East Lansing Homeless Shelter Celebrates 40 Years of Service

For 40 years, Haven House has been a part of the East Lansing community, dedicated to providing shelter and services to homeless families of all types with the goal of keeping families together. While the needs have changed through the years, the services are still crucial.

In celebration of this anniversary, the community is invited to an open house Thursday (Nov. 30) from 12:30-3 p.m. at the center’s new administrative facilities at 1090 Abbot Road. The Haven House shelter is located at 121 Whitehills Drive. RSVPs are requested.

Haven House has a long history of serving the community.

Earlier this year, ELi spoke with Gabe Biber, the executive director of Haven House, to learn more about the center’s history and how it serves the community.

“It was initially the Economic Crisis Center Organization, renamed as Haven House after a few years,” Biber said. “And the original location was in a small residential home on M.A.C. closer to campus. So they moved to the current [Whitehills Drive] location to have more capacity, maybe during the late ’80s, early ’90s. Since then, it’s always been a secular, independent non-profit, really all about inclusiveness.”

Haven House operates differently than most homeless shelters, tasked with the goal of keeping families – even unconventional ones – together.

“The whole purpose of the founding was, the system at the time was, you’re either a single man or a woman with kids,” Biber said. “That was kind of the slice and dice way of dealing with homelessness. So if you were a two-parent mom and dad family with kids, or if you were a single dad with kids, or if you were a mom with a teen son, all of these combinations had nowhere to go in the system. Haven House was really set up to say everyone who’s falling through the cracks who’s not eligible for some other type of shelter, we want to have them here.

“In terms of how we define a family,” Biber said, “maybe there’s a third generation or maybe there’s an uncle who’s really part of the family but in the past would not have been considered [part] of that narrow definition. Families with same sex couples, families with a grandparent that’s the custodian…our purpose is to serve everyone we can.”

The shelter is licensed to allow 28 individuals to stay on site, with 28 twin beds and rolling cribs that can be moved throughout the rooms to accommodate families of all sizes and abilities. The main level of the center is fully wheelchair accessible. 

Homelessness prevention has become a major focus in recent years.

The services Haven House offers, however, go far beyond the brick and mortar building.

“We typically serve over 100 families a year,” Biber said. “In the past, that had been more sheltered families and a little bit less on the side of prevention and housing. We’ve seen that shift. We’re really putting our efforts into if we can help keep you where you’re at, that’s going to drive the number of people we shelter down, but it’s going to keep the families more stable. Our goal is not so much how many families we are able to put into shelters this year because there’s no shortage of people seeking shelter. It’s really how many families did we help achieve a positive housing outcome.”

Biber spoke proudly of Haven House’s role change in recent years to homelessness prevention and other services, including continued support for those who had moved out of the shelter.

“Folks who have either found housing or exited our shelter for housing over the past year, we work with them for a full year on a monthly basis in their home to help keep them stable,” he said. “So generally, we have about 100 families in that crisis mode each year and then another several dozen that are in various stages of follow-up and kind of phasing out the help.”

The range of homelessness experiences is broad.

Homelessness has a variety of causes and conditions, Biber said.

“The range of types of homelessness people experience is just as broad as the range of people you see in the world,” Biber said. “So everything from someone who has a very rare, occasional bout of homelessness and has a lot of resources at their disposal and [is] able to get back on their feet pretty quick versus someone who has had consistent problems maintaining housing, almost like a chronic homelessness. 

“And then another axis would be, some folks simply have a money problem,” he said. “They don’t have the savings, something came up, they couldn’t pay their landlord, they had to make a choice, boom they were out on the street. But other folks, they might have the financial resources. Maybe they have income from working or maybe they’ve got disability income, but they may have behavioral or emotional issues or things going on for themselves or maybe a kid in the house that either the landlord wasn’t having it or the neighbors weren’t having it or whatever else it was that undermined their housing security. 

“I think we really need to be sensitive to the fact that we’re continuing to see folks that just don’t have enough money or the rent is too damn high, those kinds of issues, systemic issues such as wealth inequality,” Biber said. “But we’re also seeing the system is not set up to handle those who might need a little assistance with navigating the communication with a landlord or mental health issues. Those things are ongoing or maybe made worse by the pressures of the pandemic.”

The variety of situations is expressed on Haven House’s website where families’ stories are highlighted.

The pandemic resulted in changes in the needs and demands for housing.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a severe impact on housing throughout the country, according to Biber.

“We’ve seen all kinds of changes in the types of needs and demand shifting, the resources shifting,” he said. “Certainly, through the pandemic, there’s been this ongoing crush of pressures against independent homeowners and renters. The instability of the housing market has been a persistent factor. As far as the pandemic, we saw an influx of resources to try to help meet various needs and now we’re seeing a return to normal, in terms of the usual scarcity of funding. Many, many families that we serve have at least one person in the family with a disability, whether physical or mental.”

Haven House is part of a network of shelters and services in the mid-Michigan area, working to support families no matter where they originate from.

“We really work as a no-wrong-door collaborative with all of the other shelters in the Greater Lansing area,” Biber said. “So regardless of where someone experiences homelessness, whether it’s East Lansing, Holt, Lansing, they’re going to call someone seeking help and [we look at] eligibility based on demographics. Can we serve you because you’re a family or can we not because you’re a single individual? But with capacity issues, part of that is what we call shelter diversion. If someone calls us seeking help, part of it is about can we keep you where you’re at tonight? Someone else who might be needing the room more might be calling after you, and so we want to try to prioritize the resources available.”

Haven House has strong support from the community.

ELi asked Biber how the community has supported the homeless population over the years and he was quick to point out, “well over 80 percent of our funding comes from people like you, individuals, families.” 

He also delved deeper into the question, examining systemic issues at play.

“The yes is an emphatic yes because, first of all, we have great neighbors,” he said. “Haven House has been here a long time and that’s a lot of presence and we have always felt very supported and welcomed by the people who live around us. And we have certainly had financial support and volunteer support from East Lansing residents, businesses, the city itself has been generous financially. So there’s an emphatic ‘yes’ there in terms of the welcoming and supporting of the organization, the mission, and the individuals we serve.”

At the same time, Biber said, the “no” that has to be stated is that, systemically, there is still a housing shortage.

“Particularly for safe, affordable, low-income housing and the historic background for the City of East Lansing for Dr. Robert L. Green and the racial discrimination moving all the way to market forces now,” he said. ”Are we on a practical basis very welcoming to the point where low-income people are having a very easy time finding housing here? Well, no. But that’s a challenge many places are facing. It’s important to recognize that challenge but to also recognize the huge support the community has given us.”

Ahead of its 40th anniversary celebration, Haven House has been named the lead agency for Ingham County for the Homeless Management Information System, charged with ensuring the community meets the continuum of care for those it serves.

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