Volunteers, city officials clear 10 dump trucks of trash from 'the Pines' in Traverse City

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) — On Monday, multiple community organizations came together to clean, “the Pines.”

It’s an area in Traverse City where people experiencing homelessness camp.

It’s going to be ongoing. Usually these things take more than one day to clean up.

The city cleans the Pines seasonally and has done two cleanups a year for several years.

“We have a number of volunteers from the community that come out and help,” said Police Chief Matt Richmond. “City streets comes out with their equipment so that we can move some of the larger abandoned camps and trash out of here.”

About 30 volunteers split into two groups to focus on opposite sides of the Pines.

The city’s police social workers, North Boardman officer and the Goodwill Outreach Team were there to help and make contact with people they know still living in the pines.

“We move to the ones (campsites) that have been determined to be abandoned or trash that’s just on the ground. We will make contact with active camps, and if they want to get rid of anything, we’ll certainly help them out. But if it’s active, we just kind of move on to the other abandoned sites,” explained Richmond.

Richmond explained part of the reason the city cleans the Pines is for health reasons.

“There’s needles, there’s human waste. It’s not a sanitary area at some points,” said Richmond. “And that’s what we try to clean up and try to make sure that if people are in the Pines residing, that it is healthier for them.”

Richmond noted the volunteers Monday noticed a bunch of people packing up and moving out of the Pines during the clean up.

As of Monday afternoon, the city’s Department of Public Works had removed 10 dump trucks of trash from the Pines.

“There’s people that are with organizations and there’s just people that are community members that want to help. And I think that’s a good thing,” said Richmond. “And I think that’s what makes Traverse City what Traverse City is, is there’s a lot of support and a lot of people that want to help and make our community the best.”