Homelessness is a reality for thousands of people in Wisconsin, including many children and families. Across the state, local governments, shelters and outreach organizations work to meet the complex needs of this population. Shelter and housing efforts are coordinated by Continuum of Care organizations and bolstered by federal funding. But at the state level, advocates say much more needs to be done.
A 2015 report from the Wisconsin Coalition Against Homelessness (WCAH) found that for the last 25 years, Wisconsin has allocated $1.4 million annually to shelters and transitional housing and $1.8 million to prevention—a striking contrast to neighboring states like Minnesota that spend more than $40 million on homeless services every year. During that time, Wisconsin has been without a comprehensive statewide strategy for dealing with the issue. “Wisconsin was one of the few states that didn’t have any kind of plan, any kind of a road map,” says WCAH executive director Joe Volk.
Furthermore, many believe the policies of Scott Walker’s administration have made the problem worse by pushing more people into poverty and housing insecurity. This has led to renewed calls for a coordinated response, and both Democrats and Republicans have proposed preliminary solutions in the last two years. But with the government newly divided, and many competing concerns, supporters are challenged with making homelessness a long-term state priority.
A Statewide Issue
Studies show that homelessness in Wisconsin is pervasive and statewide. Point-in-time counts have found that, on any given night, thousands of people sleep in areas not meant for habitation. In 2017, nearly 22,000 people relied on Wisconsin’s shelters and homeless services, according to the Homeless Management Information System. And, in the 2016-’17 school year, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) reported 19,264 students without stable housing were enrolled in Wisconsin public schools.
“A lot of the people affected are families,” says Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee). “Children are homeless and coming to school. They’re not feeling safe. They don’t have a warm place to go, and they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. How can they possibly learn?”
Volk says the DPI report shows homeless students in school districts all over the state, making clear that the problem is not limited to Wisconsin cities. This data has encouraged support from lawmakers representing more rural areas. “It shows them that there really are homeless families and homeless kids going to school in their district,” he says.
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In Milwaukee, a number of new tent encampments formed throughout the city in 2018, making homelessness more visible and causing some to speculate that housing insecurity was on the rise. Some advocates have traced this apparent increase directly to former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s policies. As governor, Walker signed landlord-tenant laws that favored landlords’ rights and made it easier to evict people. He resisted calls to raise the minimum wage, even as housing prices in areas like Milwaukee went up, and he passed a series of bills that limited access to safety net programs. In 2018, a package of laws further restricted eligibility for FoodShare, Wisconsin’s food stamp program, increasing its work and job training requirement to 30 hours a week and applying it to parents of school-age children.
Walker promoted his work requirements as a way to encourage employment and self-sufficiency. But Sinicki says a real solution must first tackle the obstacles that prevent people from working in the first place, like mental illness or lacking a permanent address. “To mandate these things, we have to make sure that people have the support to do what we’re asking them to do, and we’re not doing that,” she says. Even before the additional limits went into effect, Walker’s work requirements caused 86,000 Wisconsin residents to lose their FoodShare benefits. In November, the Los Angeles-based anti-hunger group Mazon installed signs around an encampment at West Sixth and North Clybourne Streets, calling it “Walkerville” and the “legacy of Scott Walker’s bold food stamp reforms.”
Sherrie Tussler, executive director of Hunger Task Force, agrees that the rise in tent encampments is linked to Walker’s policies. For some, she says, losing income in the form of FoodShare can mean losing housing. This is particularly true of single adults staying with friends or family who rely on these benefits to remain contributing members of the household. “We’ve got to pay attention to public policy changes and see a connection between taking away someone’s ability to buy groceries and their homeless status,” she says. Tussler, who was previously a founding executive director of the homeless shelter Hope House, predicts that the increase will continue if the laws remain in effect. “I anticipate that, this time next year, there will be more families in tents,” she says, “not just single adults.”
Legislative Response
A longtime leader in homelessness prevention, Volk says that, for decades, Wisconsin has fallen short in addressing this crisis. Since its founding, the WCAH has made it a primary goal to encourage more state-level involvement. It was primarily the Democratic legislators who supported the homeless, but now Volk has found some influential Republican supporters in former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna). “Homelessness impacts virtually every community throughout the state,” Steineke says. “When I realized that I had allowed myself to become desensitized to the problem, that’s when I decided to try to do something to help.”
In 2017, Steineke and fellow Republican lawmakers introduced a package of legislation on homelessness, including a bill that would form a dedicated council of relevant state agencies. Modeled after a similar approach in Minnesota, the council would develop a plan for reducing homelessness statewide. Volk says that having a high-level council can “institutionalize progress” by creating metrics and goals, making budget recommendations and producing progress reports. Many praised this proposal as a long-overdue step in the right direction, but others found it did not go nearly far enough. Critics argued that the bills gave lip service to the problem without actually confronting peoples’ pressing needs. “I never put a lot of faith into creating councils to address emergency issues,” Sinicki says.
Tussler questions whether a plan developed by state lawmakers would have a meaningful impact. “They never seem to understand the level of poverty in our community the way that people who live here do,” she says. “It’s hard to comment on whether they would come out with anything that would be truly relevant.”
A week after the Republicans’ bills passed in the Assembly, Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) introduced a “Housing First Package.” This legislation, which she described in a statement as a “stark contrast to the anemic package of Republican bills,” would triple the state’s investment in homelessness. Among other things, the bills proposed creating an eviction prevention program and directing $2.5 million toward Rapid Rehousing and Housing First programs.
The nationally recognized Housing First method places people in secure housing with no preconditions and then connects them with supportive services like mental health counseling, drug and alcohol treatment and legal assistance. City and county officials have found success with Housing First in Milwaukee, reportedly reducing chronic homelessness in the county by 40% since 2015. But, the chronically homeless (defined as anyone who has been without a home for more than a year or multiple times in three years) account for only about 8% of the total homeless population. Sinicki says more state funding would help more people benefit from this initiative. She supported Subeck’s bills, which she says are “absolutely the better approach”—moving past the planning stage to target root causes and fund programs that keep families housed. “We need to put our money where our mouths are,” she says.
The desire to do more for the homeless is bipartisan, Steineke says, even if disagreements persist on how best to do so. Supporters of the Republican bills want to put a strategy in place first, so that lawmakers know what works before spending taxpayer money on it. Others argue these interim steps only delay funding for Housing First, which has already proven effective. Nonetheless, Steineke says, “I didn’t run into anyone in the Legislature who said we shouldn’t be doing this.” His bill passed unanimously in the State Assembly and State Senate, and the Interagency Council on Homelessness was formed in November 2017. For its first year, council membership consisted of the leaders of eight state agencies (and from Wisconsin’s four Continuum of Care organizations), with Kleefisch serving as chair.
‘We Have to Try’
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ inauguration on Monday, Jan. 7, was a welcome change for critics of Walker’s record on poverty and homelessness, but even with a new governor—and bipartisan support for homelessness legislation—the path forward is still uncertain. The Interagency Council released its first action plan in November 2018, shortly after Evers was elected. It recommends an additional $3.75 million for homelessness reduction and prevention and promotes Housing First and case management as core principles. Supporters of the council and its plan say they will work with Gov. Evers and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes to keep the established priorities top-of-mind.
Steineke says he is optimistic that the new leadership will incorporate the council’s recommendations into the next budget but says he will continue to pursue the issue regardless of how the report is received. “This isn’t something we’re going to give up on,” he says. Volk hopes the new administration will view the $3.75 million as a starting point and consider “more extensive spending” down the line.
Another looming question is how Walker’s policies will continue to impact people facing homelessness and whether it will be possible to overturn them. The bills passed in the 2018 lame-duck session gave oversight of Walker’s welfare reforms to the Legislature, limiting Evers’ ability to change them. “That was quite intentional to allow these work-related reforms to continue,” Tussler says, “even if the people would prefer something else.” Sinicki says Democrats are “not done fighting” the lame-duck bills, but that overturning them will be difficult. She worries the ongoing fight will make it harder for the two sides to reach a compromise, even on a shared concern like homelessness. “It’s going to be very tough to work together,” she says. “But we have to try.”
According to Volk, the WCAH opposed many of the Walker administration’s policies that “made homelessness worse in Wisconsin,” but he cautions against allowing broader policy disputes to get in the way of progress. Instead, he says, supporters should try to isolate homelessness as a separate, bipartisan priority. “If we’re going to wait for Republicans and Democrats to agree on a minimum wage, welfare reform and expanding Medicaid before we deal with the issue of homelessness, we’re going to be waiting a long time,” he says. “We can fight about all of those other things, but on this one, let’s move forward.”
