Support Rights of Homeless to Live Without Eviction or Arrest

Sign on and/or join residents in person at Camp Take Notice for a call to action for Michigan state
leaders Thursday May 24, 2012. Abandoned, forgotten, isolated, and forced to live under ongoing
threat of eviction at the whim of the state police, CTN is inviting its
community allies for a show of support and to call on state leaders to
recognize CTN as a legitimate provider, currently serving more people than
the nearest emergency shelter.

CTN and its community of supporters are asking you to join in calling on State leaders:
1] to officially recognize the camp in its current location and allow for safety improvements, or
2] to provide any other land where those with no other option to find a
supportive and safe community can reside.

Michigan's homeless are forgotten and abandoned. The numbers grow as more
Michigan families are cut off from welfare assistance each month,
unemployment benefit extensions have been cut short for Michigan's
jobless.

Our State representative Mark Ouimet and Governor Snyder are supporting
these and other policies that ignore the needs of the most victimized by
the current economic crises. Throughout the State, people are left with
no resort and no resources: Housing, counseling, substance abuse and
mental health resources are scant and getting scarcer.. For the homeless
who might have family their already stretched resources are running dry.
The "safety net" has bigger and bigger holes in it.

Across the state and in their backyard, Michigan citizens have no choice
but to live outside. In Washtenaw county Camp Take Notice was able to band
together with the support of MISSION, with the faith based community, and
with other local resources to create a safer more responsible model for
those that have nothing. But the problem is not going away. This year, CTN
population has swelled to over 60 individuals: Michigan's single mothers,
veterans, disabled, and just victims of hard times. This is the largest
population ever in the camps history. The time is now for our state
leaders to take notice.

The Coalition of supporters under the umbrella of MISSION stretches far
and wide, including 19 churches. The camp is privately funded and not
directly tax payer supported. CTN gives back to the community -- residents
volunteer to help in Adopt-A-Highway, a recent car wash to raise funds for
our local fire department and at local area soup kitchens. Residents live
in a safe, democratically self-governed community, rather than in the
dangerous circumstance alone and without community. Our local faith
communities support CTN in a variety of ways and consider it a privilege
and an exercise of their faith to do so. Residents stay temporarily, while
they get their lives together and move into better circumstances.
To date, CTN has provided temporary and emergency shelter to hundreds of
Michigan residents, open 365 days a year.
Everyday thousands of Michigan residents become homeless, over a hundred
each month in Washtenaw county.

Thanks,

Brian Durrance - MISSION
734 216-5166
[email protected]

Peggy Lynch - MISSION
313 408-5196
[email protected]