News Photo by Julie Riddle An innkeeper and former guest at Alpena’s Sunrise Mission, Ken Maxwell, gestures animatedly as he describes the help he once received as a homeless person in Northeast Michigan.

ALPENA — “This place saved my bacon,” Ken Maxwell said in his office at the Sunrise Mission homeless shelter in Alpena.

An innkeeper for the mission, Maxwell was once its guest, homeless and uncertain, with nowhere else to go.

Maxwell’s story is not unique.

According to a 2018 report created by Michigan’s Campaign to End Homelessness, there were 1,225 “literally homeless” people, or 2% of the population, in the northeast region of Michigan, including Alpena, Alcona, Montmorency, Presque Isle, and seven other counties — a 37% increase since 2016.

“Literally homeless” includes only those residing on the streets or in the woods, in emergency shelters, or in other places not fit for human habitation. People staying in campers, makeshift homes, or on the couches of acquaintances are not included in the count.

The same source reports 65,104 people living in places unfit for human habitation statewide.

Sunrise Mission, with beds for men, women, and children, is almost always full, Maxwell said. At this time of year, when nighttime temperatures can dip dangerously low, extra bodies are sometimes squeezed in, offered a couch or a patch of floor.

Any time of day or night, the shelter’s doors are open to newcomers, but there are limits to who can come in, Maxwell said. Intoxicated people or those strung out on drugs aren’t allowed, a stance which caused the shelter to forgo government funding beginning a few years ago.

“There are people here who are trying to get clean,” he explained, people who need to be protected from the influences still allowed into a low-barrier, government-sponsored shelter.

As Maxwell spoke, two pleasant-looking, middle-school-aged boys and their father returned to the shelter, fresh from a doctor’s appointment.

“Nice boys,” Maxwell said as they walked down a hallway and disappeared.

THE SCARY TIME OF YEAR

Between now and April is the scary time of year, said Victoria Purvis, housing program supervisor at the Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency.

NEMCSA, as it is called, is the housing assessment arm of a partnership of agencies all dedicated to ending homelessness in Northeast Michigan.

Once a month, for two hours, representatives of social service agencies, medical institutions, and law enforcement put their heads together to strategize how to keep people from sliding down the many different points of entry into homelessness.

In the winter months, Purvis said, a bad situation becomes dire for those with no home.

Though Sunrise Mission works to connect guests with employment and the help they need to stand on their own two feet, not everyone makes it into a home of their own. After 90 days at the shelter, they have to move on.

Often, the move is to another shelter, away from any job possibilities they have established, without references or connections to help them get established in another new place.

The cycle can’t be broken until there’s a home, Purvis said.

The literally homeless have even less of a chance of working their way into a job or a home, regardless of motivation, Purvis said.

Living nowhere, you can’t shower for a job interview. You can’t charge your phone to say you’ll be late for work.

“When you’re in crisis,” Purvis said, “when you’re sleeping in a shelter, literally holding your belongings, getting a vehicle and getting a bank account and getting a job is your least concern. Until you have housing, you can’t focus on anything else. You’re just trying to worry about where you’re going to lay your head the next day.”

‘THAT’S A BAND-AID’

In her role, Purvis works with 11 counties. In all of them, people want to build homeless shelters, said Purvis.

“You build a shelter, and then what?” she said. “That’s a Band-aid.”

The bigger need, she said, is homes: low-rent apartments into which people without much money can move and stay for more than a few months.

NEMCSA works with a number of landlords who do all they can to provide the needed housing, but there’s a limit to how low their rent can go.

“Even those with the biggest hearts still have to feed their families,” Purvis said.

Government-subsidized housing is available in Alpena — to an extent. The Alpena Housing Commission operates 195 apartments with rent based on a percentage of the renter’s income, the government paying the rest.

The wait for one of those apartments could be a few weeks to a few months, an Alpena Housing Commission representative said.

‘WE TRY TO GET THEM BEDS, AT LEAST’

Once the obstacle of finding a place to live is breached, NEMCSA and other agencies can move into action, helping to set up bank accounts, offering cooking lessons, and providing vouchers for supplies needed to create a home.

“Most of them don’t have a kitchen table, but we try to get them beds, at least,” Purvis said.

Case workers shop with NEMCSA clients, helping them manage their money and make wise choices, teaching them to manage their resources in the hope they will never be homeless again.

Sometimes, people who graduate from NEMCSA’s program are eager to volunteer back to the community, Purvis said.

“Homeless people aren’t mean,” Purvis said. “They’re not untrustworthy. They aren’t all alcoholics and narcotic user. They’re average people that fell in a rough spot in their lives.”

‘I HAD NO IDEA WHERE TO GO’

Indeed, divorce, mental disabilities, a job loss, or any other unexpected change can suddenly topple a person from their home and onto the street, Maxwell, the Sunrise Mission innkeeper, said.

For Maxwell, it was a lost job.

At one time a “well-off guy,” he said, with a stable maintenance job downstate, Maxwell lost his income when drunken driving tickets landed him in a Cheboygan County jail cell.

Released to no income and no home, he found a short-lived job at a company that closed.

“It was my first time being homeless,” he said. “I had no idea where to go, what to do.”

For a week, he lived in a storage unit with his possessions, learning that metal and steel protect against the rain but don’t keep the cold out.

Asking for help at the Salvation Army, he was steered to the Alpena shelter, where, he said, he played by the rules, made an effort to make changes for the better, and eventually was hired by the shelter.

Now, as the shelter’s gatekeeper, he sees other people going through the confusion and helplessness of not having a home.

“There’s a time in my life I said I’d never be homeless,” Maxwell said. “It really can happen to anyone.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.