GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Kent County housing advocates say the area’s homeless population is growing.
Degage Ministries has seen a “massive increase” in the number of women sleeping at its shelter in Grand Rapids’ Heartside neighborhood in the last five years, executive director Thelma Ensink said. In December 2020, there were 35 women in the shelter, she said. Now, there are typically more than 110 and sometimes as many as 140 each night.
Kent County’s point in time count, which tracks homelessness, has seen a 56% increase between 2018 to 2025, Courtney Myers-Keaton, the director of the Grand Rapids Coalition to End Homelessness, said. Preliminary data from the 2025 count found 1,238 individuals experiencing homelessness…