“I would say one of the biggest things that community members can do is come into [the idea of homelessness] with an open mind. Look, look at the situation non-judgmentally,” Heath said.

Being open-minded is a point with which Williams agreed.

“You have to be more open-minded about homelessness,” Williams said. “Homelessness is the end result of something originally or is something that happens along the path or someone so there are a lot of other factors going on in someone’s life. Homelessness is just one thing.”

When asked about his thoughts on his situation, Pribbernow said it’s important to keep going in hard times.

“Don’t give up even when people don’t help you,” Pribbernow said. “Always try to help yourself.”