The People Center: The Starting Point

Karen Reenders sits at her office desk wading through credit histories and rental applications, struggling to find a home for the home insecure community members she serves. Reenders has been the Director of the People Center for 18 years, and every year she’s finding it more and more difficult to find permanent homes for families in need.

“If you don’t have at least one parent making really decent money, it’s hard to live here,” Reenders said. “It’s just a popular place, and it’s a tourist town and everybody wants to be here, so it’s hard for the clients to stay here. I’m finding that really has come to a peak over the past couple years. I’m having it harder and harder to move people on once they’ve been here.”

The People Center runs out of Spring Lake to provide housing for families who face some sort of a housing crisis in the Tri-Cities area. The clients must be working full time to qualify for the program. They are required to attend the Financial Empowerment Center through the City of Grand Haven to become mortgage and rental ready and can live there up to six months, rent and utility free. The intention is for them to meet their housing goals so that they can move on.

The center also provides food and clothing through donations to anyone who stops by and is in need. All aspects of the center bring out different emotions in people.

“They are stressed out, they are teary,” Reenders said. “It’s very emotional for them. They are at rock bottom. For the food and clothing, more grateful. “Oh my gosh, thank you. We’re able to feed the kids when they get home from school.” That kind of stuff. I see a lot of gratefulness with the food pantry. A lot of emotional stress if they’re applying for housing.”

Every once in awhile, a high schooler passes through the center with their life turned upside down. While the People Center helps out students and their families as much as possible, sometimes all a teenager in this situation needs is a friend.

“I do see sometimes when we have high school age kids here, it’s the worst time of their life,” Reenders said. “They’ve just lost their housing, wherever they’ve been secure, and now they don’t even know what’s happening in their lives. They become upside down and they really need someone to go, ‘Hey, I get it. Come over to my house.’ Just be a friend, it would be really cool.”

Reenders believes that much of the housing crises happening in Grand Haven came about because of the decrease in housing that supports lower incomes.

With six apartments, the People Center can house 24 people at a time, only taking a small portion of the people who apply.

“It’s definitely a hidden issue here in our community,” Reenders said. “I think what causes it is not only the financial mistakes that the adults are making and continue to make, but also there’s no affordable housing here. We live in a really expensive community where they keep building but then the apartments are going for market value and my clients can’t afford it.”

Although homelessness isn’t often seen or talked about within our community, Reenders assures that it’s still happening all the time.

“Our hidden homeless, they’re not on the street,” Reenders said. “They’re not on the corners. They’re not down by the factories where the factory’s pushing out warm air. They’re sleeping three and four families in one house. All the friends are staying in one place. I think there’s no place for them to go like a big city. I think people take you in, in our community, before you have to live on the street.”