Provided photo Radio Keweenaw founders Annamarie Sysling and Andrew Ranville in the Radio Keweenaw studio in Calumet.

HANCOCK – Two local organizations, Advocates for those without a voice everywhere (AWAVE), and Keweenaw against the Oligarchy (KATO), are working to reduce homelessness by the end of December, 2025. AWAVE and KATO are seeking donations from individuals and organizations to raise $30,000 by the end of December.

Lisa McKenzie, assistant regional planner with WUPPDR, said the money will allow people to remain in the community so they are not forced to leave, and to also allow them to stay in their homes through the winter.

“This is a brand new initiative and people are starting to become more aware of homelessness,” she said.

McKenzie said all funds will go to the Hancock Salvation Army’s (TSA) Housing Assistance fund. They will be used by TSA for direct assistance to prevent homelessness of individuals and families in the six western Upper Peninsula counties, including Houghton and Baraga. In fact, in a recent release, AWAVE instructs donors to make checks payable to Salvation Army, with a note to designate the donation to the Housing Assistance Fund.

Pete Mackin, Salvation Army director, said the local community has seen a steady rate of homelessness since 2020. What may come as a surprise to many community members is the vast majority of homeless cases are people who are employed. “I’ve seen more and more people who are working, living out of their car than I have throughout this whole time,” he said.

Mackin said the trend becomes more troubling when some people are working two jobs and are still homeless, sometimes for months. He mentioned he recently spent $1,500 to house a family that was living in their car. “It was the first month’s rent and the security deposit, and they were both working,” he said.

McKenzie said that even after working in the area for 25 years, including with WUPPDR and as a Hancock City Council trustee, she only recently became aware of the extent of homelessness in the area. “Until I started really digging into it four years ago, when we started working on our housing study strategy, I didn’t really think about homelessness,” she said. While homelessness is being addressed by several organizations, a major stumbling block has been a lack of coordination among them.

Among the organizations are WUPPDR and the Western Upper Peninsula Housing Partnership, along with church organizations, and the Salvation Army, McKenzie said. “We have a couple of goals we’ve been working on, and I’ve been working with Pete in Baraga, because they understand the problem,” she said. “Oftentimes its the churches that are loosely trying to do something to help, but as we know, our church population is aging and this is the kind of work that can’t be accomplished by the churches in and of themselves. It takes other organizations to step in and help them.”

Church-based social service agencies like Catholic Social Services and Lutheran Social Services are also partnering to address homelessness. “They do work within this realm, but not as directly as Pete (Mackin) does, McKenzie said. “They’re partners with Pete, and that’s part of a continuum of care. That’s something that some of the organizations such as WUPPDR and some of the statewide housing plan, which by the way, is going to be updated this coming year.”

McKenzie said a number of local residents have become aware of the extent of homelessness in the region, which led to the formation of these new groups.

“That’s why AWAVE was formed,” she said. “We’re an advocacy group. And we thought it was really important to take on another fundraising similar to what Keweenaw Indivisible did with their campaign to eliminate medical debt.”

AWAVE has set a goal of being transparent so the community can see the need and what is being done to address it. “That’s why we decided to work with the Salvation Army,” she said, “and to promote their homelessness prevention (Housing Assistance) fund.”