Grand Rapids Public Safety Committee member comments on the unhoused are disgusting, and they fail to acknowledge the root causes of housing insecurity

It has been almost a year since the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce first sent a letter to the City Commission complaining about unhoused people in downtown Grand Rapids.

Then, a second letter complaining about the unhoused was sent in September, this time from a downtown Grand Rapids Law Firm, which GRIID also wrote about.

In December, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce had sent a proposed ordinance to Grand Rapids City officials, a proposal that would essentially criminalize the unhoused.  This letter was accompanied by a letter of support, with 120 signatories, most of the business people and several members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, just days after the December 6th ordinance proposal from the Chamber.

In response, a coalition of groups, led by the Grand Rapids Area Tenant Union, called for a boycott of downtown Grand Rapids and the Chamber of Commerce the very next day. Part of the boycott involved a protest at the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce headquarters, where people occupied their office and demanded that they rescind the ordinance proposal and apologize for wanting to criminalize the unhoused. 

Because of these efforts, the City of Grand Rapids was confronted by the public, demanding they not embrace the ordinance proposal from the Chamber of Commerce. The City did not move forward with the proposed ordinance, but that hasn’t meant they weren’t entertaining other possibilities to further police and criminalize the unhoused. 

In March, the City of Grand Rapids paid an outside entity a bunch of money to host a few forums on the issue of public safety in downtown Grand Rapids. I attended one of those meetings and found it to be a highly managed event, with a very narrow definition of what it means to feel safe.  All of these forums were recorded and the feedback was presented in written form at the May 23rd Public Safety Committee Meeting.

Fortunately for the public, Defund the GRPD has been providing excellent summaries of Commission Meetings, along with the Public Safety Committee meetings, since there is ongoing discussion about the GRPD. At that May 23rd Public Safety Committee meeting, some really awful stuff was said by members of that committee about the unhoused and in support of the GRPD’s role in policing and criminalizing the unhoused. The graphics you see in this post are based on the comments from members of the Public Safety Committee, comments that are offensive and should be roundly denounced.