For the second time in two months, the Mount Clemens Planning Commission on Tuesday night had to postpone taking action on a proposed shelter for homeless men.

Three of the seven planning commissioners were absent or excused, so the applicant asked for the meeting to be delayed for another month in order to increase her odds of gaining a successful outcome by having a full commission in attendance.

Officials granted the delay and set Aug. 5 as the third attempt for MCREST to convince planners to approve a special land use and site plan approval for the project.

“But this is your last postponement,” Commissioner John Walus said.

Planning commissioners Roxanne Brown, Stephen Gay, and Frank Cusimano were not in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting.

At issue is a former insurance office on the southeast corner of Robertson and Main Street that MCREST proposes to convert into a $2.5 million 24-bed men’s homeless shelter.

“We want to help make them good citizens,” said Caren Burdi, an attorney for the Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team (MCREST).

The building is next door to MCREST and its Women and Children’s Shelter in Mount Clemens and near the Turning Point shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence.

Advocates say the 1,230-square-foot building would have a kitchen, educational materials, dental care, access to clothing, a computer lab, and other programs to help them break the homeless cycle.

MCREST board members want to provide a similar menu of positive services to their male clientele. They contend the cost of housing the homeless men in area motels is prohibitive to the point they can’t keep up with demand. That’s what motivated the nonprofit to purchase the Mount Clemens building.

“Right now, it costs the churches about $5,000 a week out of pocket to put these people up in the motels,” said Pastor Robert Brannan of Triumphant Cross Lutheran Church in St. Clair Shores.

But to officials, in a city where about 50% of the land is made up of churches, government buildings, nonprofits or other tax-exempt properties, the planned men’s shelter is viewed as another potential demand on municipal services.

At the June commission meeting, MCREST officials asked for the matter to be tabled so they could review and respond to the staff’s findings and recommendation of denial.

Brian Tingley, the city’s community development director, said allowing the shelter would “negatively impact property values in the vicinity and will be detrimental to existing and/or permitted uses in the zoning district.”

Tingley also said allowing another shelter would negatively impact the city’s police, fire and emergency medical services, which are already overburdened due to Mount Clemens being the county seat.

Reports generated from public safety departments found the two existing shelters had 377 calls for the Mount Clemens Fire Department since 2022, and 253 calls to the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office since May of 2025.

But Burdi told The Macomb Daily those numbers are misleading.

“There’s some misinformation going on,” she said. “That call report has double and triple reporting going from the same address on the same date. So they are saying a call with the same exact reference number amounts to two or three calls. In reality, MCREST probably has about four calls a month.”

Burdi said if there is no men’s shelter, “do think you’d have no calls or more calls. I think they will have more, where we can provide a place to stay and improve themselves.”

Added MCREST executive director April Fidler: “If these people are unhoused, they are on your city streets. If we don’t help them, who will?”