Voters in Kalamazoo County will decide whether to approve a property tax proposal on Tuesday. It would raise money over six years to help homeless families find housing. Supporters say it’s essential that children have homes or they won’t do well in school and won’t thrive as adults. But opponents say there are better ways to help them.
If the proposal passes, it’ll cost homeowners in Kalamazoo County one-tenth of a mill per year on their taxable property. How much does that work out to? If the taxable value of your house is $50,000 – taxable value being about half of market value – you’d pay five dollars a year.
“It’s not a lot. Is it enough? I’m not going to answer that question,” says the
David Artley is with the county’s Public Housing Commission, which proposed the millage.
“We wanted an amount that was significant enough that we could do more than a two or three family pilot every year. We didn’t want to ask for too much. So it’s kind of like the three bears. Too little, too much, just right.”
The Public Housing Commission’s Goldilocks amount is about $817,000 a year. Artley says that could help about 100 families find permanent housing annually. He says he hopes 600 currently homeless families will be housed by the end of 2020. The Kalamazoo public school district says by its count, about 1200 children in the county are homeless.
“What is housing support? Could be vouchers, could be rental subsidies, it could help with utility bills. Many times people come with lousy credit ratings. Well, we can work on that. It could be classes – it could be money management classes,” he says.
One person who’s benefited from the county’s housing program is Melissa. She’s asked to use only her first name. After school, Melissa’s three kids and their friend play and work on homework. Her daughter is looking forward to board game time.
“There’s red and yellow pieces,” she says, explaining the game Connect Four.
For a variety of complex reasons, Melissa and her kids were homeless off and on for years.
“Before coming into the housing that I have now, I was homeless at the Mission for three months. And it was the hardest – one of the hardest times of my life,” Melissa says.
She adds that school officials would call saying her children were falling asleep in class.
But with the county’s help, Melissa and her kids moved into a house owned by a nonprofit about a year ago. She pays 30 percent of her income toward the rent. Melissa says having a home has transformed their lives. She says it’s a big part of the reason her son, whose behavior at school used to be out of control, is now doing much better.
“There was an issue where my son was being poked and messed with by another student and instead of acting out, as he previously would have he politely got up and he walked over and he said, ‘can I please move seats? Can I just take my own space?’” she says.
The proposal is going before voters after a contentious debate. It squeaked onto the ballot on a party-line vote. The county commission’s six Democrats voted to authorize it, and five Republicans voted against. Some commissioners said they’d like to see the county fight homelessness with money it already has. But GOP commissioner John Gisler says any government intervention in homelessness goes against his principles.
“I support limited government and this is beyond the limits of what I think government should be involved in,” he says.
“I’m sure that there are people like that,” he says, in regards to Melissa’s experience. “But as a whole I think that government programs to alleviate poverty and homelessness have been a failure both at the national, state and local level. This is an exception to the rule and thank heavens there are some exceptions,” he adds.
Gisler says trying to stop homelessness is an appropriate task for nonprofits, but not the county.
The Public Housing Commission’s David Artley says that if the millage passes, backers intend to prove that it’s made a difference. At a minimum, the commission plans to track how many families it’s helped to find housing and how many still have housing after they’ve left assistance.
“The results of the program will speak for themselves,” he says.
Artley says the commission has not decided what its next best step would be if the millage does not pass.
