Another Groundhog Day: Volunteers fan out to clean up the Pines (again)
Apr. 9—TRAVERSE CITY — Less than four months after hauling several tons of trash out of the Pines, an army of city employees and volunteers descended on the city's largest homeless encampment again on Monday.
Fanning out, they swarmed both sides of Kids Creek to reach out-of-the-way campsites that had not been cleaned and had been accumulating trash for years.
In what has become Traverse City's version of Groundhog Day, the volunteers' labors followed an effort by "Serving Up Love," a group of citizen volunteers who worked a full day on Saturday. Using tarpaulins, they dragged piles of garbage to staging areas so that a fleet of city-owned front-end loaders could scoop the trash into a waiting garbage truck.
Monday's volunteers included City Commissioner Tim Werner, who noted that it's far easier to get rid of trash when you can afford to live in a house and pay for garbage removal.
"This makes me think about how easy it is for me and my family to dispose of trash," he said. "We empty it, it gets picked up and we forget about it. I have to do very little. We're humans, they're humans — and we all produce lots of trash."
Traverse City Police Chief Matthew Richmond and Police Officer Krista Fryczynski, who is dedicated to cover the Pines area, both commended "Serving Up Love" and group leader Robin Grubbs for their work over the weekend.
"I'm so impressed with what they did on Saturday," Fryczynski said, adding, "I want this to be a clean slate for this summer . . . and I'm just trying to get ideas of how we can keep it where it's gonna be by the end of today."
Sanitation at the site is a concern. During the cleanup, volunteers dealt with buckets filled with human waste and gallon milk jugs filled with urine.
Once the Safe Harbor homeless shelter closes at the end of the month and the population of the Pines grows, a major issue that city officials will have to address are the unsanitary conditions that invariably develop there. Because of vandalism, there are no porta-potties in the Pines and so residents end up using Kids Creek and surrounding woods.
"To take them (the porta-potties) away and say we can't have them is embarrassing to me as a city commissioner," Werner said, adding that some doctors have told him that the Pines is a public-health crisis waiting to happen. "It's heartbreaking."
Another issue that city officials are trying to address is the fact that a significant portion of the trash that is being removed was brought to the Pines by well-intentioned do-gooders who have dropped off sleeping bags, blankets, clothes and myriad other items that were never used. Left to the elements, they became sodden piles of garbage.
Jenn Holm, a social worker who is detailed to the Traverse City Police Department, recommended that people who want to donate items for the homeless to coordinate their giving through Goodwill Northern Michigan's Basic Needs Coalition.
Information about the coalition and items needed for the homeless is available at goodwillnmi.org/basic-needs.
