JANUARY 13 • 2022 | 21

to renting hotel rooms and
providing meals to our shelter
clients, and equipment and
logistical support around those
initiatives,
” Hertz said. “We were
very lucky to have a community
surround us with support to
make all this happen.
”

A LONG-TERM APPROACH
On any given night, Lighthouse
is serving four times the num-
ber of households with emer-
gency shelter services during
the pandemic.
Lighthouse is also in the
midst of renovating a building
to create the only homeless
emergency shelter in Oakland
County specifically designated
for families.
“The way I describe it to our
staff and board is we’re building
a plane in the air, and now we
have to build the landing gear,
”
Hertz said. “We need to figure
out more sustainable approach-
es, moving out of crisis mode
into a longer-term approach to
continue to zero in on the most
acute needs in our community.
”
Starting to run out of hotel-
ing dollars and 2020 campaign
funds, Lighthouse had to figure
out its longer-term plan for
families. The answer was adapt-
ing one of its legacy transitional
housing facilities into an emer-
gency shelter facility.
“The rationale was that we
took the grants for transitional
housing and worked to convert
those to transition-in-place
grants, meaning instead of peo-
ple coming into our building
for two years and then moving
out, we work with them to
secure an apartment in the
community, provide them with
rental assistance and supportive
service for two years, and then
they can transition-in-place and
take over their lease at the end
of the program so they’re not
displaced,
” Hertz said.
That decision opened the
way for the legacy transitional
housing facility to be con-

verted into an emergency shel-
ter program for shorter-term
crisis situations, with 18 apart-
ment units and 54 beds, all
designated for families.
Hertz said he believes it’s
going to be a long community
conversation to figure out, not
just at Lighthouse, but global-
ly, how to address issues that
were there pre-COVID more
sustainably for the long haul.
“One thing I’ve come to
learn in my 13 years of being in
homeless services and anti-pov-
erty work is society is willing to

accept, in most
cases, quite a lot
of folks going
without, with-
out necessarily
taking action
and resolving
those problems,
”
Hertz said.
“The pandemic
changed that; it
was a real wake-
up call. People
in fairly well-
off communities, regardless of
financial situation, felt very vul-
nerable. And in feeling that level
of vulnerability, I think it creat-
ed a level of empathy for others
who have been vulnerable and
were now even more so.
”
Hertz believes that’s part of
why they saw such an influx
of resources allowing them to
meet more needs than ever
before.
“So coming out of this and
into the future, the question
becomes: ‘
Are we going to be
able to sustain that?’ That’s

where we’re at, trying to solve
for that,” Hertz said.

Lighthouse has worked
diligently in the housing assis-
tance side of things as well. As
a partner in the COVID-19
Emergency Rental Assistance
program, Lighthouse has pro-
vided more than $7 million
in rental assistance to prevent
more than 800 evictions in the
local community since March
2021, the end of the eviction
moratoriums.

Lighthouse has also contin-
ued to work on the systemic
side of the problem and solv-
ing the problem at its source,
such as how to address
affordability so there are
fewer people facing eviction
in the first place.
Like most nonprofits, fund-
raising efforts are critical right
now to address the dramatic
increase in the communi-
ty’s needs. For ways to help,
receive help and further info,
visit lighthousemi.org.

Lighthouse CEO Ryan Hertz

BELOW: Lighthouse volunteers
work on the holiday Adopt-
a-Family program, which
helped more than 500 families
celebrate the holidays with
some level of normalcy, warmth
and joy.

“WE WERE VERY
LUCKY TO HAVE A
COMMUNITY
SURROUND US WITH
SUPPORT TO MAKE

ALL THIS HAPPEN.”

— RYAN HERTZ

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LIGHTHOUSE