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• The founders of Ebb & Flow Connections Cooperative host emotional CPR training to community members and run a community living room in downtown Appleton. 

• Lynn McLaughlin and Karen Iverson Riggers have trained more than 2,500 people in ECPR in roughly seven years. 

• Their approach to teaching social connection has proved successful enough that groups in several other counties want to replicate it, and several state entities say the model is a method for building connection to prevent suicide. 

• The effort is grant-funded, and the community living room requires space and volunteers.

Karen Iverson Riggers scrawls on a giant notepad as the 12 people around her call out rules they think should govern the next two days they’ll spend together: “It’s OK to cry.” “Authenticity over correctness.” “Judgement-free zone.” “Say it messy.”

The group — a mix of mental health professionals, children and family workers and curious residents — is kicking off an “emotional CPR,” or “ECPR,” workshop, a community public health training teaching how to assist someone in crisis or emotional distress.

Training leaders Iverson Riggers and Lynn McLaughlin have dedicated the last several years to encouraging northeast Wisconsinites to deeply connect with one another — and giving them a free community space to do so — in hopes they can combat the social isolation many feel today. 

“This is not an individual problem. It’s not like you are doing something wrong because you’re lonely or feeling isolated,” Iverson Riggers said. “This is a community design issue … Lots of folks are being forced to work themselves to death without having any free time to engage in any kind of community or connection.”

The pair founded Ebb & Flow Connections Cooperative, which runs a Community Living Room in downtown Appleton. They describe it as an “unconditionally welcoming” space, where community members can socialize, play games, hang out or confide in certified ECPR practitioners. 

“There’s no requirement to belong,” McLaughlin explained. “You just do.”

Their approach to teaching social connection has proved successful enough that groups in several other Wisconsin counties are now trying to replicate the resources they offer. Plus, several state entities say their model is a method for building connection to prevent suicide. 

With funding from the Medical College of Wisconsin, the pair spent two late-October days in Oshkosh training Winnebago County residents and workers. 

Attendees practiced how to effectively listen to and assist people who are struggling, as a means to prevent self-harm and further distress. After the workshop, they’d be considered an ECPR “practitioner” and could go on to eventually work as a listener in a living room.

A place to ‘just be’

The pair’s idea for bringing more northeast Wisconsin residents together was born several years ago, when they were sitting in Iverson Riggers’ living room, discussing the unhelpful ways people typically respond to those struggling with mental health issues. They also lamented the general loss of “third spaces,” or places outside of home or work where people casually connect with their community without a cost barrier.

“So we said, ‘You know, what if there was a space where folks could go and could just be?’” Iverson Riggers said. 

That question led them to devise the idea of the Community Living Room, where people could do just that. 

In 2023, they received a grant from the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, which they used to launch the concept as a pop-up event in different places — the local library, community gatherings, the children’s museum. There was always food and several ECPR-certified listeners in attendance. 

Thanks to the relationships they built hosting pop-ups, a local developer gifted them space to open a permanent downtown Appleton location in October 2024. They pay just $1 in rent annually. 

“It was created to break down all the barriers that people find to seeking support,” Iverson Riggers said. “There’s no appointments and no forms. There’s no requirement of a certain kind of identity or diagnosis. There’s no requirement about how you engage.”

Inside the space, which resembles a large apartment, several cozy couches invite visitors to get comfortable. There are tables to sit at or partake in board games or puzzles. A small kitchen area with a fridge is stocked with fresh snacks. A poster on the wall permits people to take what they need — clothing, food, safe sex tools, hygiene supplies and even Narcan. 

“It just says something about creating a space … where we can go and connect and feel welcome without having to buy anything, without having to be a certain way, without having to conform to whatever the rules of the space are,” Iverson Riggers said.

How people use the space varies. Some simply pop in for a snack or a drink or to use the bathroom. Two visitors regularly come in and practice playing the guitar. Others want to connect one-on-one with the “listeners” trained in ECPR — at least two people who have taken the training are paid $50 per hour to be present. 

While the staff are trained to help people who are experiencing emotional crises and are more than ready to assist if needed, the living room aims to be a “prevention space,” they said. They believe that if people feel less lonely and isolated, or know they have somewhere where they can get support, they may not reach the point of crisis.

“You know, it’s not just this joy-filled, ‘everything is peaceful’ (place),” McLaughlin said. “We’re learning how to navigate conflict in community. We’re learning how to support people in distress, in community.” 

Since they started offering community ECPR workshops roughly seven years ago, they’ve helped train more than 2,500 people. 

For years, they felt they were “pounding the pavement” to spread the word about their ideas for connecting neighbors. Now, they’ve turned a corner and have seen a steady increase in demand. 

Community members across Wisconsin, including in Winnebago, Brown, Sauk and Sheboygan counties, have shown interest in replicating their approach. Prevent Suicide Wisconsin also shared Ebb & Flow’s approach in its 2025 Suicide Prevention Plan as a model for using peer support to reduce deaths by suicide.

Thanks to this, Iverson Riggers and McLaughlin expect they’ll soon be “overwhelmed” with interest. The increased attention has come with its own challenges — they had to cut back on meetings with people who want to replicate their approach in other counties. It’s also been hard to keep up with the demands of “chasing down funding” and keeping the downtown Appleton space in shape, Iverson Riggers said. 

Lanise Pitts, a practitioner certified in ECPR, said she was drawn to the warmth of the cooperative and kept returning to events after she attended the training. The Community Living Room allows her to connect with people from different circles and different career paths that she would likely never meet otherwise, she said. 

“When people just come in, it’s just like being welcomed to somebody’s house. Come in, find something to do, kick your feet up,” Pitts said while curled up on a couch in the living room. “When they leave, after we’ve done puzzles or colored or played card games or music games or had a 30-second dance party, it’s just like the weight gets lifted. Like you might come in with a lot of baggage, but when you leave out, you’re leaving some of that behind, and it just kind of dissipates.”

The Community Living Room currently has funding to be open two days a week. See a schedule here. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Feeling lonely? Appleton’s Community Living Room offers an antidote to isolation is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Legislation is being introduced that would, for the first time in a decade, increase benefits for the most severely injured workers in Wisconsin. 

The bill, if adopted by the Republican-majority Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, would make a number of changes to the state’s worker’s compensation system. 

In particular, it would give raises to people declared permanently and totally disabled such as 77-year-old Jimmy Novy and paraplegic Scott Meyer.

They were featured in a September Wisconsin Watch article. It reported that more than 300 PTD recipients haven’t gotten a raise in their worker’s compensation benefits since 2016.

Novy, who lives in southwest Wisconsin, receives a worker’s comp check of $1,575 per month. Had his benefit kept pace with inflation, which rose 34%, he would have received nearly $21,000 more over the past nine years.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin employers have seen their premiums for worker’s compensation insurance decrease 10 years in a row, saving them $206 million in the past year and over $1 billion since 2017.

Unlike most workers injured on the job, who get temporary worker’s compensation benefits before returning to the job, Wisconsin PTD recipients get worker’s comp checks for life. Twenty-three states provide automatic cost-of-living raises for PTD recipients. But Wisconsin PTD recipients get raises only if worker’s comp legislation proposed every two years, known as an “agreed bill,” becomes law. 

The new agreed bill was proposed by employers and labor leaders on the state Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council. The Assembly Workforce Development, Labor and Integrated Employment Committee will hold a hearing on the bill Thursday. 

The bill would make these changes for PTD recipients:

• Make an estimated 210 more PTD recipients eligible for raises, known as supplementary benefits. Currently, only PTD recipients injured before Jan. 1, 2003, are eligible for raises. The bill would change that date to Jan. 1, 2020.
• Raise the maximum weekly benefit for PTD recipients by 57%, from $669 to $1,051, effective Jan. 1, 2026.
• Give PTD recipients annual raises, with the amounts set shortly before taking effect. The raise amounts would vary based on when the recipients were injured and their earnings at the time. 

One example, provided by the state Department of Workforce Development when the agreed bill was proposed: A PTD recipient injured in 1985 and receiving $535 a week would get a 57% increase to $840. The increase would amount to nearly $16,000 per year.

Spokespersons for the Assembly committee chair, Rep. Paul Melotik, R-Grafton, and for Sen. Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, chair of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Labor and Economic Development, said the lawmakers had not yet reviewed the bill.

Novy, while in his late 20s, learned he had been exposed to manganese, a key component in batteries, from working in a battery manufacturing plant. He suffered neurological problems that affected his left leg, severely limiting his ability to walk or even maintain his balance.

The bill would raise Novy’s monthly worker’s comp check to about $2,450 from $1,575, an annual increase of about $10,000.

“That’s about time,” Novy said Friday about the bill, eager to hear when he might see a raise in his check.

The money for worker’s compensation checks comes from worker’s compensation insurance companies and from employers who are self-insured for worker’s comp. No tax dollars are involved.

Agreement among employer and labor members on the Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council on the bill was reached after a “fee schedule” for worker’s compensation medical services was included in the 2025-27 state budget adopted in July. 

The schedule limits how much health care providers can charge for worker’s comp care.

Meyer, who lost both legs following a workplace accident in 1993 and now lives in Colorado, said he hopes that for PTD recipients on fixed incomes, the proposed raises make “a meaningful impact on their day-to-day lives.”

Appleton lawyer John Edmondson, who represents worker’s comp recipients, said the raises would be “a very nice step in the right direction, albeit coming far too late for those PTD workers who economically suffered and some who simply died waiting.”

Wisconsin worker’s comp bill would raise benefit for permanently disabled is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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As appropriations for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s funding remain uncertain because of the government shutdown, Native American tribes across the U.S. have been forced to step in with emergency funds to support families who rely on the federal aid.

It’s a demographic that relies heavily on SNAP, which provides food assistance for approximately 42 million Americans. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 23% of American Indian and Alaska Native households used SNAP benefits in 2023 — nearly double the national average.

And tribal advocates and representatives have warned lawmakers of the risk the government shutdown poses to their communities, including the lapses in funding to SNAP, Head Start and WIC, the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

“Most tribes are taking care of their tribal members. It’s just that they’re taking on a lot of expense at this point,” Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin told NOTUS.

In Oklahoma, Cherokee Nation officials announced on Monday they would use $6.5 million to provide direct checks to citizens on the reservation or in nearby counties. Another $1.25 million will fund nonprofit food programs and local food banks to help support the Cherokee Nation, which is the largest tribe in the country.

In other states, the percentage of people affected by SNAP cuts also disproportionately hits tribal nations. Wisconsin, for example, has 11 federally recognized tribes, and the Menominee tribe is its largest with approximately 8,700 members, according to Wisconsin First Nations. Wisconsin Watch reported that in Menominee County, which is 80% populated by the Menominee Tribe, 46% of residents receive SNAP benefits. Officials for the tribe did not respond to an inquiry from NOTUS.

When asked if he’d been speaking with tribal nations in his state about how they are affected by SNAP cuts, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said, “Well they would be affected like everyone else.”

“I’m opposed to this government shutdown,” Johnson said. “The simple solution is: Vote for the House CR,” referring to the continuing resolution that would end the government shutdown.

Sen. Mike Rounds told NOTUS he has been in contact with the tribal nations in South Dakota.

“The vast majority of the members on most of my reservations, one of their primary sources of money for food is SNAP,” Rounds said. “Our Democrat colleagues, I think, are starting to understand it. But they are wedging because they want something that we can’t deliver, which is an outcome on their proposal to simply continue on with a failed plan on Obamacare.”

A federal judge ordered President Donald Trump on Thursday to issue full SNAP benefits within a day, a decision that comes after a long back and forth over the use of USDA contingency funds. On Friday, the administration filed an appeal to stop that order.

But even ahead of the shutdown, SNAP was already facing cuts. Trump’s reconciliation bill slashed $186 million in SNAP funding through 2034, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The bill, which was signed into law in July, included a $500 million cut in funding to the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program, which allowed states and tribes to procure fresh, locally sourced food.

“I’ve been speaking to tribal leaders and those that are responsible for food programs within sovereign nations, and there’s concern across the board,” said Sen. Ben Ray Luján.

Luján’s state of New Mexico has the third-highest percentage of Native Americans in the country. In his previous attempt to pass legislation that would temporarily fund SNAP, Luján included reimbursing the states and tribes that are currently using emergency funding.

When asked if tribes or states would receive these reimbursements, a spokesperson for the USDA blamed Democrats for the shutdown.

“This compromises not only SNAP, but farm programs, food inspection, animal and plant disease protection, rural development, and protecting federal lands,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Senate Democrats are withholding services to the American people in exchange for healthcare for illegals, gender mutilation, and other unknown ‘leverage’ points.”

Historically, tribal reservations are geographically isolated and more likely to be in a food desert.

The only program that remains somewhat untouched by the government shutdown and the reconciliation bill is the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. FDPIR provides monthly boxes of USDA foods that Natives refer to as “commodities” based on their lower nutritional value. Prior to Nov. 1, when SNAP ran out of federal funding because of the shutdown, some nations suggested their members switch from SNAP to FDPIR because households cannot participate in both programs in the same month.

The consensus among lawmakers, however, is to end the shutdown.

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, the vice chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, told NOTUS on Wednesday the effect on Native American communities is simple to describe: “It’s quite bad, disproportionately bad.”

“People deserve to eat,” he added.

NOTUS reporter Manuela Silva contributed to this report.

This story was produced andoriginally published by NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Native American tribes are struggling in wake of SNAP uncertainty is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Gov. Tony Evers said Wisconsin is restoring benefits for nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites who receive federal food aid. 

The move means the Wisconsinites who rely on food assistance “will not have to wake up tomorrow worried about when or whether they are going to eat next,” Evers said in a Thursday evening statement.

Evers’ announcement came hours after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as FoodShare in Wisconsin.

The federal government had halted November payments for the program amid the government shutdown. More recently, the administration opted to make partial payments under previous court orders last week. A Wednesday statement from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said the partial payments could add delays because states had to calculate what reduced payments would look like for individuals and get that information to a vendor that distributes the funds.

On Friday morning, the Trump administration filed a motion with a federal appeals court asking for an emergency stay of the Thursday night court order.

Evers’ statement said the state Department of Health Services anticipates benefits would be available Friday morning to FoodShare recipients.

“My administration worked quickly to ensure these benefits could be released as soon as possible so that our kids, families, and seniors have access to basic food and groceries without one more day of delay,” Evers said in a statement. “But let’s be clear — it never should’ve come to this.”

Evers, a Democrat, said the Republican Trump administration should have “listened to (Evers) and so many who urged them to use all legal funds and levers to prevent millions of Americans from losing access to food and groceries.”

Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback told WPR that the state is working to access “readily available federal funding, pursuant to the court’s order.” She said, as of Thursday night, the administration had submitted the necessary information to ensure residents can get their FoodShare benefits “as early as after midnight.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s announcement last month that benefits would be paused was a break from past precedent for the USDA, which had used emergency funds to pay SNAP benefits in previous government shutdowns. Wisconsin was part of a multistate lawsuit seeking to compel the USDA to continue funding the program. 

The lapse in benefits put pressure on Wisconsin recipients of the benefit, as well as food pantries and other service providers. On Thursday prior to the judge’s ruling and Evers’ announcement, the Milwaukee County Board approved $150,000 in assistance for the 234,000 people in that county who receive the benefits.

On Nov. 1, Evers declared a state of emergency and a period of “abnormal economic disruption” in response to the ongoing shutdown and potential lapse in federal food assistance. The executive order directed state agencies to take all necessary measures to prepare for a potential delay in FoodShare payments. It also directed the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to enforce prohibitions against price gouging.

Senate Republicans and Democrats have been deadlocked over a short-term federal funding bill since Oct. 1. Democrats, like U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, are demanding the bill include an extension of COVID-19 era Affordable Care Act enhanced tax credits. Without them, Democrats and Evers estimate ACA insurance premiums would spike significantly. Republicans in the Senate are demanding that Democrats vote on a “clean” funding bill. 

On Wednesday, Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johson called on his GOP colleagues to kill the Senate’s fillibuster rule, which requires 60 votes in order to pass certain legislation. With a 53-seat majority, Republicans can’t pass their funding bill without Democratic support. Johnson’s comments represent a flip from 2022 when he accused Democrats trying to kill the filibuster of wanting “absolute power.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

FoodShare assistance restored to Wisconsinites, Gov. Tony Evers says is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Residents choosing health insurance on the federal marketplace for 2026 will contend with hikes in premiums and other fees, the potential ending of tax credits that made payments more affordable and fewer plan options in some areas. 

• But Wisconsin’s average premium hike of 17.4% next year is lower than the national average of 26%.

• The exact changes in costs and options depend on where you live. 

• Insurance navigators say finding an affordable plan is still possible.

People who rely on the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace to choose health insurance for 2026 must contend with a host of challenges as the open enrollment period begins. Those include hikes in premiums and other fees, the potential ending of tax credits that made payments more affordable, and fewer options in some areas. 

That’s as a growing number of residents have used the marketplace. More than 300,000 Wisconsinites, or about 5% of the state’s population, signed up for plans last year at HealthCare.gov — more than double the enrollment from about a decade ago. 

If you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed while considering your options, here is some information that might help. 

How long does open enrollment last? 

It began Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 15. Choose a plan by Dec. 15 if you want coverage to kick in by Jan. 1. 

How much will premiums increase? 

Here’s some bad news: Premiums in Wisconsin will increase on average by 17.4% next year, a Wisconsin Watch analysis shows. If it’s any consolation, that’s less than the estimated 26% national hike as reported by KFF, a health policy nonprofit.

“Wisconsin is better than the national average,” said Adam VanSpankeren, navigator program manager of Covering Wisconsin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension program that helps people enroll in publicly funded health care. “Don’t be afraid to look at your plan and see what’s available because you’ll probably be able to find an affordable option.”

Premiums for most plans will increase by 9.4% to 19%. Premiums for a few outlying plans will surge by over 33.3%.

The increases depend on where you live. For example, the new benchmark plan in Milwaukee County will be 44% more expensive than the 2025 benchmark. That’s compared to an increase of just 8.13% in La Crosse and Trempealeau counties.

A benchmark plan refers to the second-cheapest Silver-tier plan, an Affordable Care Act concept used to calculate subsidies to help a marketplace enrollee pay their premiums. 

Benchmark plans in Sawyer and Ashland counties will become the state’s most expensive next year, with 27-year-olds paying premiums of $637.57 per month. The two counties also stand out when comparing the average plan costs. The state’s cheapest benchmark plans will be found in Kewaunee, Brown, Door, Shawano, Oconto, Marinette and Manitowoc counties, where a 27-year-old will pay $444.58 monthly.

Statewide prices for Common Ground Health Cooperative will increase an average of 16.6% in 2026, including more noticeable hikes of at least 30% in Jefferson and Walworth counties. The company attributed the changes to rising health care costs and a changing federal landscape.

“By updating our rates, we can ensure the sustainability of our marketplace product and continue to deliver high-quality care to our members,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

What is happening with subsidies? 

More than 86% of Wisconsin enrollees last year received advanced premium tax credits that lowered the cost of premiums by an average of $585, according to KFF.

But one major subsidy, the enhanced premium tax credit, introduced in 2021, is set to expire at the end of 2025. Democrats in Congress have called for the credits to be extended in a debate that’s central to the ongoing federal government shutdown. 

The tax credit’s expiration would result in lower reimbursements for eligible households. Households with an income of more than four times the federal poverty level will no longer be eligible for any federal tax credit.

“How much Wisconsinites’ healthcare coverage costs will increase varies depending on age, income, plan selection, and available insurers in each county, but many Wisconsinites will see their premiums increase significantly, with seniors and middle-class families seeing some of the largest increases if Republicans in Congress do not extend enhanced tax credits under Affordable Care Act,” Evers wrote in an Oct. 27 press release.

A 60-year-old couple making around $85,000 in Barron County could see premiums skyrocket over 800%, with an annual increase of over $33,000 in costs, according to calculations by the Insurance Commissioner Nathan Houdek’s office. The same couple living in Dane County could see premiums triple, paying nearly $20,000 extra a year. 

VanSpankeren says to examine your options as soon as you can, with help from insurance agents or navigators such as those at Covering Wisconsin.

“That (cost increase) does not mean be scared or anxious or stay away from the marketplace,” VanSpankeren said. “It means you’ve got to look again, and you’ve got to do your homework and work with a navigator if you need to.”

If you’re looking for a marketplace plan, it’s a good time to estimate your income for the year, VanSpankeren added, even if that seems difficult. If your income changes over the year, you can report that later.

“You’re just going to do your best, and that’s all anybody can do,” he said. “But really take that extra time to calculate it, however close you can, it’s going to help you a lot in terms of making sure your plan is affordable and making sure you’re not paying back in tax credits that you shouldn’t have gotten.”

He also suggested considering how often you expect to visit the doctor’s office over the year and whether you anticipate any major procedures. That will help determine what plan makes most sense to choose. 

How will changes affect plan options? 

Residents in most counties will find fewer plan options as companies retreat from certain markets. Data from Houdek’s office show that 46 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties lost at least one insurance company. Up to four companies will stop serving Winnebago, Racine, Calumet, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Outagamie, Manitowoc and Kenosha counties. 

Two out of three providers currently serving Fond du Lac County have announced exits, leaving residents with just one option.

VanSpankeren worries dwindling options will push some residents out of the marketplace, leaving them unable to access any existing subsidies — potentially falling prey to providers that exploit people in need.

“This would be an opportunity for the good agents and brokers of Wisconsin to rise to meet that need and say, ‘Hey, there are these other things you’re looking for. This particular hospital, this plan actually covers it. Let’s talk about your options,’” VanSpankeren said.

Dean Health Plan by Medica, Fond du Lac’s remaining insurance provider, is “committed to being a stable presence in the community and supporting those who may need to choose a new plan,” spokesperson Ricky Thiesse wrote in an email.

The company encouraged residents to confirm whether their preferred doctors and hospitals are in-network, or if they need to select new providers to receive full benefits.

What other plan changes might we see? 

A majority (61%) of the health plans in Wisconsin will feature higher deductibles next year, increasing out-of-pocket costs before insurance starts paying. The most dramatic deductible increase will be $2,800.

Some providers are also adjusting co-pays and coinsurance rates to reduce company costs. That could require enrollees to pay more per doctor’s visit or spend more on certain drugs.

Should I consider a catastrophic plan? 

Catastrophic plans, a federal marketplace alternative, commonly feature low monthly premiums but very high deductibles before providers pay for care. They are seen as affordable ways to protect only against worst-case scenarios, like getting seriously sick or injured, according to HealthCare.gov. Catastrophic plans are open only to people under 30 or those who qualify for a hardship or affordability exemption. 

But they are also getting more expensive next year, with premiums surging an average of 57.8%. Catastrophic plans make up the top six plans with the biggest premium increases in 2026. 

VanSpankeren suggests comparing a catastrophic plan with Bronze- or Silver-tier plans that might offer more comprehensive coverage.

While individual comparisons will vary, a single 27-year-old enrolling in a catastrophic plan in 2026 would save an average of just $38 monthly compared to a Bronze-tiered plan.

“We don’t choose plans for people, and we don’t steer people towards plans. But I would say it is very rare for anybody that a navigator works with to choose a catastrophic plan,” VanSpankeren said. 

Want to see how we crunched the data? Read our data analysis process here.

How to navigate the health care marketplace as premiums rise and options shrink  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Laurie Doxtator starts each morning with affirmations.

“It’s OK to say no,” she thinks to herself while breathing in and breathing out, slowly grounding herself. 

“I’m proud of me waking up sober today.” 

“It’s a good day to start a new day.” 

The exercise plays an important role in keeping Doxtator clean from the drugs and alcohol that long controlled her life. She has built the routine through hard work, perseverance and the support of people around her — helping her stay alive. All the while she practices what she preaches to others seeking recovery: “Do this for you.” 

Doxtator, 61, grew up on the Oneida Reservation and spent time in California before returning to Wisconsin, enduring trauma along the way, including losing multiple family members. 

Three years ago, Doxtator realized she’d been using substances for 50 years, including drinking since age 8. “I realized it ain’t giving me nothing in life,” Doxtator said. “It ain’t gonna bring my children back, it ain’t gonna bring my mom back.”

She moved into a 30-day rehabilitation program but knew she needed more structure and time to heal. That led her to Amanda’s House, a sober living home in Green Bay for women and their children that allows them to stay as long as they need.

Doxtator spent most mornings at Amanda’s House in the craft room with her friend and fellow resident Ashley Bryan, carefully creating Diamond Dotz art pieces. 

Doxtator saw many people come and go during more than three years at the home, and she’s grateful to have felt their support. Bryan jokingly calls her “the OG” — a nod to Doxtator’s long tenure there.

Others call her “grandma” while asking how she’s doing. Doxtator enjoys the nickname, which prompts her to wonder what life would have looked like as a grandmother had her late sons raised children.

Jewelry on Doxtator’s hands and the tattoos spanning her arms tell pieces of her life’s story.

One ring belonged to her late mother, whose birth date is tattooed below a red rose on her upper right arm, which she calls her “memorial arm.” Doxtator still deals with the grief from losing her parents and regrets that she hadn’t sobered up when her mom was still living.

Another ring belonged to her older brother, Duane, who died this year on Mother’s Day. Below the rose of their mother, the tattooed words ROCK & ROLL memorialize Duane’s love of music.  

More scripted names and dates honor the children Doxtator lost — one in an accidental drowning and one to alcoholism. 

The turtle tattoos on Doxtator’s arm nod to her Oneida Nation membership and her family’s Turtle Clan history. 

Her newest tattoo, a hummingbird, represents the community she’s found at the Recovery Nest, part of the Oneida Comprehensive Health Division, which offers holistic healing and growth for those seeking recovery. Six other women joined her in getting that tattoo.

Even in sobriety, Doxtator struggles with the weight of her past trauma. 

She planned to die by suicide in July. But Bryan found out about it and intervened, prompting Amanda’s House Executive Director Paula Jolly to send Doxtator to Iris Place, the National Alliance on Mental Illness Fox Valley’s peer-run crisis center in Appleton, where she recovered. 

“I came out and they could tell the whole difference in me,” Doxtator said. “I needed that break.”

Trauma that unfolds early in someone’s life can affect them decades later — even when they don’t vividly remember, Jolly explained, citing research by psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk.  

Doxtator’s visit to Iris Place reinforced the importance of daily routines and surrounding herself with supportive people.

She keeps a list of everybody in her life who might help her in different ways, organizing them by categories, such as “emotional support.” She keeps the numbers for a crisis center and her recovery coaches saved in her phone. At Bryan’s suggestion, Doxtator downloaded Snapchat, where women from Amanda’s House send funny selfies to each other. 

When other Amanda’s House residents leave for work, Doxtator spends time with her brother, Earl “Nuck” Elm, or visits the Recovery Nest. 

Doxtator spent much of last summer sewing a ribboned vest and beading a turtle pendant for this year’s KUNHI-YO’ “I’m Healthy” conference, sponsored by Oneida Behavioral Health’s Tribal Opioid Response Team. There, Doxtator was invited to walk in an August fashion show featuring people who attend the Recovery Nest. 

Ahead of the show, Doxtator was up at 4 a.m. due to her nerves. Bryan, who works as a hair stylist, was curling Doxtator’s hair in the Amanda’s House craft room. 

“Oh, you look so pretty,” Bryan exclaimed after finishing. 

“Oh no, Ashley no,” Doxtator said apprehensively. 

“You’re gonna be OK.”

“You sure?”

“You’re brave. You’ve done a lot harder things in your life. This is gonna be fun and you’re gonna enjoy yourself,” Bryan said before the pair hugged and said goodbye. 

Surrounded by friends and family, Doxtator heard cheering, clapping and a whistle as she walked into the show. Wearing her handmade outfit and her biggest smile, she waved to the crowd. 

Stephanie Skenandore, Doxtator’s lifelong friend and recovery coach, recorded a video on her phone from the side of the room after walking in the show herself. Skenandore, who has been in recovery for 33 years and shares the same recovery date with Doxtator, said she was proud of Doxtator for seeking her support when Duane died earlier this year. 

People in recovery often unhealthily dwell on their past mistakes — flaws that others can’t see, Skenandore said, connecting that process to the fashion show. It’s like focusing on a sewing imperfection that only the sewer will see.  

Recovery takes practice and creativity, she added. “There is no one specific way, and there is no perfect way.” 

When people like Doxtator first show up to Recovery Nest, Skenandore helps them set goals by asking them questions like, “How do you see a life looking into the future without the drugs and the alcohol? How do you want that to look for yourself?” 

She discourages people from viewing themselves as failures and helps them navigate life differently. 

Skenandore said Doxtator’s handmade vest and pendant illustrated her creativity. 

After the fashion show, event organizers played a prerecorded video in which Doxtator shared her life story. Doxtator watched at a conference room table with her brother. When Doxtator appeared on screen, she picked up a napkin to wipe away her tears. A woman clapped at the mention of Doxtator’s years of sobriety before walking over to give her a hug.

“I came from nothing and built a community,” Doxtator said after the video ended. “It wasn’t easy.” 

Doxtator moved out of Amanda’s House on Oct. 17. Nuck and her cousin helped take her boxes to a storage unit. 

Doxtator’s long hair was now cut shorter than it had ever been. “I’m going on a new journey out in the world, so I want to have a new style look,” Doxtator said. 

“When you start looking at it from the time she came to the time now, she’s grown so much,” Jolly said. “I don’t want her to leave but it’s time. We’re technically holding her back. It’s time for her to move on.” 

Doxtator said she’s in awe of her own progress but knows that leaving won’t be easy. The old forces of addiction lurk outside of the support of Amanda’s House and will try to draw her back in. 

She said she’s determined to avoid returning to drugs and alcohol — and becoming the “same old Laurie: stealing, lying.”  

“If I go back out, I know I’m gonna die, there’s no choice in the matter,” she said.

As she approached her back-to-back dates of her move and her three-year sobriety anniversary, Doxtator started researching Gamblers Anonymous meetings. 

“It’s hard for me right now, that’s one of my downfalls right now, gambling,” Doxtator said. “I used to be real bad before, but I know that I can (get through) it again.” 

As her recovery progresses, Doxtator has grown more comfortable in sharing her story, with the hope of helping others, including during a recent Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. When a newcomer visited, “we told her to keep coming back,” Doxtator said. “It works if you work it. We said we’re proud of you for coming in.” 

Jolly offered Doxtator a standing invitation to return to Amanda’s House to share her story with the next group of residents.  

In the meantime, saying goodbye was hard, Doxtator said. She has yet to unpack a pile of boxes at her brother’s house, where she hasn’t yet slept much. 

There’s so much to get used to. She knows it will take time. But she tells herself she’ll succeed as long as she keeps working on herself, remembering that every day is a new day. 

Need help for yourself or a loved one? 

If you are looking for local information on substance use, call 211 or reach the Wisconsin Addiction Recovery Helpline at 833-944-4673. Additional information is available at 211’s addiction helplife or findtreatment.gov.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis: call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or contact a Wisconsin county crisis line.

‘I came from nothing and built a community’: After years of healing, woman takes next step in sobriety is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Habitat for Humanity is turning to factory-built manufactured homes to cut costs and expand affordable housing during an affordability crisis.

• Modern manufactured homes meet federal code, are faster to assemble and rival traditional homes in quality and appearance.

• Stigma and restrictions in some communities challenge the expansion of factory-built housing across Wisconsin.

Kahya Fox knows a solution to Wisconsin’s housing crisis won’t fall from the sky. But she has seen a crane suspend one in the air. 

The Habitat for Humanity of the Greater La Crosse Region executive director watched this summer as semitrucks pulled into the Vernon County city of Hillsboro, population 1,400. Instead of bringing materials to build a traditional home, they each carried a preassembled half of a house.

Workers removed the wheels that carried them down the interstate. Then, a crane hoisted them up and onto a concrete foundation. 

The scene illustrated a transformation within Habitat for Humanity, which has since the 1970s relied on community members to help construct homes from their foundations to the roofs. But even with volunteer labor, construction costs have skyrocketed over the years. That has prompted the nonprofit to introduce factory-built homes as an option, finding savings that allow it to develop more affordable homes for first-time buyers and working-class families. 

Habitat’s La Crosse affiliate was early to embrace the factory-built model, which is spreading to affordable housing organizations nationwide. But the organization hasn’t gotten all Wisconsin municipalities and residents on board.

Some local governments use zoning laws to prohibit manufactured home developments like the one in Hillsboro. Others require extra work or alterations before allowing manufactured housing projects. Some green-light developers that restrict factory-built housing from filling empty lots where they build.

Several states require local governments to allow manufactured homes alongside site-built single-family housing. Wisconsin is not among them. 

Critics of the model still associate manufactured housing with cheaply built and short-lived mobile homes built in the 1960s and 1970s — before the government started to regulate construction, Fox said.

But construction must now follow a federal building code, and manufactured homes can appreciate in value at similar rates to traditional homes, a Harvard University study found. 

The cheaper cost of developing factory-built homes does not reflect poorer quality, Fox said. Savings come from finding scale in mass production, with factories buying materials in bulk and cutting down material waste through computer design. Building can unfold faster in factories than on site, where builders face unpredictable weather.

While Fox said building a traditional Habitat home can take professionals and volunteers longer than a year, four homes trucked to Hillsboro this summer were placed in one day.

Fox highlighted farmhouse sinks and stainless steel appliances as she walked through each house — features already assembled as the crane lifted the homes into place.

A seam in the laminate wood floors split the kitchen from the living room, the only interior evidence of how the home arrived. Drywall and floor boards will eventually cover the seams, making the Hillsboro homes look similar to any site-built development, Fox said. 

“It’s not until you see them standing there and get in and walk through and touch things that you’re like, ‘No, this is like any other house,’” Fox said. “It’s beautiful.”

‘The place that I can leave my family’

Russell and Katie Bessel expected to learn the fate of their Habitat for Humanity application on May 28. By 1 p.m. on May 29, Russell started calling friends and family to tell them they must not have been chosen for a new home.

The family was getting used to bad news. A motorcycle crash in 2024 paralyzed Russell from the waist down, around the same time Katie started dealing with a cancer diagnosis.

But just as Russell finished speaking with his mom, Katie walked through the door crying. She showed him an email once she managed to stifle her sobs: They would move to Hillsboro in 2026.

It didn’t feel real until they saw one of the Hillsboro homes this summer, Katie said.

“Beautiful countertops, cabinets, flooring. It’s gorgeous,” Russell said.

And most importantly, the home will be wheelchair-accessible, unlike the family’s current apartment.

Russell sleeps, bathes and eats in the living room because his wheelchair can’t fit through narrow halls and doorways. He can’t maneuver to the dining table, forcing him to watch from his chair or bed as his wife and three children eat dinner.

“I’m tired of that,” he said. “I want to sit down and have a family meal.”

Their new home will have a giant kitchen island where he can eat next to his kids. 

The family will move into one of 10 manufactured homes in Habitat’s Hillsboro development — three of them for traditional Habitat homeowners, including the Bessels, who must work a set number of hours for the nonprofit and earn less than 60% of the local median family income, $95,400 in Vernon County. 

Three other homes are for first-time buyers who earn less than 80% the median income and will receive down payment assistance. Families earning no more than 120% of the local median income will be eligible to purchase four homes, which Habitat listed this spring during the rendering stage for about $350,000.

The tiered system benefits families with different levels of need, Fox said. Proceeds from Habitat’s sale of the four homes will help finance the rest of the development. The nonprofit has attracted interest in the homes since posting photos of their move-in-ready state, Fox said. 

The city of Hillsboro will pay Habitat up to $206,000 if the development is finished by July 2026, according to its contract.

No- or low-interest loans will help keep the Bessels’ mortgage payments affordable. But the family will ultimately pay for the full value of their home, like any other buyer.

“It’ll be the place that I can leave my family,” Russell said. “I don’t have to worry about when I do pass from this earth, that they’re gonna struggle.”

Factory-built models catch on

A crane will do most of the work once the trucks with the Bessel home arrive in Hillsboro. That doesn’t eliminate the need for volunteers and future homeowners to work at the sites, Fox said. They will help landscape the nearly half-acre lots for the traditional Habitat recipients and construct two-car garages attached to each home. 

“The beauty of local businesses putting teams together and retirees showing up and picking up hammers is a piece of Habitat for Humanity that’s been there since the very beginning, and it runs through everything that we do,” Fox said.

Still, less reliance on volunteers helps at a time when fewer people are volunteering for nonprofits nationwide, said Kristie Smith, executive director of St. Croix Valley Habitat for Humanity.

Smith’s affiliate started its final site-built home last year. This year, it’s developing six factory-built homes — all purchased through the La Crosse affiliate.

So far, St. Croix Habitat has developed only modular housing, building homes inside a factory but for a specific plot of land in line with specific state and local building codes.

Modular housing cuts the affiliate’s costs and time spent by 30%, Smith said. Manufactured housing like what’s being developed in Hillsboro would be even more affordable.

Unlike modular housing, manufactured homes are built to a federal building code, allowing for larger-scale building with fewer customizations. The average manufactured home in 2021 cost half the price per square foot than a site-built home, according to the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research firm.

The Hillsboro homes are a relatively new manufactured housing model called CrossMod — built to federal code, but with room for amenities typically associated with a site-built home. The Hillsboro development will feature the first CrossMod homes placed on full basements. They will be more energy-efficient than traditional homes.

Stigma and barriers persist

Thirty minutes away from Hillsboro, however, Reedsburg’s zoning ordinances prohibit mobile and manufactured homes outside of mobile home parks, where homeowners pay a monthly fee to rent a lot. It is among many municipalities to limit such housing. 

“People want affordable housing, but they want it in the next town over,” said Amy Bliss, executive director of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance, a manufactured housing trade association.

Other local governments say they allow manufactured homes in single-family neighborhoods, but reject them in practice, Bliss said.

And the Habitat development isn’t unanimously popular in Hillsboro. Several local homeowners strongly opposed it, arguing that the city does not need more housing or should add it to a different neighborhood, according to previous reporting by Hillsboro Sentry-Enterprise.

A decades-old federal policy bans zoning that discriminates against factory-built housing, industry leaders say. But a lack of government enforcement leaves developers and customers to fight the restrictions in court, a costly, rarely pursued process, Bliss said, adding that projects like the one in Hillsboro should help ease any stigma surrounding nontraditional homes. 

“Some municipalities are coming around because they realize that that’s the only way to get housing that is affordable for their workers,” Bliss added.

A new start 

The Bessels’ 8-year-old daughter isn’t thinking about how her house will be built.

“When we have the yard, we can play tag. We could play whatever game we want,” she said. 

With months left until the move, she’s already planning summer barbecues in a new yard. Her parents will cook while she rides bikes with her siblings and new friends.

Russell hopes this will be the last time his kids must start over after bouncing around Wisconsin in search of housing. They’ll finally lay down roots in the Hillsboro home.

“This is the end of the road for us,” Russell said. “This is finally ours.”

Trisha Young of Wisconsin Watch contributed to this report.

‘Finally ours’: Factory-built homes help families realize ownership dreams. But stigma and barriers persist. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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As uncertainty surrounds Wisconsin’s SNAP program, also known as FoodShare, some community members are finding ways to support others in their time of need. 

Wisconsin’s FoodShare program serves more than 700,000 Wisconsin residents. FoodShare is funded through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. SNAP benefits across the country are at risk during the government shutdown.

After the Trump administration said it planned to to freeze payments to SNAP on Nov. 1, two federal judges on Friday ruled the administration must draw from contingency funds to keep aid flowing during the shutdown.

But those rulings may be appealed and benefits may be delayed.

Here are some things you can do if you live in Milwaukee and want to support anyone who might become impacted by FoodShare delays. 

What you should know

The Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee is in a position to provide resources to those impacted, according to Reno Wright, advocacy director for the nonprofit. 

“We do know that November payments are going to be delayed, but that eventually they will have access to those November benefits,” he said.

People can go to HungerTaskForce.org and access the “Get Help” page, and from there they will be able to find the nearest meal site or food pantry to them and their families, Wright said.

In the meantime, he said, FoodShare recipients should ensure their contact information is up to date to receive future updates.

You can also follow the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ FoodShare update page. 

What’s being done

Food drive

The city of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Public Schools and other partners launched a citywide food drive to help residents impacted by the federal shutdown and a pause of FoodShare benefits. 

Collaboration to support food pantries

Feeding America of Eastern Wisconsin and Nourish MKE are collaborating with the groups to collect nonperishable food and monetary donations to support Milwaukee food pantries. 

Residents can visit the City of Milwaukee’s Food Drive page or Milwaukee County’s Food Assistance page for information on how to donate. 

Community fridges

Metcalfe Park Community Bridges has been organizing around food needs and access through advocacy and opening community fridges. 

To keep up with or support Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, you can follow the group’s Facebook page. 

Advocacy efforts

The Hunger Task Force’s Voices Against Hunger is encouraging people to urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, into helping. 

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the authority and the resources to prevent an interruption in benefits by using SNAP contingency funds, transferring funds from other departments and issuing clear guidance to state agencies. The tools to make sure families do not go hungry during this holiday season are available, and what is needed now is immediate administrative action and political will,” an email blast from the group stated.

Other efforts

Additionally, groups like the Hunger Task Force and Feeding America are gearing up to help those in need with donation campaigns and new trucks for food delivery. 

How you can help

Wright said the Hunger Task Force’s Voices Against Hunger is a statewide platform where information is sent out to let people know about things that are going on at the state and federal level, including federal nutrition programs like FoodShare. 

You can sign up for the group here and support the Voices Against Hunger efforts here. 

Shavonda Sisson, founder of the Love on Black Women Mutual Aid fund, took to social media to share concerns and ways to help. 

“We are all deeply concerned about the millions of families who will be impacted by the possible delays in SNAP benefits,” she said. “In times like these, community becomes crucial.” 

Sisson’s tips on how you can help your neighbors: 

• Reach out to your local food bank to see if it is accepting donations of time, food or money. All are going to be crucial.   
• Share your favorite low-cost meal plans and recipes. 
• Share a simple list of free hot meal sites, pantry hours and community fridges in your city. Keep it updated and easy to reshare.
• Stock and restock community fridges and neighborhood pantry boxes.
• If you own or manage a business, create a pantry shelf or offer shift meals and grocery stipends.

Others advocates said you can:

• Keep up with your neighbors and help where you can. 
• Offer rides to pick up food for those in need. 
• Volunteer at your neighborhood food pantries.

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America. 

How you can help neighbors in need if SNAP benefits are paused is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin resumed scheduling abortions on Monday after a nearly monthlong pause due to federal Medicaid funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill that took effect at the beginning of October.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said it was able to resume scheduling abortions as of noon on Monday because it no longer fits the definition of a “prohibited entity” under the new federal law that took effect this month and can receive Medicaid funds.

The organization said it dropped its designation as an “essential community provider” as defined under the Affordable Care Act. Dropping the designation will not result in changes to the cost for abortions or other services or affect the organization’s funding, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin President and CEO Tanya Atkinson said.

“At this point, in all of our research and analysis, we really shouldn’t see much of an impact on patient access,” she said. “If relinquishing this does ultimately impact our bottom line, then we will have to understand what that path forward is.”

A national fight over abortion funding

Abortion funding has been under attack across the U.S., particularly for affiliates of Planned Parenthood, the biggest provider. The abortion landscape has shifted frequently since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that allowed states to ban abortion. Currently, 12 states do not allow it at any stage of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four more ban it after about six weeks’ gestation.

Planned Parenthood has warned that about half its clinics that provide abortion could be closed nationwide due to the ban in the new federal law on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for services other than abortion.

Wisconsin, where abortion is legal but the Republican-controlled Legislature has passed numerous laws limiting access, was the only state where Planned Parenthood paused all abortions because of the new federal law, Atkinson said.

Because of the complexities and varieties of state abortion laws, Planned Parenthood affiliates are responding to the new federal law in a variety of ways, Atkinson said. In Arizona, for example, Planned Parenthood stopped accepting Medicaid but continued to provide abortions.

The move in Wisconsin is “clearly aimed at sidestepping” the federal law, Wisconsin Right to Life said.

“Planned Parenthood’s abortion-first business model underscores why taxpayer funding should never support organizations that make abortion a priority,” said Heather Weininger, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life. “Women in difficult circumstances deserve compassionate, life-affirming care — the kind of support the pro-life movement is committed to offering.”

Impact on Wisconsin abortion clinics

In Wisconsin, pausing abortions for the past 26 days meant that women who would normally go to clinics in the southeastern corner of the state instead had to look for other options, including traveling to Chicago, which is within a three-hour drive of the Planned Parenthood facilities.

Affiliated Medical Services and Care for All also provide abortions at clinics in Milwaukee.

Atkinson said it was “really, really difficult to say” how many women were affected by the pause in services. She did not have numbers on how many women who wanted to have an abortion since the pause went into effect had to seek services elsewhere.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin serves about 50,000 people, and about 60% of them are covered by Medicaid, the organization said.

Given those numbers, the priority was on finding a way to continue receiving Medicaid funding and dropping the “essential community provider” status, Atkinson said.

Wisconsin is part of a multistate federal lawsuit challenging the provision in the law. A federal appeals court in September said the government could halt the payments while a court challenge to the provision moves ahead.

Ramifications for Medicaid

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin cited a Sept. 29 court filing on behalf of U.S. Health and Human Services that said family planning organizations could continue billing Medicaid if they gave up either their tax-exempt status or the “essential community provider” designation.

By giving up that designation, it no longer fits the definition of “prohibited entity” under the federal law and can continue to receive federal Medicaid funds, the organization said. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is not giving up its tax-exempt status.

The “essential community provider” designation was originally given to organizations to help make it easier for them to be considered in-network for billing with private health insurers, Planned Parenthood said.

Atkinson called it a “nuanced provision” of the law and she does not anticipate that giving it up will affect Planned Parenthood’s ability to continue providing abortions and other services.

Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of services including cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Federal Medicaid money was already not paying for abortion, but affiliates relied on Medicaid to stay afloat. Services other than abortion are expected to expand in light of the new law.

Planned Parenthood performed 3,727 abortions in Wisconsin between Oct. 1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024, the group said.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin resumes offering abortions after a nearly monthlong pause is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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As October comes to an end, the threat of missing FoodShare and WIC benefits looms for people across Wisconsin and across the nation. 

In an Oct. 10 letter, Sasha Gersten-Paal, director of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s development division, said: “SNAP has funding available for benefits and operations through the month of October. However, if the current lapse in appropriations continues, there will be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for approximately 42 million individuals across the nation.” 

Nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites receive food and nutrition assistance through FoodShare. 

Here are some things you can do if you live in Milwaukee and may be impacted by a lack of food resources in November.

Food resources 

If you or someone you know needs emergency food, call 2-1-1, or visit the IMPACT 211 website here. 

Hunger Task Forces’ Mobile Market : Operating as a grocery store on wheels, the Mobile Market provides healthy and affordable food options to families. The Mobile Market offers 25% off all items beyond Piggly Wiggly’s prices. 

To find out where the Mobile Market will be next, you can look at the Hunger Task Force website.

Community-powered fridges: In September, Tricklebee Café, One MKE and Metcalfe Park Community Bridges opened a community-powered fridge. Several more are planned to open. 

Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin provides a pantry locator and distributes food to partners across the region. 

UMOS operates a food pantry for residents in the 53207 and 53221 ZIP codes, as well as all first-time visitors. 

NourishMKE is a network of community food centers that provides a market-style experience for selecting and preparing food. 

Milwaukee Christian Center offers community services, including a food pantry. 

Tricklebee Café hosts a pay-what-you-can community café that provides meals.

Milwaukee County Senior Dining Program provides nutritious lunches to seniors 59 and older at various senior centers. 

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

SNAP benefits may not go out in November. Here’s where you can go for food assistance. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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For over 30 years, Ruby Johnson-Harden and her husband fostered Milwaukee youths in need of temporary homes. 

Though fostering is time-consuming and sometimes challenging, Johnson-Harden said she understood the need for children to have a safe place to go and for their parents to get the support they need. 

“It is definitely hard to give children back even when you know the intention is to give them back,” she said. “But you think about it, and there is always another kid that needs somewhere to go.” 

Though the number of children being removed from their homes is decreasing, the foster care system in Milwaukee, and in Wisconsin in general, is under growing strain.

Advocates say the problem isn’t strictly a shortage of foster homes, but a mismatch between the needs of many children entering care and the level of support, training and resources that foster families have to provide what’s needed. 

Few feel equipped enough or are willing to take on teens and children coping with trauma, behavioral health challenges or emotional dysregulation, according to foster care advocates. 

Shortage of proper placements

“In Milwaukee, we have enough foster homes and other placement providers for children. Everybody is placed,” said Jill Collins, ongoing services section manager for the Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services. “But we don’t necessarily always have the right match for children.” 

She said that because youths with mental health or behavioral needs are harder to place, some children are placed in group homes or residential care facilities where professionals are better equipped to meet their needs. 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families’ data dashboard, 7,000 children are placed in out-of-home care annually. That includes kinship care, foster care and other residential facilities. 

The Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services reported that at the beginning of 2024 there was an average of 1,743 children in out-of-home care. 

According to the dashboard, the older a child is when entering the system, the less likely it is for the child to be placed in a home. 

In 2024, there was an average of 515 children aged 12 years or older in out-of-home care. Of these older children, 275 (53%) were placed in a family-like setting, 146 (28%) were placed in congregate care, and 94 (18%) were in other care.

Ninety percent of children aged 12 and under were placed in family-like care. 

“I had few teens,” Johnson-Harden said. “Usually they’ve already been through so much that they are kind of set in their ways. It’s harder for them to open up.” 

DeShanda Williams-Clark, chief program officer at Pathfinders, works with many young people who are already a part of the child welfare system. 

“They’ll come in if they don’t feel safe in their placements,” Williams-Clark said. 

She said the young people Pathfinders serves can have a number of nuanced concerns that can fall through the cracks. Some are experiencing homelessness or are survivors of trafficking and exploitation, she said. 

“(The youths) have given feedback and say, well, I don’t feel safe being at my group home because my group home is publicly listed,” she said. “Or we’ve had children say, ‘I know this family is receiving a check for me because they’re reporting that I have worse behaviors or that I need medication.’ ”  

What’s being done

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families is working to reduce the number of children in out-of-home care through its Putting Families First initiative. 

The initiative focuses on keeping families together by supporting them in-home with resources and services. In situations where families can’t stay together, the initiative emphasizes relying on people already in the child’s or children’s network before resorting to foster care. 

As a result of this approach, there has been a decline in the number of children who are removed from their homes and taken into foster care, said Emily Erickson, director of the Bureau of Permanence and Out-of-Home Care at the agency.

“We have been focusing on solutions that are community-based, that can support parents in healing and growing while they continue to parent their children in their homes safely,” Erickson said. 

She said the program utilizes a mix of formal and informal support networks to help provide safety but allows children to stay in their homes because research shows a lasting negative impact once relationships are severed. 

Additionally, DCF funds the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness program for youths who have aged out of foster care. 

According to Williams-Clark, the program not only helps young people who have aged out of the child welfare system find housing, but it also supports them through the entire process. 

The program gives young people a choice regarding independent living, she said. 

“Then we give them wraparound care and support by making sure they have access to socially integrate into the communities that they want to live in, helping them to set goals for education and their academics, getting them connected to income and employment programs, and then just really working on those life skills,” Williams-Clark said.

How you can help

Advocates suggest several ways you can help. 

One way is to consider fostering. 

“The need is great. Especially for teens and siblings,” said Jane Halpin, a recruitment consultant with Community Care Resources, a private foster care agency.

She said it can become difficult because it’s time-consuming, but you won’t be alone. Community Care Resources offers around-the-clock support to those who foster through the agency. 

Williams-Clark said people need more education around fostering to help destigmatize the work of the child welfare system. 

Wisconsin Department of Children and Families officials suggested being a support system for family and friends who may be in need and considering specialized training to become a foster parent who can care for older youths or children with higher needs. 

They also encourage local organizations, churches and individuals to support foster families and children, not just through financial means but also by offering practical help and emotional support. They also encourage the use of community resources to support families before involving the child welfare system, to minimize trauma.

Johnson-Harden said the rewards of fostering are immense. 

“Fostering kids, to me, is about the joy of showing up for children in your community,” she said. “It’s about supporting a family and doing your best to lessen any trauma they’ve already experienced.” 

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Fewer children are in foster care, but finding homes remains a challenge is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

Following public outcry, the U.S. Department of Education has restored funding for students who have both hearing and vision loss, about a month after cutting it.

But rather than sending the money directly to the four programs that are part of a national network helping students who are deaf and blind, a condition known as deafblindness, the department has instead rerouted the grants to a different organization that will provide funding for those vulnerable students.

The Trump administration targeted the programs in its attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion; a department spokesperson had cited concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in explaining the decision to withhold the funding.

ProPublica and other news organizations reported last month on the canceled grants to agencies that serve these students in Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as in five states that are part of a New England consortium.

Programs then appealed to the Education Department to retain their funding, but the appeals were denied. Last week, the National Center on Deafblindness, the parent organization of the agencies that were denied, told the four programs that the Education Department had provided it with additional grant money and the center was passing it on to them.

“This will enable families, schools, and early intervention programs to continue to … meet the unique needs of children who are deafblind,” according to the letter from the organization to the agencies, which was provided to ProPublica. Education Department officials did not respond to questions from ProPublica; automatic email replies cited the government shutdown.

When the funding was canceled, the programs were in the middle of a five-year grant that was expected to continue through September 2028. The funding from the center is only for one year.

“We don’t know what will happen” in future years, said Lisa McConachie of the Oregon DeafBlind Project, which serves 114 students in the state. McConachie said that with uncertain funding, her agency had to cancel a retreat this fall that had been organized for parents to swap medical equipment, share resources and learn about services to help students when they get older. She hopes to reschedule it for the spring.

“It is still a disruption to families,’’ she said. “It creates this mistrust, that you are gone and back and gone and back.”

Oregon’s grant application for its deafblind program, submitted in 2023, included a statement about its commitment to address “inequities, racism, bias” and the marginalization of disability groups, language that was encouraged by the Biden administration. It also attached the strategic plan for Portland Public Schools, where the Oregon DeafBlind Project is headquartered, that mentioned the establishment of a Center for Black Student Excellence — which is unrelated to the deafblind project. The Education Department’s letter said that those initiatives were “in conflict with agency policy and priorities.”

An advocate for deafblind students said he was happy to see the funding restored but called the department’s decision-making “amateurish” and disruptive to students and families. “It is mean-spirited to do this to families and kids and school systems at the beginning of the year when all of these things should be so smooth,” said Maurice Belote, co-chair of the National DeafBlind Coalition, which advocates for legislation that supports deafblind children and young adults.

Grants to the four agencies total about $1 million a year. The department started funding state-level programs to help deafblind students more than 40 years ago in response to the rubella epidemic in the late 1960s. Nationally, there are about 10,000 children and young adults, from infants to 21-year-olds, who are deafblind and more than 1,000 in the eight affected states, according to the National Center on Deafblindness.

While the population is small, it is among the most complex to serve; educators rely on the deafblindness programs for support and training.

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Students with hearing and vision loss get funding back despite Trump’s anti-DEI campaign is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Looming sales of manufactured housing parks can cause anxiety among residents who own their homes but rent the land they sit on — especially as profit-maximizing private equity companies increasingly make purchases.

• In some communities, residents have purchased parks themselves and run them as cooperatives. Converting into a cooperative often initially increases monthly fees, but residents typically see smaller increases over time when compared to commercially owned parks.

• Wisconsin’s relative lack of consumer protections and incentives for co-op sales doesn’t make the process easy. Minnesota offers more resources to make co-op purchases more viable.

Standing on her porch, Vikki Braker pointed out her favorite lawn cutouts, arranged in a colorful scene: Silhouettes of two children smelled pink flowers as a line of googly-eyed red ants marched beneath their feet. A tree stretching over them wore a Green Bay Packers hat.

The decorations were among many Braker inherited during nearly half a century at Cedar Falls Acres mobile home park near Menomonie, Wisconsin. She figures more people get to enjoy her outdoor display than anything she keeps inside.

Neat rows of brick bordered each decorative scene atop grass her son had trimmed. Even as she slows down in her yardwork, the 67-year-old can’t imagine giving it up.

But Braker does not own her yard, only the home that sits on top of it. She worries about who will soon control her well-manicured lot.

Like thousands of Wisconsinites, Braker lives in a manufactured home, the more accurate name for what many call mobile homes or trailers — structures that make up the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing. 

Braker has rented her lot since she was 18. It’s where she raised three children, battled cancer and took care of her dying husband.

She paid rent to the same owner for most of those years: Vince Hague, 81. But he’s retiring and selling the lot. Braker and her neighbors are nervous about what’s next, especially as profit-maximizing private equity companies are buying manufactured home communities nationwide. 

Some of Braker’s neighbors have discussed buying the park themselves and running it as a cooperative. Many view the model as a way to keep communities well-maintained and affordable. But forming a resident-owned cooperative can be difficult — especially in Wisconsin.

Might Braker want to join a cooperative if she gets the option? She’s not sure. She wants more information to feel more comfortable about her future.

Co-op conversions aren’t easy

Braker and her husband, Roger, bought a mobile home in Cedar Falls Acres 49 years ago, seeing it as an affordable way to move out of Roger’s parents’ house. They planned to buy land of their own and build a home when they got older. But as decades passed by, they remained happy enough in their peaceful community.

“We never did buy a house,” Braker said. “We were always very comfortable here.”

Roger worked as a school bus driver. Braker worked in education before managing a Walmart and a gas station. Even when the couple could have afforded a down payment on a traditional home, they worried money would later get tight, she said.

The looming sale of Cedar Falls Acres — and the anxiety that comes with it — makes her wonder whether they should have tried to make traditional ownership work. Or if she should give up her home and yard and consider an apartment. 

“But I just can’t make myself do it,” Braker said. “I love being outside.”

In an ideal world, Braker said, Hague would find another local buyer to step in to keep the park peaceful and affordable. But such “mom-and-pop” owners are increasingly rare. Large corporations are taking their place, often raising lot rents and sometimes neglecting conditions.

Braker attended multiple resident-led meetings to explore whether a cooperative might preserve a semblance of the status quo. She left “really confused.”

Converting a manufactured home community into a resident-owned cooperative isn’t easy. 

In this case, Cedar Falls Acres homeowners and those at a neighboring park Hague owns would likely form a limited equity co-op. Residents would pay little up front but would not profit from their ownership over time.

Residents of limited equity co-ops pay a small fee to join, usually between $100 and $1,000, and simply get that fee back if they leave, even if the co-op’s land increases in value.

Cooperatives need large loans to cover the land purchase and any overdue maintenance.

Residents pay monthly fees to pay down park debt over time and cover routine maintenance. When major projects pop up, like fixing septic system issues, residents may vote to increase lot rent or refinance the debt.

What would a co-op mean for Braker’s pocketbook? 

When they first moved in, Braker and her husband paid $60 in monthly rent. That gradually increased to the $360 she pays today, slightly above the rate of inflation since the 1970s. Braker now lives on a fixed income from Social Security and can’t afford to pay much more.

Converting into a cooperative often initially increases monthly fees, said Victoria Clark-West, executive director of CoNorth, a nonprofit focused on developing manufactured home co-ops in Minnesota and Wisconsin. But residents typically see smaller rate increases over time when compared to commercially owned parks.

CoNorth is part of a nationwide network called ROC USA. The organization has reached out to Hague about a resident purchase of his Menomonie parks, Clark-West said.

CoNorth-supported cooperatives see a 2% average annual increase, less than half of the average market increase, according to the organization’s website.

Co-ops allow community residents to control what happens to the equity their land builds over time, Clark-West said.

“Manufactured home communities are uniquely positioned to be really successfully, cooperatively owned,” she said. “You have an existing constituency of folks that already own their home, and they have the land in common.”

But like a business, co-ops can fail. For instance, a ROC USA co-op in Colorado faced foreclosure earlier this year. While residents are not liable when a co-op defaults on a loan, they lose their say in what happens to the land. 

None of the co-ops CoNorth has supported since 2004 have defaulted on their debt, Clark-West said. Only one has voted to dissolve. Typically, co-ops’ loan agreements specify that if a co-op decides to sell its land, the profits go to a nonprofit.

CoNorth has answers to Braker’s questions, but the organization does not start fully engaging residents until a park owner agrees to sell to a co-op. 

Hague said he’s open to selling to any qualified buyer. He’s ready for someone else to take over. The Menomonie resident has enjoyed interacting with residents during his decades running Cedar Falls Acres.

Unlike Wisconsin, Minnesota incentivizes co-op sales

But it’s getting harder for residents to compete with commercial buyers as investors increasingly eye park sales, Clark-West said.

Wisconsin’s relative lack of consumer protections and incentives for co-op sales doesn’t help.

CoNorth assists 13 co-ops in Minnesota but just three in Wisconsin. That’s partly because of the nonprofit’s St. Paul headquarters, but it’s also because Minnesota offers resources to make co-op purchases more viable, Clark-West said.

“There’s definitely more scrapping it in Wisconsin.” 

The Minnesota Legislature in 2023 enacted a 5% tax incentive for park owners who sell to resident-owned co-ops or nonprofits — along with expanded requirements that owners notify residents about potential sales. 

Wisconsin has no such incentive or requirement. Legislation last session would have required such notification and “good faith” negotiation with co-ops, but it failed alongside a proposed grant and loan program to fund park improvements. 

Policies interfering in the sales of communities could have unintended consequences, said Lesli Gooch, the CEO of the Manufactured Housing Institute, national trade group for the manufactured home industry. 

“If this market is stifled, you are going to see more community closures,” Gooch said.

Private owners often increase rents to cover the costs of deferred maintenance. Those increases are necessary to preserve communities that remain more affordable than other forms of housing, she said.

When residents form co-ops, they are taking on the maintenance responsibilities without the property management experience of many for-profit owners, she said. 

Expensive maintenance costs can challenge any owner. That’s why Minnesota’s grant dollars for park infrastructure projects have been transformative for the state’s co-ops, Clark-West said. 

The neighboring state has allocated millions of dollars to help manufactured home park owners make major repairs. That allows co-ops to avoid taking on more debt and bolsters lender confidence, Clark-West said. 

Two decades of community ownership 

Steve Parliament has observed the anxiety a pending manufactured housing park sale can bring — like when he learned 20 years ago that Countryside Park in Cumberland, Wisconsin, was set to close and residents were being evicted. The news sent him door knocking. 

The details are now fuzzy, but he remembers the tears. Residents felt helpless, with many of their homes too old to survive a move. 

Parliament had organized co-ops in Minnesota and San Francisco before starting at West Central Wisconsin Community Action Agency, a quasi-governmental agency created to fight poverty. He told one park resident to invite his neighbors over for coffee and a discussion about trying to buy their community. 

“That was the easiest organizing job I ever did,” Parliament recalled.

Financing the purchase was more difficult. After working with the city to address the park’s sewage issues, Parliament’s employer, WestCap, stepped in to help. The organization lined up loans and grants to purchase the community before the co-op was ready to take ownership.

The cooperative is still running today. 

Replicating the Countryside sale today would be difficult, Parliament said, adding that the rise of private equity has only bolstered the need for co-ops.

That was his motivation to co-found the Wisconsin Manufactured Home Owners Alliance late last year. The nonprofit aims to keep manufactured home communities viable by pushing for stronger legal protections and helping residents organize. 

An antidote to loneliness

Co-ops are not the solution for every community, said Arica Young, director for housing access and affordability at the nonprofit Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, which researches issues related to land use.

“They are a lot of work. There’s a lot of expense entailed,” Young said.

But co-ops may deliver benefits beyond housing stability, Young said, such as a sense of community that can counteract the loneliness epidemic.

Morris Bussewitz jokes that the friendliness of his neighbors at Countryside has become a problem. More than a decade after he and his wife moved in, he can’t finish a lap around his home without getting stopped for a chat, interfering with his exercise. 

He started walking in the cemetery across the street to get his steps in uninterrupted.

“My friends there, they don’t want to stop and talk to me. They let me walk right by,” he said.

Countryside had just become a co-op as Bussewitz and his wife were looking for a permanent place to retire. Community ownership was a draw.

Monthly fees for their lot started around $140 and have since increased to just $230. They are able to keep fees low by volunteering to finish park maintenance, Bussewitz said. 

“It has worked out really good,” he said.

Members attend multiple meetings each year to vote on significant spending items or changes. Residents volunteer as leaders. Bussewitz has spent years on the co-op’s board. Others take turns mowing the grass. One resident makes bird houses that decorate yards throughout the small park.

“People own part of the park,” Bussewitz said, “and they take care of it.”

Residents consider a cooperative future as manufactured housing parks go up for sale is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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No matter what kind of home you live in, challenges will pop up.

If you own your home and a pipe starts leaking, you might call a plumber. If you rent, you call your landlord. But what if you own your home and rent the land underneath it?

Thousands of Wisconsin residents own manufactured homes and pay to anchor their homes in communities, often called mobile home or trailer parks. Owners of manufactured homes are responsible for repairs to their homes but rely on park owners to maintain things like roads, water drainage and sewage. 

And if landlords don’t respond and conditions deteriorate? A patchwork of laws and regulations governing manufactured housing leaves residents unsure of where to turn.

Here’s a list of options:

• Those with issues surrounding park maintenance should file a complaint with the Department of Safety and Professional Services using its online form. DSPS licenses manufactured home communities and determines if complaints warrant inspection and potential discipline. The agency accepts anonymous complaints. Find more information here. In 16 counties, the DSPS has delegated inspection authority to local health departments. Find a list of delegated counties here. 

• If the issue involves eviction, lease agreements or other landlord-tenant issues, contact the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Residents can submit an online complaint here. Complainants can leave identifying information off of the form, but it may limit DATCP’s ability to help address the issue. The agency contacts businesses on behalf of tenants to try to mediate problems, although the agency lacks the power to force mediation. Complaints — resolved or not —  help the agency track potentially unfair business practices. 

• County health officials have jurisdiction over complaints related to health and safety. Find contact information for your local agency here. 

• City, town and village officials can also adopt their own regulations on manufactured housing communities. Consider asking local officials about requirements in your community and who enforces them. 

Need help paying for repairs? 

Tomorrow’s Home Foundation, partially funded by the state, grants low-income manufactured home owners up to $3,000 for repairs or modifications or up to $1,500 to dispose of uninhabitable homes. Learn more about eligibility here, and download an application here. 

Have a question or know of a resource we should add to this list? Contact Addie Costello at acostello@wisconsinwatch.org.

Have an issue with a manufactured housing park? Here’s what to know is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• A year ago more than 80 people were sickened by pizza from Famous Yeti’s Pizza in Stoughton. Officials determined the pizza was contaminated with THC-infused oil. Since then one of them has filed a lawsuit against the pizzeria.

• Wisconsin is one of six states that don’t regulate or have plans to regulate THC, the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana, which is why incidents like Famous Yeti’s haven’t resulted in fines or penalties against the company.

• Efforts to regulate THC have been included in bills seeking to legalize marijuana, but while marijuana remains illegal, legal hemp-derived THC is being used in more and more products without additional consumer protections.

On Oct. 23, 2024, Samuel Hoffland stopped by Famous Yeti’s Pizza in Stoughton on his lunch break. What happened next is detailed in a previously unreported lawsuit he filed in May in Dane County claiming the restaurant was negligent when it contaminated his pizza with THC.

The lawsuit describes how Hoffland endured a multiple-hour ordeal to get home after feeling “abnormal symptoms associated with THC intoxication.” He crashed his car and ended up in the emergency room. His injuries led to lost work time and ongoing medical issues, according to the complaint.

Two tests a day apart confirmed Hoffland was experiencing THC intoxication. Over 80 people experienced similar symptoms, including 27 who went to the emergency room, some of whom reported concerns it was carbon monoxide poisoning, according to responses to Public Health Madison and Dane County’s final report obtained under the open records law.

In the weeks and months after the incident, the contamination created a stir online with a range of reactions. Some blamed Famous Yeti’s and expressed concern while other comments said “even more reason to eat them” and “who is complaining?” But for Hoffland, the experience was no joke, leading him to file a civil lawsuit against Famous Yeti’s and the owner of Turtle Crossing Cannabis, a company that shared kitchen space with the pizzeria.

Public Health Madison and Dane County investigated the incident and determined the food was mistakenly contaminated with THC oil from a bulk container (though the report doesn’t mention Turtle Crossing Cannabis). But the agency determined there was nothing it could do because Delta-9 THC, the chemical derived from hemp and used to make edible THC products, is not regulated in Wisconsin.

In other words, there are no laws or regulations prohibiting the preparation of THC and non-THC products in the same industrial kitchen.

Nearly a year later, that remains the case.

In Wisconsin, regulatory laws surrounding hemp-derived cannabis are lacking, creating gray areas that make it difficult to enforce any standards surrounding the production and distribution of THC-related products. Wisconsin is one of only six states, along with Alabama, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina and West Virginia, that neither ban nor regulate or aren’t attempting to regulate Delta-8 THC.

The lack of regulation has put consumer safety at risk. The Famous Yeti’s Pizza incident is one example, but not the only incident. In June, two children in Milwaukee went to the hospital after their mother mistakenly purchased 600 mg of THC gummies from a convenience store. The shop owner received a warning letter, but didn’t receive a citation because the sale wasn’t illegal.

THC derived from hemp plant

Under the 2018 Farm Bill, the U.S. government authorized commercial hemp production and made it eligible for federal crop insurance. The intended purpose was to provide additional support for people in the agriculture industry.

Hemp under the Farm Bill was defined as cannabis with a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentration of below 0.3% on a dry weight basis. THC is the psychoactive compound present in both hemp-derived and marijuana-derived cannabis. But marijuana-derived cannabis has a higher presence of THC and is federally illegal.

“Cannabis itself is actually the same product, whether it’s hemp-derived or marijuana,” Jason Hunt, CEO and general counsel of DynaVap, said. “Cannabis sativa is actually the product. It’s really the same plant, but it depends on when it’s harvested, as well as the concentration.”

Delta-8 and Delta-9 are similar variations of the same THC compound found in cannabis. Delta-9 is more commonly found in the marijuana plant, while Delta-8 is almost entirely found in hemp and is federally legal.

Delta-8 THC is found in low concentrations, so it is often chemically modified by concentrating Delta-8 from the hemp-derived cannabidiol, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“They take a portion of the plant and they chemically modify it to make sure it’s more intoxicating, so it’s a synthesized cannabis product,” Hunt said.

So, how is hemp regulated?

In 2022, Wisconsin’s regulatory hemp program fully transitioned to the federal level, so now the regulatory authority falls under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Instead, Wisconsin regulates products with hemp derivatives at the state level through the same laws that govern retail food establishments and food processors. Like other products, hemp-derived products are subject to Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection requirements for labeling, weights and measures, consumer safety, misrepresentations, and deceptive advertising.

The state only allows hemp that has been certified by DATCP or another state’s hemp program to be in food products, but food items or ingredients containing hemp manufactured and packaged outside of Wisconsin cannot be sold in Wisconsin. Wisconsin also has “truth in labeling” laws requiring all hemp products to be properly labeled. Knowingly making an inaccurate or misleading claim regarding hemp products is illegal under a state statute. 

Dane County Executive Melissa Agard, a Democrat who served in the Legislature for 12 years and authored bills to legalize recreational and medical marijuana, argues that legalization would lead to regulation.

“If we would pass a bill in regards to legalizing and regulating cannabis in Wisconsin, there would be a lot more consumer protections, whether you’re at a restaurant that might be serving cannabis-infused foods or a bar that’s selling cannabis-infused beverages, or at a corner store where you want to buy some edibles or some bud,” Agard said. “Right now, you’re just kind of taking people’s word for it. There’s no checks and balances, there’s no real accountability.”

Minnesota, where marijuana is now fully legal, also regulates hemp products including requiring all consumers to be at least 21 years of age.

In Michigan, only companies licensed through the Michigan Marijuana Regulatory Agency can sell, distribute and manufacture hemp-derived Delta-8 products, and all customers must be 21.

Wisconsin has no specific age requirements for purchasing and ingesting hemp products. Instead, age requirements are left up to localities. 

Wood County was the first state locality to set an age restriction on purchasing hemp-related products in 2022. Milwaukee County set an age requirement in July after two children were left hospitalized after being sold THC gummies.

In February, Public Health Madison and Dane County expressed support for implementing an age restriction statewide. 

Without a statewide age restriction, many localities have not passed specific requirements, leaving those markets widely unregulated. 

In the Famous Yeti’s incident, eight people under 18 were reportedly intoxicated by cannabis oil, but without regulations, there were no citations. 

“There are no regulation requirements for products derived from the hemp plant,” Public Health Madison and Dane County said in a blog following the incident. “Unlike commercial tobacco, Public Health cannot issue citations for the sale or distribution of hemp-derived products to minors.”

No compensation for THC victims

The Famous Yeti’s Pizza incident shows the consequences of a lack of regulation.

Jason Tarasek, a Minnesota attorney who specializes in cannabis law, explained that people harmed by the contamination would likely need to show monetary consequences to win a lawsuit against the establishment.

“One of those people who were harmed could easily bring a negligence action against that restaurant because it’s a breach of your duty to act as a reasonable restaurant if you’re accidentally slipping THC to people,” Tarasek said.

According to responses to the public health department’s questionnaire accessed via an open records request, respondents did raise concerns about the monetary consequences of the contamination.

“I don’t think I should have to pay for my ambulance ride or my tests that I needed as a result of being drugged,” a female respondent said.

Another female respondent said she was going to have over $1,000 in hospital bills even after her insurance claim.

“The closer you get to pointing at a bill for money, the easier it is to get a judge or jury to award you that,” Tarasek said.

The civil lawsuit against Famous Yeti’s pizza relates to negligence on behalf of the restaurant. 

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Hoffland claims Famous Yeti’s breached its duty by “negligently preparing, handling, and serving food contaminated with THC” resulting in “physical illness, mental distress, and other injuries requiring medical attention and resulting in damages.” The civil lawsuit also claims Famous Yeti’s is strictly liable for Hoffland’s injuries and damages from consuming “THC-laced” food. 

In response to the complaint, Famous Yeti’s said it was not negligent in preparing the food nor at fault for the contamination, but admits the product unintentionally “contained” THC. The restaurant also denied the food was laced, which would imply the food was deliberately infused with THC.

“The contamination of the subject product was the result of an intervening cause not due to any negligence or fault on the part of the defendant,” Famous Yeti’s said in its response.

Currently, the civil lawsuit is still pending. Famous Yeti’s, Hoffland and their attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.

Current status of regulation attempts

Wisconsin’s lack of cannabis regulations continues to leave consumers in the dark when they purchase hemp-derived THC products in Wisconsin.

Gov. Tony Evers has attempted to regulate cannabis in multiple budget cycles, the most recent being the 2025-27 biennium. The marijuana-related provisions would have legalized and set regulatory standards for marijuana. 

Evers’ budget recommendations included a section that would have started a program within DATCP to regulate the cultivation, production and distribution of marijuana requiring all producers and processors to hold a permit from DATCP.

The provision would have also set more stringent requirements, such as requiring all purchasers of THC products be 21 or older and banning production or distribution of cannabis near schools, playgrounds, public parks or child care facilities. If passed, it would have also established a training program under DATCP for proper handling of cannabis. 

But Republicans removed the provision from the budget bill early in the process. 

In 2024, Republicans, who have been otherwise reluctant to support marijuana legalization, introduced a bill to legalize and regulate medical marijuana in Wisconsin, specifically through heavily regulated state dispensaries. The bill was sponsored by 19 Republicans, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, but failed to pass the Legislature. It would not have regulated THC products derived from hemp.

This story was produced in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Investigative Journalism class taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Legal loopholes in Wisconsin cannabis laws leave consumers vulnerable is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for owners of manufactured homes at a time when private equity firms are buying up parks to maximize profits.

• State regulators rarely inspect parks, allow many to go unlicensed and don’t even know which parks are operating.

• A patchwork of laws and regulations governing manufactured housing leaves residents unsure of where to turn when conditions deteriorate.

Priced out of traditional homes during an affordability crisis, many in Wisconsin have found another way to pursue an ownership dream.

Experts estimate that more than 100,000 Wisconsin residents live in manufactured homes, the more accurate name for what many call mobile homes or trailers — structures that make up the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing. Many live in parks where they own their homes but rent the land beneath them. 

But Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for residents at a time when private equity firms are buying up parks to maximize profits, a Wisconsin Watch/WPR investigation found.

Wisconsin law requires operators to keep parks “in a clean, safe, orderly and sanitary condition at all times.” The Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) is supposed to enforce that law and licensing standards. But it rarely inspects parks, allows many to go unlicensed and doesn’t even know which parks are operating.

Separate state and local agencies handle issues related to leasing, water quality, and health and safety at parks. That patchwork leaves residents unsure of where to turn when conditions deteriorate.

“I don’t know what to do or if I have any rights,” a park resident in Wisconsin Rapids wrote to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

“Why is our government not looking into any of this?” a Hudson resident asked DATCP while facing septic tank failures and surging rent.

In Forest Junction: “I picked this location over a decade ago because of its affordability. I have nowhere to go.”

In Amery: “They know we do not have the resources to move the trailer out of the community.”

In Whitewater: “I don’t know who to reach out to. I’m so stuck.”

WPR and Wisconsin Watch spent six months speaking to manufactured home residents statewide. Some described tight-knit, peaceful and affordable communities. But others detailed sewage backups, dramatic rent hikes, hazardous dead trees and foul-smelling water — all while frustrations simmered with unresponsive landlords and regulators.

What many call mobile homes aren’t actually mobile. Moving them can cost more than $10,000, with risks of damaging older structures. That traps residents when park conditions worsen.

Predatory companies know this, said Paul Terranova, Midwest community organizer with the nonprofit MHAction, which advocates for park residents nationwide. 

While tallying every U.S. manufactured home community is difficult, experts estimate Wisconsin has more than 900, with 80 tied to private equity, according to data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit watchdog. 

Wisconsin regulators are paying little attention, industry professionals, advocates and residents say. That’s as neighboring Michigan and Minnesota offer more resources for residents and stronger oversight. 

WPR and Wisconsin Watch also found:

• DSPS produced documentation of just 15 parks inspected between 2022 and February.

• DSPS lacks an accurate count of manufactured homes statewide. The agency previously published comprehensive data on all licensed communities, but it now posts records for only some counties, with many parks lacking identifying information. At least 27 parks filed evictions in the last two years but do not appear in current DSPS data.

• Of the roughly 700 parks DSPS lists in licensing data, roughly 30% have expired licenses. Some park owners say poor communication and a technology overhaul made applying for licenses more difficult.

• A legislative task force as far back as 2002 flagged problems with “a scattered state regulatory approach” to the industry that leaves residents confused about who regulates what. It hasn’t been fixed.

Affordable option has roots in Wisconsin

Cindy Philby, 60, sold her traditional, fixer-upper home after realizing she couldn’t afford needed repairs.

She poured all of her money into a manufactured home she found from an Iowa seller on Craigslist. It cost $4,500 plus $10,000 to deliver it to a rented lot at the Woodland Park community in the town of Fond du Lac.

She slept at a homeless shelter in late 2023 while waiting for the home to arrive.

“My next best thing to keep a roof over my head was a trailer,” Philby said.

She was embracing a housing option pioneered in Wisconsin. 

A Marshfield man’s innovation in the 1950s set the stage for the manufactured homes we see today. Rollohome Corp. founder Elmer Frey’s “mobile homes” — wider than recreational trailers — could be lived in year-round, more affordably than traditional homes.

Manufactured homes can be made quicker, on a larger scale and with less waste than other homes. Today Wisconsin owners of manufactured homes pay a median of $553 per month for housing, compared to $1,118 for all homeowners and $917 for all renters, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Local zoning laws often exclude manufactured homes from residential neighborhoods. Parks allow owners to anchor their homes without requiring expensive modifications. 

Philby, like many community residents, owns her home and pays a monthly fee for the land and additional costs for utilities. Her lot is owned by Florida-based COARE Communities, a subsidiary of the private equity-backed conglomerate COARE Companies, which touts a focus “on establishing platforms across niche investment strategies.” 

Beneath an option to click on an “investor portal,” the COARE Communities website says it is “focused on solving the challenges of affordable housing through the acquisition and preservation of the most affordable type of housing in America – Manufactured Housing Communities.” 

The company hiked Philby’s base rent this year from $425 to $500, six times the rate of inflation. It declined to comment on the record for this story.

Philby has struggled to absorb the hike while relying largely on disability payments to get by. 

“They are squeezing everybody in this park to death,” she said. 

Philby and her neighbors describe a host of additional problems, including poor water drainage and crumbling roads. 

The community turns into a “mud puddle” or “lake” following heavy rains or snowmelts, they say. 

Wisconsin law requires manufactured homes to sit in “a well-drained” and “properly graded” area to prevent flooding. It’s up to DSPS to enforce the law, but the agency could not locate any inspection records for the park. The park does not appear in DSPS’ licensing database, even though the town of Fond du Lac has separately licensed it.

Philby wants more action.

“Do something,” she said. “Make these people do their work.” 

Calling for state regulators to ‘do their damn job’

Following months of door knocking in manufactured housing communities, Steve Carlson has little faith in Wisconsin regulators. He has seen dilapidated, abandoned homes and met residents who fear management will retaliate if they complain.

Carlson, a retired social worker and organizer from Washburn County, co-founded the Wisconsin Manufactured Home Owners Alliance late last year. It aims to keep manufactured home communities viable by pushing for stronger legal protections and helping residents organize. 

Carlson hopes his work will inspire state regulators to “do their damn job.”

They could look to Michigan, which recently created an inspection team focused on improving conditions at manufactured home parks — visiting them each year. 

DSPS inspects parks only when they are built, changed or draw a complaint that officials believe warrants one.

It’s possible parks built decades ago haven’t since been inspected. DSPS lacks records to show otherwise.

More regular inspections would likely require legislative action and more staff, DSPS spokesperson John Beard said in an email.

Local governments can help. 

Wisconsin law allows them to monitor parks and enforce regulations on top of state requirements.

“Some municipalities are very good, they go through the property every year,” said Amy Bliss, executive director of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance, a manufactured housing trade association.

“Others just ignore the fact that they even exist.”

The town of Fond du Lac did not inspect Woodland Park while issuing its permit. It inspects parks only when complaints relate to town ordinances, said town Clerk Patti Supple.

DSPS can separately delegate its authority to local health departments. One municipality and 16 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties regulate parks in that way. DSPS holds them to a higher standard than itself, requiring annual inspections of each park.

“What’s going on in the other 56 counties in Wisconsin? Well, it’s anybody’s guess,” Carlson said. “Maybe there aren’t a lot of problems out there. The point is we don’t know, and somebody should find out.”

He hoped Dunn County would seek delegated authority over its housing parks.

But learning the rules and carrying out inspections would require significant time and resources, Dunn County Health Director KT Gallagher said. 

DSPS would allow the county to keep 63% of community licensing fees, nowhere close to covering extra costs, health department staff said at a meeting in August.

Parks are supposed to pay licensing fees every other year that haven’t increased since at least 2006. The minimum fee of $250 would need to rise to $400 just to account for inflation since that time.

While DSPS can raise some fees, Beard said, spending extra dollars would require legislative action.

Dunn County could also raise fees, but officials worry residents would bear those costs. They also fear a scenario in which an owner closes a park instead of fixing issues flagged by an inspection. 

That happened in Eau Claire, Gallagher said. City and county inspectors closed a park, leaving some residents with nowhere to go.

That’s why DSPS avoids levying financial penalties even when inspectors find major problems. 

“DSPS focus is on gaining compliance,” Beard said. “Forfeitures are a last resort, especially when action could leave residents looking for a new home.”

States like Minnesota help address this dilemma by setting aside licensing fees for grants to defray relocation costs following a closure. Minnesota has also allocated millions of dollars in recent years for manufactured home park owners to make repairs. 

Lawmakers reject help for homeowners

One program helps owners of manufactured homes in Wisconsin. 

A portion of titling fees flows to the Tomorrow’s Home Foundation, which grants owners up to $3,000 for repairs or modifications or up to $1,500 to dispose of uninhabitable homes. The foundation received $120,000 from the state during the last budget cycle and raised additional funds on its own. 

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers this year proposed adding $40,000 to the program over two years. The Republican-led Joint Finance Committee rejected the proposal and a separate provision to add $1.68 million that could help owners repair failing septic systems.

Meanwhile, the state is missing out on uncollected fees from potentially hundreds of parks without active licenses.

Without extra funds, Dunn County declined to pursue state authority over inspections.

“This is a terrible situation without any easy answer,” said Dr. Alexandra Hall, a family physician on the county health committee. “But maybe we wouldn’t have gotten here if the state was actually enforcing its own laws.”

Licensing system causes headaches

DSPS records show Philby’s Woodland Park community had an active license in 2020, but the department lacks updated information. Beard said the agency is reaching out to the park about renewing.

Confusion has swirled around DSPS licensing dating back to 2020, Bliss said. Frustrations escalated last year — the first time park renewals were done using the LicensE, an online system for the 200-plus industries DSPS regulates. 

Among criticisms aired at a February legislative hearing: Park owners weren’t told DSPS would no longer process paper renewals; an online application asked some owners to fill out unnecessary information; and the portal charged just an $8 renewal fee instead of the accurate minimum of $250.

Addressing the rollout across all industries, Deputy Secretary Jennifer Garrett called LicensE “an overwhelming success, vastly expediting document handling and licensing decisions.” 

“We knew that the transition to an all-digital environment would present challenges to parts of this industry,” she testified to lawmakers.

The agency reached out to park representatives ahead of the change, but it lacked some contact information, Garrett added. Communities with expired licenses may have closed, rebranded, changed owners or failed to transition to the online system.

DSPS is working with the Wisconsin Housing Alliance to update missing information on its list of licensed communities, Garrett testified in February. 

Seven months later, the department’s licensing site still does not list each of the group’s members. 

Bliss said DSPS struggles to make time to meet with her alliance, making it feel like the “red-headed stepchild of the regulated community.”

The former Wisconsin Department of Commerce, which regulated manufactured homes until 2011, communicated far better, she added. 

That’s why she pushed DSPS to restart the state’s Manufactured Housing Code Council, an advisory body of representatives from across the industry and the public. 

State law requires the council to meet at least twice a year. It met this summer for the first time in more than a decade. 

To whom should residents complain? 

DSPS received just 18 complaints related to manufactured housing between 2023 and early 2025, only some from park residents. The data understates industry-wide disputes, considering that multiple agencies regulate the parks and residents don’t know where to turn.

In Minnesota, the Office of Attorney General compiled all state laws related to manufactured home parks into an online handbook. Nothing that comprehensive exists in Wisconsin’s sprawling system.

Have a problem with roads? Try DSPS, which regulates community standards and licensing.

Leasing? That’s the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Questions about park well water? The Department of Natural Resources is likely your agency.

County and local health departments generally handle other health and safety concerns.

Philby and other Woodland Park residents sent all of their complaints to DATCP, including ones related to conditions DSPS is supposed to regulate. 

DATCP received more than 100 complaints related to manufactured homes between 2023 and this March. Dozens mentioned issues in DSPS’ domain, like flooding, sewage and roads.

DATCP must identify a pattern of violations before launching an investigation, said Michelle Reinen, an agency administrator. It cannot legally represent individual consumers.

The agency and the Wisconsin Department of Justice in 2023 reached a $75,000 settlement with a Colorado-based park operator doing business in Wisconsin. That was after fielding more than 50 complaints about “unfair and illegal” renting practices.

DATCP and DSPS say they sometimes get information from other agencies. They collaborated on a 2023 investigation — responding to the Boscobel Dial’s reporting — that found violations at Cozy Acres Mobile Home Park in Boscobel.

Lawmaker seeks more clarity 

Rep. Scott Krug, R-Rome, wants to clear up confusion for homeowners and landlords.

His legislation, AB 424, specifies landlord-tenant laws for parks and expands on reasons residents may be evicted. It would also require park owners to issue a 90-day notice before closing. He hopes to hear more ideas from the operators and residents if the bill draws a hearing.

Krug calls manufactured homes “a forgotten segment of real estate” that won’t help solve the affordability crisis without state action.

Lawmakers might look backward for inspiration. 

A 2002 government task force on manufactured housing suggested consolidating oversight of manufactured home communities to address the state’s “disparate and confusing array” of oversight efforts.

‘They can just do whatever they want’

Park residents also battle public perception. 

Members of a North Fond du Lac Facebook group complain about the condition of Woodland Park, calling it a dangerous eyesore. 

Responding to one post, Philby explained people’s struggles to afford rent and urged people to push for local solutions.

“Should just flaten it,” one commenter responded.

Residents have sought state help. Stacey Murillo complained to DATCP in 2024 about issues including roads and garbage. 

DATCP sent her complaint, with her name, to the park’s manager for mediation. Woodland Park management provided the state with evidence that it was addressing some issues.

But Murillo said too little has changed.

Philby complained to DATCP after management gave her a lease that pre-checked a box to opt out of a yearlong contract. Wisconsin law requires landlords to offer 12-month options, more protective against evictions and rent increases.

DATCP reached out to Woodland Park to mediate Philby’s complaint in April but received no response, it told Philby in a letter. 

The agency cannot order businesses to participate in mediation, but it can issue notices of noncompliance, which it did in Philby’s case.

“Since your complaint was not resolved through mediation, you have the option to contact a private attorney to discuss your legal remedies,” the agency’s letter said.

“No one in this park can afford an attorney,” Philby said, still waiting for a longer lease.

“They can just do whatever they want,” she said. “The federal government’s allowing them to do it, the town’s allowing them to do it and the state’s allowing them to do it.”

‘They are squeezing everybody in this park to death’: Owners of manufactured homes get little protection as private equity moves in is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Those who utilize FoodShare and Medicaid may see some changes soon, the result of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” 

Here is what you need to know. 

Changes to FoodShare (SNAP)

Nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites receive food and nutrition assistance through FoodShare. 

Reno Wright, advocacy director for Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee, said that while no changes have been enacted yet, the bill calls for a series of modifications. 

Some include: 

• Expanded work requirements. The age range for adults required to meet work requirements will increase from 18-54 to 18-64. Parents of children age 14 and older will now also need to meet work requirements.
• Restrictions for new legal immigrants: Before the bill, many immigrants like those with refugee status were exempt from the five-year waiting period that some legal permanent residents face to qualify for FoodShare benefits. The new law removes these exemptions, effectively making many new immigrants ineligible for the food assistance program. 
• Stricter exemption rules: Some people like veterans, people who are homeless and former foster youths aged 18-24 are exempt from having to meet work requirements in order to receive SNAP benefits. The bill removes those exemptions. 

These changes will only be implemented once the Wisconsin Department of Health Services receives further guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Wright said current FoodShare recipients should ensure their contact information is up to date to receive future updates.

Changes to medical benefits

Approximately one in five Wisconsinites (or 1 million people) receive health care coverage and services through Wisconsin’s Medicaid programs. Almost half of Wisconsin Medicaid members are children.

The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee Minority released a statement indicating that 276,175 Wisconsinites will lose health care coverage under both the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid because of the new law over the next decade.

In Milwaukee County, 19,951 people are at high risk of losing health coverage. 

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services and a webinar from the National Press Foundation helped explain what’s going to change. 

Some changes include: 

• Expanded work requirements: Recipients will now have to do 80 hours a month of qualifying activities like work, school or volunteering. 
• Restrictions for new legal immigrants: Refugees and other people in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons are generally exempt from the standard five-year waiting period to receive Medicaid benefits. The bill removes that exemption.  
• Recipients have to be requalified for coverage and services every six months. 
• Cost-sharing requirements will expand. 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, these changes will force working people off the program because of red-tape work reporting requirements; increase medical debt and uncompensated care; increase Wisconsin’s uninsured population; and prevent Wisconsin from innovating and designing the best program for the state. 

These changes are set to take effect in late 2026. 

What’s being done to help

Alyssa Blom, a communications manager with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, said that while the full impact of the Medicaid cuts is still unclear, the department is supporting those impacted. 

“We are concerned about how they may affect access to programs and services, especially for the most vulnerable in Milwaukee County,” she said. “Our priority is to continue supporting Medicaid recipients and ensuring continuity of care, while preparing for potential changes ahead.” 

Wright said the Hunger Task Force has an advocacy group called Voices Against Hunger. It is a statewide platform where information is sent out to let people know about things that are going on at the state and federal level, including federal nutrition programs like FoodShare. 

You can sign up for the group here.

What you need to know about changes to FoodShare (SNAP) and Medicaid is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will stop scheduling patients for abortions starting next week as it works to find a way to provide the service in the face of Medicaid funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, the nonprofit said Thursday.

Abortion funding across the U.S. has been under siege, particularly Planned Parenthood affiliates, which are the biggest provider. Wisconsin appears to be the first state where Planned Parenthood is pausing abortions because of the new law.

The organization warned earlier this year that about half its clinics that provide abortion could be closed as a result of a ban on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for services other than abortion.

The measure was part of the tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed in July. Initially, a judge said reimbursements must continue, but a federal appeals court this month said the government could halt the payments while a court challenge to the provision moves ahead.

Planned Parenthood services include cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Federal Medicaid money was already not paying for abortion, but affiliates relied on Medicaid to stay afloat.

The remaining Planned Parenthood clinics in Louisiana – where abortion is banned – are scheduled to shut down at the end of this month.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said in a statement that it is trying to see as many patients as possible between now and Tuesday. The federal law takes effect Wednesday. It is not scheduling patients beyond that date, and the organization believes the move will allow it to continue seeing other Medicaid patients. The organization said it was working with providers across the state to make sure patients are referred quickly and receive timely care.

It is also considering taking legal action, the group said.

“Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will continue to provide the full spectrum of reproductive health care, including abortion, as soon and as we are able to,” Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin President and CEO Tanya Atkinson said in the statement. “In the meantime, we are pursuing every available option through the courts, through operations, and civic engagement.”

The abortion landscape has been shifting frequently since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that allowed states to ban abortion. Currently, 12 states do not allow it at any stage of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four more ban it after about six weeks’ gestation.

The bans have resulted in more women traveling for abortion and an increased reliance on abortion pills. Prescribers in states where they’re allowed have been shipping the pills to places where abortion is banned, a practice that is facing some legal challenges and is expected to attract more.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in July struck down the state’s 1849 near-total ban on abortion, saying it was superseded by newer state laws regulating the procedure. The same day it ruled in that case, the court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin asking it to find the law unconstitutional.

Wisconsin’s abortion ban was in effect until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never officially repealed it, however, and conservatives argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe reactivated it.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin stopped providing abortions after that ruling for 15 months before resuming them as the lawsuit over the state law played out. It has been providing abortions at three clinics in Wisconsin for the past two years.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin serves about 50,000 people across the state. About 60% of them are covered by Medicaid, the organization said.

The federal Hyde Amendment already restricts government funding for most abortions, and less than 5% of the services Planned Parenthood provides are abortions, according to the organization’s 2023 annual report.

Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of services besides abortion. Its most recent annual report shows that contraceptive services and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections make up the vast majority of its medical care. It performs more cancer screening and prevention procedures than abortions, according to the report.

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press reporter Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to pause abortions amid federal Medicaid funding cut is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services is continuing to recommend that anyone over 6 months old get an updated, annual version of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Meanwhile, the state’s DHS has put out a standing order for the vaccine. State officials say that will ensure that most Wisconsinites are able to get the COVID vaccine at pharmacies across Wisconsin without a prescription. 

This year’s Wisconsin DHS guidelines mirror guidance from a broad range of medical experts. And the guidance echoes what state and federal health officials have recommended in recent years.

Wisconsin’s recommendations stand in contrast, however, to recent moves at the federal level.

This year, the federal Food and Drug Administration has approved the new COVID vaccine for Americans ages 65 and older and for people with certain higher risk conditions. At the national level, a panel is set to meet later this week to discuss vaccine recommendations that will be provided to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a vaccine skeptic who has promoted false information about vaccines.

Wisconsin is now one of several states where health officials have moved to take statewide action on vaccines because of worries about how federal actions could impede vaccine access.

“In the past several months, leaders at federal agencies have made policy decisions and issued recommendations that aren’t supported by or directly contradict scientific consensus,” Dr. Ryan Westergaard, a chief medical officer within DHS, said during a news conference.

The latest announcement from Wisconsin’s health department comes a day after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers issued an executive order directing the Wisconsin DHS to put out its own COVID vaccine recommendations.

The order also attempts to ensure that Wisconsinites won’t have to pay out of pocket for COVID vaccines. It says that the state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance shall “direct all health insurers within their regulatory authority to provide coverage for the COVID-19 vaccine without cost-sharing to all their insureds.”

“Vaccines save lives, folks,” Evers said in a statement accompanying his order. “RFK and the Trump Administration are inserting partisan politics into healthcare and the science-based decisions of medical professionals and are putting the health and lives of kids, families, and folks across our state at risk in the process.”

State health officials are recommending that Wisconsinites get their new COVID vaccines to coincide with the fall spike in respiratory diseases. Those shots are recommended even for people who have gotten COVID shots in the past. That’s because the vaccines released in 2025 are designed to hedge against potentially waning immunity and to target newly emerging versions of the virus, Westergaard said.

“The same way that we recommend getting your flu shot booster every year, because the flu that’s going around this year might be slightly different than the flu that was going around last year, we recommend a COVID booster,” he said.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Wisconsin health department continues to urge new COVID-19 vaccine for anyone over 6 months old is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

The U.S. Department of Education has pulled funding for programs in eight states aimed at supporting students who have both hearing and vision loss, a move that could affect some of the country’s most vulnerable students.

The programs are considered vital in those states but represent only a little over $1 million a year in federal money. Nonetheless, they got caught in the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, with an Education Department spokesperson citing concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in acknowledging the decision to withhold the funding.

The funding, which was expected to continue through September 2028, will stop at the end of the month, according to letters from the Education Department to local officials that were obtained by ProPublica. The government gave the programs seven days to ask officials to reconsider the decision.

The programs, part of a national network of organizations for every state, provide training and resources to help families and educators support students who are deaf and blind, a condition known as deafblindness that affects the ability to process both auditory and visual information. Those students often have significant communication challenges and need specialized services and schooling. (Education Week first reported that the department had canceled grants related to special education.)

Nationally, there are about 10,000 children and young adults, from infants to 21-year-olds, who are deafblind and more than 1,000 in the eight affected states, according to the National Center on Deafblindness. The programs targeted by the Education Department are in Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington, as well as in New England, which is served by a consortium for Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont.

“How low can you go?” said Maurice Belote, co-chair of the National DeafBlind Coalition, which advocates for legislation that supports deafblind children and young adults. “How can you do this to children?”

In Oregon, the 2023 grant application for the deafblind program there included a statement about its commitment to address “inequities, racism, bias” and the marginalization of disability groups. It also attached the strategic plan for Portland Public Schools, where the Oregon DeafBlind Project is headquartered, that mentioned the establishment of a Center for Black Student Excellence — which is unrelated to the deafblind project. The Education Department’s letter said that those initiatives were “in conflict with agency policy and priorities.”

The director of the Wisconsin Deafblind Technical Assistance Project received a similar letter from the Education Department that said its work was at odds with the federal government’s new focus on “merit.” The letter noted that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, which oversees the project, had a policy of ensuring that women, minorities and disabled veterans would be included in the hiring process.

The Education Department also was concerned about other words in the application, said Adrian Klenz, who works with deafblind adults in the state. He said he has talked with state officials about the discontinuation of the grant.

“I was told that apparently the administration is going through past grants and two words were flagged: One was transition and one was privilege,” Klenz said. “Transition — transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Privilege came up because a parent wrote a glowing review of staff that said what a privilege it was to work with them.” ProPublica obtained a copy of the grant application and confirmed that those words were included.

In a statement, Education Department Press Secretary Savannah Newhouse told ProPublica that the administration “is no longer allowing taxpayer dollars to go out the door on autopilot — we are evaluating every federal grant to ensure they are in line with the Administration’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education.”

Newhouse said the Education Department renewed more than 500 special education grants that fund services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. She said the agency decided not to renew fewer than 35.

“Many of these use overt race preferences or perpetuate divisive concepts and stereotypes, which no student should be exposed to,” she said, adding that the funds will be put toward other programs.

The department started funding state-level programs to help deafblind students more than 40 years ago in response to the rubella epidemic in the late 1960s. While the population is small, it is among the most complex to serve; educators rely on the deafblindness programs for support and training.

Deafblind programs help educators learn the most effective ways to teach reading and connect families with state and local resources. The programs also tally the number of students across the country who are affected by deafblindness.

Disability advocates, who promote inclusion for people in their communities with disabilities, said they are struggling to reconcile how they can now be under attack for language about inclusion.

What’s more, under Joe Biden, who was president when the grant applications were submitted, language about diversity and inclusion efforts was required. The department at the time noted that “deafBlind children have complex needs and are among the most diverse groups of learners served” using federal special-education funds.

“We were required by the Biden administration to write a statement around equity,” said Lisa McConachie, of the Oregon DeafBlind Project, which serves 114 students in the state.

She said the Trump administration’s view of DEI is different from how inclusion is thought of by disability advocates. “Our passion and our mission is around advocacy for inclusion for kids with disabilities,” she said. “Students in special education are often marginalized in their schools. Students in special education are often excluded.”

Lanya Elsa, who lives in Washington and has two sons served by the state’s deafblind program, said the organization has provided strategies for her son’s educators over the years and has helped her connect with other families. She also is the former director of the Idaho program.

Elsa said that while the funding loss may seem small, “those vulnerable students have nothing else. It is devastating.”

The Education Department notified Wisconsin earlier this month that funding for its deafblind program as well as a separate federal grant to recruit special-education teachers was being discontinued. Officials there plan to appeal, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

About 170 deafblind students in Wisconsin are served by that grant, which funds assistive technology tools, coaching, family support and professional training across the state. And the recruitment of special-education teachers was begun to address a severe shortage.

“Make no mistake, losing these funds will directly impact our ability to serve some of our most vulnerable kids,” Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly said in a written statement. “Losing these dollars at this point in the year will be devastating for the kids who need these supports the most.”

In Oregon, the impact will be felt soon. McConachie said about 20 families had signed up for a parent retreat next month to swap medical equipment, share resources and learn about services to help students when they get older.

“Gathering those families together is a lifeline for them,” she said. “These families are vulnerable and so are the kids.”

Without funding, the weekend will now be canceled. “The impact can’t be undone,” she said. “The disruption will be harmful for many years to come.”

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Programs for students with hearing and vision loss harmed by Trump’s anti-diversity push is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.