Attorneys for the City of Lansing and JAJ Property LLC were supposed to meet Wednesday to discuss the latest in the city’s lawsuit against the property owner.
Instead, assistant city attorney Matthew Staples updated Ingham County 30th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina on the status of Code Blue.
Code Blue, the city’s extreme cold weather response, allows local shelters to operate additional hours with increased capacity.
This Code Blue was launched before last week’s winter storm and has since been extended through Dec. 6.
However, homeless residents of Lansing face many barriers to accessing Code Blue warming shelters.
Talon, a resident of the homeless encampment on JAJ Property LLC’s property near Dietrich Park, said he can’t risk going to one of the warming shelters because he’d be separated from his partner.
“Since we’re not married, they’d split us up,” he said. “I can’t split up with her; she’s got a neurological disorder. If she got lost, I’d never see her again.”
Further, Khadja Erickson of the Mid-Michigan Tenant Resource Center said the increased capacity of each shelter still doesn’t supply beds for everyone.
“If you’re not able to lay down, what exactly are we expecting people to be doing in an overnight warming shelter,” Erickson said.
The Capital Area Transportation Authority, or CATA, provides free transit to anyone going to a warming shelter during a Code Blue. However, Erickson said people are not offered free rides back to their encampments.
“So then, in order to go there you need to make sure you have either a bus pass or money to afford your bus fare back,” she said.
Without bus fare, people could be stranded miles away from their encampments and possessions.
Wednesday’s hearing was originally meant to go over the city’s objections to JAJ Property LLC’s requests for discovery.
Aquilina rescheduled the objections hearing to Wednesday, Dec. 10 at 1 pm.
