By: Larry Wallace

LANSING, Mich. — Lansing’s new warming center has come with a long with a lot of questions, one of which, is how the money to run the center is being spent?

“Transparency is a core value of the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries,” said Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries CEO Chad Audi.

The DRMM is the organization running the warming center and Audi said they were given a specific budget to follow through Apr.

“The cap was $250,000 dollars,” Audi said.

That’s an amount Audi said adds up fast. He said over $156,000 of that goes toward staffing and paying 9 different employees, mostly from the Lansing area.

“We can’t service people in the community with outside people in that neighborhood, and no one knows the community like the people who live there so we needed to hire people from Lansing.,” Audi said.

With staffing comes benefits and expenses, which Audi said is an added 42,742 and $15,058 more for administration fees like HR and payroll.

Then, there are things like supplies that is around $8,500 dollars and food that’s almost $27,700.

“We don’t do meals, but we do snacks and sometimes sandwiches when they come in,” Audi said.

Audi said if the center needs additional funding, he’s prepared to have the DRMM pitch in.

“If there’s a shortage in funding, we know where to get the funds and help so this doesn’t fail,” Audi said.

The city of Lansing secured $800,000 from the state for the warming center. We’re told, the city has not received those dollars from the state, and they’re currently paying for the warming center with city money.