LANSING, Mich. (WILX) – Leaders from Lansing’s LGBTQ community are rallying together to create a new homeless shelter in the City.
“We’ve been seeing repeated cases of people being threatened, harassed,” said Luna Brown the founder of A Place for Us.
Brown said it’s interactions like these that make it difficult for LGBTQ people to feel safe in homeless shelters, but she’s hoping to change that by opening a shelter of her own called a ‘Place for us’.
“Personally why I got this whole group started was I had taken in four friends within a period of about two years, just due to the fact that they were all trans and had nowhere to go,” said Brown.
Plans for a place for us are just getting started, first with a group discussion, so anyone who wants to be involved with the project can offer ideas on how the shelter can meet the needs of un-housed members of the LGBTQ community.
People who were once homeless, like Lansing resident Mercuri Rose, also came to the shelter’s Inaugural planning meeting with their own experience in mind.
“Luckily it was a really short time for me. I had a lot of privilege and resources that a lot folks don’t have, that folks within the LGBTQ community don’t have access to,” said Mercuri Rose a Lansing community member.
Resident Nathan Hallman said he believes the current shelters in place across the city are only a “Band-Aid” for the much larger issue of high inflation and rental rates.
He’s getting involved with a place for us in hopes of creating a safe space for LGBTQ people who are out on the street as a result. With the first official meeting on the books he’s eager for more people to become involved.
“People who want to help us build relationships with politicians, community leaders,” said Nathan Hallman, a Lansing community member.
The founder of a place for us say it could take a few years to get their shelter up and running, and that shelter layout, location and amenities will be planned along the way.
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