Three nonprofit organizations joined U.S. congressional candidate Callie Barr (D-Traverse City) in a meeting on Tuesday to voice their concerns about food and housing insecurity in northern Michigan. The non-profits said that they are seeing an increase of people utilizing their services.
Katie Dunn works for the Leelanau Christian Neighbors’ Food Pantry and said she has been seeing more families and unfamiliar faces during her shifts.
“We now see over 100 to 110 families within a two-hour period,” she said. “We're just getting clobbered
Dunn says that federal cuts to food assistance programs and the increased price of groceries are the main reasons behind the growing number of people needing assistance
The other two non-profit organizations that spoke were the Marquette-based shelter A Room at the Inn and Upper Michigan’s Salvation Army Branch. Both echoed the same concerns Dunn shared.
“We're seeing that need increase year after year,” said A Room at the Inn Director Charlise Wilkinson. “From 2022 to 2023, the state of Michigan saw an increase in homelessness of 3% but for that same time period, we saw homelessness in the Upper Peninsula increase by 18%.”
According to U.S. Census Data, around 13% of the population in Michigan’s U.S. Congressional District 1 suffers from poverty.
Barr, who is running for Michigan’s First Congressional District for the second time, said she wants to continue having these meetings to “provide a platform for folks in our community to come on and talk about what their need is.”
All three nonprofits stated they are not affiliated with any political party during the meeting.
