Lansing police clear a camp of about 15 people; advocates want a two-month pause

LANSING — Lansing police took down a homeless camp around 7 a.m. Thursday that advocates said held about 15 people. Kelsea Hector of Punks with Lunch told News 10 the group had gotten police to wait a week, and that officers started before advocates arrived. “We got them to wait for a week to sweep, but then they were here at 7 o’clock this morning,” she said.

The story, by Brayden Willis, does not name the street or the park. That blank stays blank. What it does say is that belongings were left in a parking lot while advocates looked for somewhere people could go, and that some of the people at this camp have had to move six times in less than two months. Hector said people end up “down the road, and then back again to the place that they were just at.”

City spokesman Scott Bean, in a statement to the station, said the camp violates a city ordinance and state law. He did not quote the ordinance section in the story that was read. He said nearby businesses had complained about trash and crime. Officers, the police department said, had been at the camp daily to remind people of the deadline. Bean said people were pointed to shelters, including the City Rescue Mission, which recently had several beds open, and that the city is working on an emergency shelter to open in the coming weeks.

The pause they asked for

Hector asked for a moratorium on sweeps of at least two months, long enough to figure out the shelter. “We have really one shelter that has open beds, and people are not comfortable going there,” she said. Advocates told the station most of the people at the camp are older and some have disabilities, and that they stayed there to be near the services they use. Police said camps of this kind raise safety concerns. Neither side, in the story, produced a count of beds beyond “several” at the Rescue Mission.

The night before

The night before the clearing, a man living at the camp was assaulted and robbed in his tent and taken to a hospital. Willis reported that the suspect has been arrested. The story does not name the man, the suspect, the charge, or the hospital. Those are not guessed here.

What Thursday changed is the camp, not a shelter. The emergency shelter is still “in the coming weeks,” in Bean’s words. The two-month pause is a request, not a council vote. The photograph is the capitol. It is not the parking lot where the belongings were left, and the report never said which lot that was.

Sources:
WILX, Brayden Willis, “Lansing homeless camp dismantled; advocates request moratorium on sweeps,” Nov. 12, 2026, https://www.wilx.com/2026/11/13/lansing-homeless-camp-dismantled-advocates-request-moratorium-sweeps/
Photo: w_lemay, “Dome, Michigan State Capitol, Capitol Avenue, Lansing, MI.jpg”, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADome%2C_Michigan_State_Capitol%2C_Capitol_Avenue%2C_Lansing%2C_MI.jpg

Lansing

Tags: Lansing · Police · Housing · Homelessness