Ingham County commissioners will decide Tuesday whether to extend some homeless residents’ stay at a Lansing hotel.
Around 60 members of the Dietrich homeless encampment moved into the Causeway Bay Hotel in December after their camp was cleared. Since then, residents have taken the time to get IDs, get on housing waitlists, seek employment and more.
The hotel stays, while unlike anything Lansing has done before, didn’t come out of nowhere.
The City of Lansing sued an Old Town property owner to clear the Dietrich homeless encampment last year. The property owner, JAJ Property LLC, argued that the city should fund the clearing and guarantee the residents had somewhere to go.
Dietrich residents attended weekly hearings for months to get updates on what would happen next before the city and JAJ Property LLC agreed behind closed doors to clear the camp and move the residents to Causeway Bay Hotel on the city’s dime.
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina announced the case was closed on Dec. 17, and that residents would move into the hotel as early as the next week.
Causeway Bay Hotel welcomes Dietrich residents
Damon and his wife were some of the first to move into Causeway Bay. He said they lived at the Dietrich encampment for seven months before the move.
“Dietrich is basically the last bottom of the hill,” he said. “I never experienced nothing like that before, sleeping in a tent and everything."
Damon had a job while living in the encampment: refurbishing houses, doing lawncare and even painting cars.
"We had jobs and everything. It was unfortunate that we ended up being homeless,” he said. “The cost of living is way too high, way too high. It's making more people like us. If you look around Lansing, you see people sleeping downtown on the ground over the heat grates. Why would you want that?”
However, Damon said moving into Causeway Bay didn’t just get him and his wife out of the cold. They also got a housing voucher.
“We got the place already, but we got to have the inspection in order to move in," he said. “But we call this home now. Until we get our apartment, this is home.”
Waiting for a housing voucher is a long and arduous process, and not everyone staying at the hotel has received one. In fact, only 3 of 49 current homeless residents at the hotel have gotten off the waitlist.
Dan said he’s been on every list for almost a year now, and he’s still waiting.
“At my age, I’m saying to myself, sooner or later, they’re going to say, ‘Hey, you got approved,’” he said. “But, it just hasn’t happened.”
Dan is 64 years old, and he joined the Dietrich encampment in April 2025. He didn’t move into Causeway Bay at the same time as the other residents though. Instead, he went to a healthcare facility.
“I had the pneumonia down inside,” he said. “I went to work the day before, then the next day, I got a little worse, and I was kind of out of sorts.”
Dan said he was at a healthcare facility in Perrington for six weeks before he moved into the hotel. The hotel stay has given him time to recover.
Chloe, another resident, said it’s difficult for people to recover from even the most minor illnesses while living outdoors, especially in the cold.
“It's impossible to get better," she said. "When people are sick, they can't do what they need to do to get housing or work if we stay steady sick or hungry.”
Abbi, another resident who is currently fighting cancer, said an indoor stay has been pivotal for her treatment.
“Attending doctors' appointments is extremely hard when you have to lug all of your belongings that you own with you,” she said. “My chemotherapy takes over an hour and a half, and I don't know whether I'm gonna lose all of my belongings while I'm there. At least at Causeway, I know I'm not gonna lose anything more.”
Dietrich residents run into hurdles along the way
The stay, of course, has not been without its struggles.
A note slipped under residents’ doors last week warned that 12 people had been evicted for rule violations. These rules include not smoking indoors, not allowing outside visitors and following hotel staff instructions at all times.
“This is a private hotel, not a shelter or campground,” the notice read. “These rules have already been explained.”
Residents who violate the rules will face immediate eviction, according to the notice. No warnings and no second chances.
The rules are also posted on a board in the lobby, alongside information on when community resources like Tenant Resource Center, Punks with Lunch, Ingham County Health Department and the Housing Assessment and Resource Agency will be visiting the site.
Remaining residents say the rules are manageable. They just need more time.
Things like getting documentation, getting jobs and finding housing all take time, especially when people are starting from square one.
Although he already has his housing voucher in hand, Damon agrees that the stay should be extended.
“A lot of people are still waiting for the vouchers, and a lot of people are still trying to get through this whole ordeal,” he said. “It would be very, very much appreciated if we’re able to stay here until our vouchers come through and we're getting into housing.”
What happens next?
The City of Lansing originally budgeted $40,000 to shelter around 60 people at Causeway Bay for six weeks.
An additional $76,000 from the Ingham County Housing Trust Fund could extend the stay for another two months, if the county commissioners approve it Tuesday.
If the extension isn’t approved, Causeway Bay residents don’t know what would come next. It’s still freezing cold outside, and many had to leave behind essentials, like tents and generators, to move into the hotel.
“It got bulldozed down,” Chloe said. “We really lost all of our survival stuff, because we had such a short notice to move, very little help and the weather wasn't on our side.”
Abbi said there is little she could do if she had to leave Causeway Bay right now.
“Putting us back outside, it’s just gonna kill us,” she said. “If we leave here without the extension, it ends up being another temporary solution to a permanent problem.”
Causeway Bay residents say that not only should their stay be extended, but this process should be repeated for more of the around 1,500 homeless people in Lansing.
“They put us here, which is great. They made a step forward of what they was doing, and they doing their best to get us on vouchers, get our IDs, our birth certificates and everything else like that,” Damon said. “And it’s working.”
