His accent is so deeply Southern everyone knows him only as “Tennessee,” but 31-year-old Daniel “Tennessee” Berry has not been home for 11 months, and has not seen his three children for three years. He hasn’t looked back since the July day he packed up his belongings and was dropped off outside a Lansing homeless shelter after losing the job that brought him to Michigan. Four months later, Tennessee still is living at the shelter, where he says he’s blessed to have a job and three meals a day.
“I always adapt to my surroundings, don’t let nothing get me down,” he said. “It’s just another place. A little bit colder, a lot of snow. I don’t feel out of place. I’m me, it can’t change me.”
Tennessee is one of a growing number of homeless individuals in the Lansing community, where 22 percent of people are homeless and some shelters run over capacity most nights of the month. Despite a plan to end homelessness in Ingham County within the next seven years, homelessness continues to rise in Ingham County and nationally.
Catching up
In 2006, Ingham County became one of 234 communities nationwide to submit a plan to end homelessness within the next 10 years. The plan stated a “healthy, stable housed” Ingham County was within reach and called for an overhaul of commissions aimed at homelessness.
But five years later, economic downturn has presented “major challenges,” including foreclosure and job loss, said Joan Jackson Johnson, director of Human Relations and Community Services of Lansing. Ingham County, like many of the other communities that enacted plans, has some catching up to do.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness has found fewer communities than expected have put their plans into place, spokeswoman Catherine An said in an e-mail to The State News. A study by the alliance found most plans are lacking at least one crucial factor for success.
An said Ingham County is no exception.
The number of homeless people seeking aid in Lansing increased by 1,000 in 2008, reaching 4,250, Johnson said. Michigan’s South-Central region, which includes Ingham County, is second only to the Detroit Metro area in the size of its homeless population. And the state of Michigan is ranked fifth in the U.S. and first in the Midwest for its number of homeless residents.
Patrick Patterson, vice president of operations in Lansing for Volunteers of America, said although the Ingham County plan has seen some success in improving policy and the application of scarce resources, there still is a “huge” need.
“I think we’ve made progress, the work has been good, but there’s still a heck of a problem,” he said.
Although officials are trying to do everything possible to make the county’s plan a success, Johnson said she does not think it will be possible to meet the goal. The state of the economy, a limited skill set among many homeless people, competition from people with college degrees and financial challenges are some of the barriers to success, she said.
In the Lansing area, human service organizations provided 3,703 people assistance in finding jobs, medical care mental health services, counseling and case management last year, according to a report from Human Relations and Community Services in Lansing.
“We have our work cut out for us and we are being very aggressive,” she said. “We are doing everything possible. The scary thing is this past weekend, it was 29 degrees. No one should be outside and we found some people out there.”
Over capacity
Tennessee usually sleeps in a room with 26 people. Sometimes, when the shelter reaches capacity, 10 more people crowd into the room, sleeping in mattresses on the floor. In September, people slept on the floor 21 nights out of 30, Development Coordinator Kate Reed said.
But even with ample floor space, the shelter sometimes is forced to turn people away.
“Unfortunately, we have a maximum number that we can hold, and when we get to that point, we’ll start calling other places, trying to make it so people don’t sleep outside,” she said.
“I hope it slows down and I hope we can meet the need and things turn around, but it’s really hard to say. At this point, we just keep seeing things go up.”
In the shelter, Tennessee says he tries to put a smile on the faces of the other people staying there, who don’t know what they are going to do or where they’re going to go. Tennessee, who now volunteers and works at the shelter and hopes to someday settle down with a wife, believes God waited for him to grow up before providing him with a job and opportunity.
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He keeps looking forward, taking “baby steps” and trying to help others as much as possible.
“Just being good to people, that makes me feel good about myself,” he said.
“Putting smiles on faces in (the) morning, that goes a long way. … Making somebody laugh. If you ain’t laughing, you ain’t living, plain and simple. A good morning goes a long way.”
Staff writer Ian Johnson contributed to this report.
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