Isabelle Plamondon
Staff Writer

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I felt the sharp, early-winter air as I walked toward Central United Methodist Church on Nov. 19 for the 10th annual Walk for Health and Housing. Before reaching the building, people were already on the move. Some knew each other, and some didn’t, but all of us were headed in the same direction with the same intention: to learn, to listen, and to walk—literally—in the shoes of neighbors experiencing homelessness.

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A large crowd of people soon grew at the back of the church, bundled up in the darkening night. Traverse City police officers, NMC students, college professors, social workers, and other community members and volunteers were slowly trickling into the groupings. Student volunteers held lights and speakers above their heads to illuminate the soon-to-be presenters. 

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NMC student AbyGale Koualske talked to me about her personal connections with the issues of homelessness and housing insecurity, and how she has friends who have experienced it. “It’s not something that is silent and it isn’t talked about enough,” she said. When I asked what misconceptions people may have had about people she knows who’ve struggled with housing, she said, “That they’re not trying or that they choose to end up where they are.”

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Brandon Everest, a sociology professor at NMC, opened the event, thanking everyone for participating and bringing their support before introducing Ryan Hannon, the outreach director for Central United Methodist Church.

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Hannon laid out how the event would happen. We would be walking to resource outlets and hearing from professionals working with the homeless populations at every stop. The first of these professionals we would be hearing from was Hannon himself.

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He said that the church uses what they call “radical hospitality,” which goes beyond mere friendliness and emphasizes warmth, openness, and authenticity, fostering a welcoming and helpful relationship with the populations they aid. In reference to this, he talked about the showers, food, mail service for people without an address, socks and gloves, and countless community partners that the church provides. 

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His words were practical, but what they revealed was profound: a recognition that basic dignity begins with meeting basic needs. He invited anyone who could volunteer or donate to do so.

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Along the walk, I talked to students who had come because their teachers encouraged them—but stayed because the cause mattered to them. Bee Sanderson, an NMC student pursuing social work, told me that what gives her hope is “the immense amount of community resources and people willing to help.” 

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I talked with Lisa Blackford, a psychology professor at NMC, and asked her about the importance of students participating, to which she said that it was the first-hand experience that mattered. She said, “Part of the walk itself is understanding how far a person has to walk every day just to get resources,” she said.

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At the Jubilee House, staff described themselves as the “front lines of homelessness.” Laundry, showers, warmth, and food—small things that aren’t small at all when you have nowhere else to go. 

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On our walk to the Governmental Center, I finally realized just how large our group was. We ended up getting separated by three rounds of traffic lights at crosswalks, splitting the crowd along the busy street. 

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Once we arrived, Traverse City Mayor Amy Shamroe stepped up and spoke with blunt honesty. “We know that what we’re [government employees and elected officials] doing is helping,” she said, “and we know that it isn’t a solution.” She called their efforts “band-aids,” but also emphasized momentum: “All those pieces [housing vouchers, PILOTS, etc.] start coming together to give us a clearer picture of how we get to ending homelessness.”

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Ashley Halladay-Schmandt, a director with the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness who partnered with Central United Methodist Church to facilitate the walk, followed her with what might be one of the clearest truths of the night: “Housing ends homelessness, period.” And yet, she added through teary eyes, “The people we serve don’t get to stop when things get hard, and neither do we.”

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That echoed something I’d heard from multiple students walking alongside me—that people who brought them here cared enough to act. Koualske was one of them, saying, “The people who got us here care the most.” There was hope in that.

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Safe Harbor came next, with Josh Brandt, the fundraising chair for Safe Harbor and a volunteer at Central United Methodist Church, sharing some statistics. This past year was the first year that Safe Harbor was open year-round, and they had a huge success in helping the unhoused populations: they provided 24,735 warm bed nights, 393 unique individuals served, 15,675 meals eaten, 8,192 hot showers, 3,259 loads of laundry, and had over 2,300 volunteers.

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But the numbers weren’t the only thing that stuck with me. “We see parents trying to hold their families together, veterans who have served this country, individuals rebuilding after addiction and loss,” said Cole Ferris, from the Goodwill Inn.

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Then he added, “What amazes me every time is that despite what they’ve been through, they still find ways to show compassion, share food, and to check on each other and care.”

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His message was one of possibility. “You can’t heal if you don’t have a safe place to rest,” he said, “Every time someone gets housed… It’s proof that compassion works.”

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At the street outreach stop, Goodwill’s Homeless Services Manager Bailey LaPan said something that challenged every misconception I grew up hearing about “the homeless.”

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“Housing isn’t something to earn,” he told us. “It’s a human right.”

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He talked about trauma, about trust that isn’t handed over easily, and about showing up “tomorrow and the next day,” as “consistent purveyors of hope.”

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He then said words that I’ll never forget: “The people we serve aren’t broken, the systems intended to support them are.”

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It clicked then—the language matters. The person-first language I heard most of the night wasn’t performative; it was a practice of restoring dignity. A reminder: they are people first.

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A sign read: “Who are we as human beings if we ignore the suffering of others?” The woman carrying it, Dana Henrick, told me she’d been handed it years ago during the same walk by someone who had to leave. She has carried it ever since. “It gives me hope,” she told me, “Seeing this many people care about the same things is really inspiring.”

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Lastly, we heard from Traverse City Police Officer Krista Fryczynski, the unhoused people's liaison, who described what she sees every morning: exhausted people carrying everything they own on a bike or in a backpack, afraid to set their things down because they will likely get stolen. “I see individuals who are just trying to survive,” she said, “These struggles don’t arise from a single choice.”

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She then said, “It is nearly impossible to stabilize any part of your life without a safe, consistent place to live.” I knew she was right. I had watched that reality play out in my own father's life.

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For 10 years, he drifted across couches—friends, coworkers, girlfriends, parents—always trying, always working, always slipping further behind. He worked multiple jobs and struggled with substance abuse. Eventually, when the couches ran out, and his car broke down, he became homeless. 

As his daughter, I didn’t understand what was happening. I couldn’t help, and I didn’t yet know how deep the trauma of housing insecurity can run.

Walking into each stop of this event, I kept thinking: he could have been walking these routes. He could have come to these same places hoping for warmth, for support, for someone to look him in the eyes and see a human being—not a problem, not a stereotype, not a failure. 

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Maybe that’s why this walk felt heavier for me, and also more hopeful.

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I came to the walk with my father’s story in my heart–his homelessness, my helplessness, and years of not knowing what to do with the shame, fear, and grief that came with watching someone you love try to survive without stability.

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But I left with something else. I left with the words of the speakers and the feelings they carried in my heart.

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I left believing that change isn’t theoretical—it’s happening, slowly, imperfectly, unevenly, but happening. I left believing that hope doesn’t just exist in broad systems and policies—it exists in people. And that the people experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness are exactly that: people–with stories, with trauma, with resilience, with compassion, with worth.