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Ann Arbor City Council Member Stephen Kunselman, D-3rd Ward, defended his position against homeless tent communities Monday night.

(Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News )

Ann Arbor City Council Member Stephen Kunselman has been outspoken lately about homeless people camping outside, saying the city shouldn't tolerate it any longer.

Last month, the 3rd Ward Democrat publicly called for the eviction of a homeless encampment in a wooded area off Burton Road. City police responded by giving the members of Camp Serenity a week to relocate, some moving into shelter.

At Monday night's council meeting, Caleb Poirier, a board member for the local nonprofit group MISSION, which supports homeless tent communities, said Kunselman should enjoy his time on council while he still can because the homeless community is launching a recall campaign to have him removed from office for the positions he has taken.

Poirier said members of the homeless community met Sunday night and decided a recall campaign is in order. He said they held their first organizational meeting on Monday and will meet again on Wednesday.

Poirier said they'll be working to craft ballot language to submit to the Washtenaw County Election Commission for approval, and then they'll go to work collecting recall petition signatures to put the question on the ballot in May. They'll need to collect more than 1,859 signatures from Ward 3 voters within 60 days.

State law requires valid signatures from 25 percent of the number of people who voted in the ward in the last gubernatorial election.

After the question is on the ballot, Poirier said, then begins the work of canvassing for supporters to show up to the polls in May.

MISSION board member Caleb Poirier announces plans to recall Stephen Kunselman at Monday night's Ann Arbor City Council meeting.

Kunselman, who has served on council for seven years and ran for mayor this year, responded publicly to the recall threats Monday night. He said he's not at all concerned about Poirier's promise of a recall campaign.

"To make the homeless tent camps in harsh Michigan winters a topic of a recall, I think, illustrates a lack of understanding of where I stand and where I think a lot of the community members stand," Kunselman said. "This is not Seattle. People freeze to death when they sleep in tents outside in subzero weather."

Kunselman said he cares about the homeless and he simply wants to see them moved inside where they're safe.

He also said the city can't ignore illegal camping. He noted the Burton Road camp was on private property and the property owner didn't want the campers there, nor did some neighbors in the adjacent Forestbrooke subdivision.

Speaking publicly at Monday night's meeting, Kunselman argued Poirier and MISSION were aiding and abetting illegal activity by supporting the camp.

"These are also the same people who want to a have a homeless tent camp at their property on Stone School Road, which I have been very adamant against as well," Kunselman said. "I have had the courage to stand up and say it's not acceptable."

Kunselman called it a "perverse sense of compassion" to support homeless people camping outside in freezing cold weather.

"If they want to go door to door to carry that message, more power to them," Kunselman said of his critics.

Kunselman argued there's room at the Delonis Center homeless shelter for everybody who wants to come in from the cold this winter.

That claim was contested by Poirier and Steve Carnes, who joined Poirier in speaking out during the public comment period.

They noted the Delonis Center has 75 year-round beds, plus 25 temporary overnight beds in a seasonal rotating church shelter program, 50 to 65 temporary beds at the Delonis Center overnight warming center, and another 50 temporary beds being added this January in a second rotating church shelter program.

That's 125 to 140 emergency shelter beds that will be available this winter on top of the 75 year-round beds at the Delonis Center.

The Washtenaw Housing Alliance and the county coordinated a point-in-time count on Jan. 29, 2013, that revealed 510 people were experiencing homelessness in Washtenaw County that day, including 344 sheltered and 166 unsheltered.

Poirier and Carnes point out the report showed 149 unsheltered single adults without children. They argue there aren't enough beds, even with the additional shelter capacity coming this winter, to accommodate that many additional people.

Given the existing shelter capacity, Poirier said, it's absurd to argue the city should direct resources to evicting everyone who's camping outside.

Kunselman said he asked the staff at the Delonis Center if they have enough capacity to bring the homeless in from the cold and he was assured they do.

"That is why I am moving forward with my adamant advocacy that we do not let the homeless sleep out in the cold in these harsh winter months," he said.

"I don't believe that it is compassionate to help homeless people live out in subzero temperatures where they can be subjected to hypothermia and die a slow death of falling asleep. It is not acceptable to me. I will not tolerate it. I will not support it."

State law requires that if an elected official's term of office is two years or less, which is the case with Ann Arbor council members who serve two-year terms, then they can't be recalled within the first six months or the last six months of a term.

Forcing a recall vote in early May appears to fall within the legally allowable timeframe, since Kunselman is in the middle of a two-year term ending next November.

Kunselman also is up for re-election in 2015 and already has turned in his petitions to appear on the ballot for the August primary and November general election. So far no one has stepped forward to challenge him.

Ryan Stanton covers the city beat for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at ryanstanton@mlive.com or 734-623-2529 or follow him on Twitter.