When East Lansing considered ordinance amendments to ban public camping earlier this year, it exposed a lack of resources for the unhoused community locally.
While communities often respond to unhoused people by making new rules to limit where they can stay or putting up signs to discourage activities like panhandling, advocates believe the real issue is a system struggling to keep up with increasing homelessness.
“When you have a problem of this scope, of this degree, it’s not easy to have a good response,” said Susan Cancro, executive director of Advent House Ministries, a Lansing organization that provides services to unhoused people…