On Oct. 27, a Durand police officer responded to a suspicious person call. He made contact with a woman who had committed no crimes but had nowhere to stay on a cold night. 

She told the officer she was from Fargo, North Dakota, and waiting for a ride, but couldn’t explain how she arrived in Durand.

When that ride didn’t show, the officer asked if she had a credit card, which local hotels require homeless individuals to put down when using a motel voucher to stay overnight. She said she didn’t and didn’t know what to do. 

There are no homeless shelters in Durand or Pepin County.

The officer then suggested she go to Sojourner House, a shelter in Eau Claire about 40 minutes away. She agreed to be transported in handcuffs, in accordance with what the officer said was department policy. He called several other shelters in communities outside of Durand, all of which were full for the night. Sojourner House didn’t answer, but he offered the woman a ride there anyway. She asked if the shelter was open.

“It’s hard to say. Once I get you up there, they might not even have a bed for you to go,” the officer told her, according to body cam footage obtained by Wisconsin Watch. “Once you get up there, ask them for resources — see what else is available to you up there.” 

The officer dropped her off and left without contacting the shelter staff or Eau Claire city officials. 

According to Eau Claire County Corporation Counsel Sharon McIlquham and City Attorney Stephen Nick, the shelter was full, and Eau Claire city police later took the woman to a hospital. She then had a run-in with UW-Eau Claire police for indecent exposure. 

“They still found themselves homeless in an unfamiliar community and committed crimes — had to get medical attention,” Nick told Wisconsin Watch, referring to multiple people who have been dropped off in Eau Claire. “So not a good outcome for them or our community.” 

But what started as a conflict between local agencies is now a legal question being posed to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul: Should police departments in Wisconsin be allowed to transport someone experiencing homelessness out of their jurisdiction?

Nick said the problem has persisted for years in Eau Claire and extends far beyond the three examples cited in his January letter to the attorney general, asking his office to weigh in on the legality of these drop-offs.

“This is the first time we’ve received a communication along these lines, certainly since I’ve been attorney general,” Kaul told reporters at WQOW. “But I can say more broadly, some of the issues raised are ones that I think are true around the state.”

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said the drop-offs display a need for more rural resources.

The letter pointed to instances of homeless individuals from neighboring counties being dropped off in Eau Claire by other agencies including the Menomonie Police Department and the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office. McIlquham and Nick called it “a practice driven by a lack of good options,” but said the drop-offs are “unlawful at worst and unprofessional at best.” 

“None of the individuals we referenced actually received care, and that is the most common outcome from these sort of transports,” Nick said. 

Durand Police Chief Stanley Ridgeway said if his department is barred from carrying out these kinds of transports, the city’s human services department would have to pay other agencies or organizations to transport those in need of shelter. He added that rural communities like Durand lack rideshare services, public transportation or homeless shelters. 

“In the end, it will increase our cost,” Ridgeway said. “Our hands will be tied.” 

A statewide problem

The situation is not unique to Eau Claire. Police chiefs in Waukesha, Green Bay and Appleton told Wisconsin Watch they have dealt with a similar problem. 

“For as long as I can remember, we have struggled with people from outside the Fox Valley coming to this area to utilize this invaluable resource,” Appleton Police Chief Polly Olson said. “We know they … may be given rides by other, outside law enforcement, or they find out through word of mouth about the shelters and resources in this area.”

Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told Wisconsin Watch these drop-offs happen occasionally, but he has asked agencies outside the county not to transport people because it strains local resources and makes it difficult for the homeless to return to their city of origin.  

Drop-offs are also prevalent in Waukesha, with unhoused individuals coming from surrounding areas like Delafield, Hartland, Chenequa, Pewaukee and New Berlin. But Chief Daniel Thompson said the issue is complicated because the city is a hub for resources such as hospitals, mental health clinics, trauma centers, charitable organizations and shelters.

He said it makes sense that people experiencing homelessness in smaller, rural jurisdictions would come to Waukesha for services because their own communities often don’t have any.

But it’s a problem when other municipalities drop their homeless off in Waukesha simply because they don’t want to deal with them. This is particularly a problem at Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Thompson said.

In December, Wisconsin Watch reported that the state’s estimated homeless population has been rising since 2021, following national trends. It rose from 4,861 on a single night in 2023 to 5,037 in 2024. In rural Wisconsin, the increase was 9%, according to the annual homeless count. 

Despite accounting for over 60% of the state’s homeless population in 2023, every Wisconsin county besides Milwaukee, Dane and Racine collectively contained just 23% of the state’s long-term housing with on-site supportive services, which experts say is the best way to address chronic homelessness.

‘Only because we have such poor options’

Police departments in Durand and Menomonie quickly responded to the letter sent to the attorney general, emphasizing the transports were voluntary. Police footage from both departments confirms the officers didn’t coerce the individuals, but did suggest the destination. Neither individual knew where Eau Claire was. 

“They’re not looking to come here, they’re being asked if they want to come here,” Nick said. “When that’s being done by a uniformed police officer — that changes the circumstances quite a bit in terms of how voluntary that is.”

In the letter, McIlquham and Nick cited another example in which they say a woman who was a frequent source of contact for St. Croix County sheriff’s officers was dropped off at a gas station in Eau Claire without receiving any services. Eau Claire EMS, the county sheriff’s office and the city police department later responded to multiple complaints regarding the individual, who did not have ties to Eau Claire. 

St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson described the incident to WEAU as a “courtesy ride.” He did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s interview request. 

“I feel bad for Eau Claire that the facilities that we have available to us are in their jurisdiction, so sometimes they have to deal with the aftermath,” said Ridgeway, the Durand police chief. “But it happens a lot. That’s where the services are.”

Ridgeway told Wisconsin Watch the Durand Police Department will continue this practice as long as the attorney general allows it, adding that his department is not responsible for crimes these individuals may commit in Eau Claire. Asked how those individuals get back to where they came from, Ridgeway said that’s “out of our control.”

“These facilities receive funding from the federal government, state government, grants, donations — they’re not just receiving funding from Eau Claire County residents or city of Eau Claire residents,” Ridgeway said. “This is a service for all of western Wisconsin, and we’re going to take advantage of that service whenever we can.” 

He defended the decision to drop a woman off in front of a shelter that was either full or not open.

“You might not tonight have a place, but they can tell you what time they open tomorrow so you can be in line to get services,” Ridgeway said. “We’ll continue to call and try to get a bed verified as being available, but if a person wants to be dropped off there, we’ll do so.”

In a March 11 press release, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of La Crosse said it is facing a potential decision to reduce Sojourner House’s operations from year-round to just six months, citing a loss of funding and a shortage of volunteers.

On one night in January, Dale Karls of the Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council told WEAU, Sojourner House, which has a normal capacity of 53, opened overflow spaces and housed 77 people.

Nick said he doesn’t doubt the officers were trying to help these people, “but the message needs to get out that they weren’t helped.” There’s been a growing need for homeless services since the pandemic as temporary services and funding have been rolled back, he said. 

In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected Evers’ recommendations to spend $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.

The Legislature also nixed $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.

This year, Evers recommended another $24 million for homeless prevention programs in the 2025-27 state budget. Republican lawmakers who control the powerful budget committee vowed to throw out the governor’s budget and start from scratch this spring.

“The issue here is the disinvestment by the state and needed resources regionally,” Nick said. “It’s a law enforcement issue, but only because we have such poor options.” 

A California city has outlawed the practice

In 2024, the city of Santa Cruz, California, outlawed the practice of transporting homeless people into the city without authorization. Mayor Fred Keeley told Wisconsin Watch the local ordinance has pressured surrounding communities to ramp up their own resources for the homeless. 

The drop-off ban was sparked by an incident last summer when Hanford police drove a homeless woman with a disability nearly 200 miles to Santa Cruz — a city similar in size to Eau Claire — and left her outside a local shelter. 

“I know that for decades, other cities in our county bring people and dump them in the city of Santa Cruz,” Keeley said. “Nobody should do this to us because we would never do it to you without a prior conversation.” 

Keeley said these drop-offs almost never solve someone’s housing problem and instead shift the responsibility to another city. Santa Cruz is sympathetic to smaller municipalities with limited resources that are willing to coordinate with the city to arrange a transport, Keeley said, but that person should have some community ties. 

Keeley said the city’s investments in permanent supportive housing and other programs have reduced the city’s street homelessness by more than 50% in the last two years. 

Now, a bill has been introduced in the California Legislature that would ban local law enforcement agencies from transporting homeless individuals to another jurisdiction without first coordinating shelter or long-term housing for them. Keeley said he’s glad the issue is being taken up at the state level.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

‘A practice driven by a lack of good options’: Homeless drop-offs in Eau Claire showcase need for state action 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.

A new homeless shelter in Monroe County recently opened its doors to families to provide food, clothing, life skills and community to those in need. The two-floor location temporarily houses one family on the top floor and provides a resources center on the first floor.

The post New Monroe County homeless shelter expands support to rural Wisconsin families  appeared first on WPR.

On Jan. 22, Wisconsin Watch reporter Hallie Claflin and photojournalist Joe Timmerman joined a group of volunteers in Jefferson County overnight to observe the annual “point in time” count of the homeless population. These counts are conducted on the same night in January across the country to provide a one-night snapshot of homelessness. 

But this count has multiple pitfalls, as noted in our recent investigation. 

What did they find? A pair of dedicated volunteers and a count that, while increasing, still struggles to capture the true homeless population, especially in rural areas.

What made us interested in observing the PIT count?

In December, we traveled four hours to the small town of Shell Lake where a homeless father and daughter who had been living in their car for over a year gave us a glimpse into their everyday lives. After extensively investigating the rural homelessness crisis across the state, we realized this family wouldn’t have shown up in the January PIT count because they were temporarily staying in a friend’s basement.

We wanted to understand who actually gets counted, and who doesn’t. The unhoused population is increasing, but who is missing from the data? 

What we saw

After attending Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State address at the State Capitol in the evening, we hopped in the car and headed to Jefferson County for the late night count. We rode along with the volunteers as they surveyed the county. A fresh layer of snow added even more bite to the single-digit temperature, and we couldn’t stand outside for much longer than a few minutes before retreating to the heated car. 

In Johnson Creek, we found cars lined up in the back of a local restaurant and truck stop. Here, several people were found sleeping in their vehicles, one with a child in the back. The volunteers, Sandy Hahn and Britanie Peaslee, were quick to give them an extra blanket. The woman and child inside had been living in the van for six months, and she was working at the restaurant.     

On the drive, the pair shared stories about past PIT counts they had participated in. We followed along as they drove through parking lots, checked around corners, went into public bathrooms, searched rest stops, and asked gas station workers if they had seen anyone who was unhoused.

Another person sleeping in a car wouldn’t engage with them. Because of this, they couldn’t verbally verify that they were homeless, which means they weren’t included in the official count. The car was running — likely for warmth — and the windows were covered with blankets for privacy. 

We quickly realized many unhoused people aren’t included in the count based on this rule alone, among the many other restrictions on who they can count. 

The volunteers left a blanket on the windshield and continued on, acknowledging that if in their position, they would also be hesitant to talk to two strangers at 2 a.m. in the snow. 

Peaslee and Hahn were thorough in their search and were one of four groups covering the county. 

It was clear the volunteers could search all day and all night and still never find a fraction of the total population, but they do their best with the guidelines they are given.

We parted ways around 4 a.m. — barely staying awake — and made it back to our warm apartments by 4:30.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

We observed the annual homeless count in a rural county. Here’s what we saw. 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.

Just before midnight, with a fresh layer of snow sticking to the ground, volunteers Sandy Hahn and Britanie Peaslee slowly drive through Jefferson County’s local parking lots, gas stations, truck stops, parks, trails and laundromats, keeping their eyes peeled.

They’re grateful for the snowfall, which makes it easier to see footprints, fogged windows and occupied vehicles. They have a long night ahead of them, and being in a rural area makes their job — finding those without shelter — even more challenging. 

“It’s a little bit easier when it is colder because you can see, OK this windshield is frosted from the inside, somebody’s been breathing in there for quite a while,” Peaslee said. 

In Johnson Creek, they find most of the homeless living in cars parked behind the Pine Cone Travel Plaza — a local restaurant, gas station and truck stop. The duo carefully approach each vehicle — one with a sleeping child in the back — with blankets and a four-page questionnaire. 

But that’s assuming the unhoused are willing to engage with the strangers at all, let alone at 3 a.m. while it’s 7 degrees and snowing outside. 

Jan. 22 marked Hahn and Peaslee’s fifth time participating in the annual “point in time” (PIT) count — a one-night snapshot of the number of people experiencing homelessness across the United States, including Wisconsin. The pair were among the eight volunteers conducting the counts in Jefferson County, a number Hahn considered to be low. Being in a small, rural area, they struggle to recruit volunteers. 

This one-night snapshot — first conducted in 2005 — is the only required count of all people experiencing homelessness each year in the United States. The volunteers must follow strict guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Peaslee said locating people is the biggest challenge in rural areas. Many are sleeping in abandoned buildings or other private property they can’t access. The volunteers do their best not to miss anyone, while also keeping their own safety in mind. 

“Depending on how treacherous it is outside, sometimes we’ll go into the woods,” Hahn said.

In addition to gas station parking lots, they’ve seen several third-shift workers parked at local factories who are living in their cars.

Each January count isn’t released until December, even though lawmakers will soon set housing and emergency shelter funding for the next two years in the upcoming state budget.

Last year there was an 18% increase in the homeless count nationwide based on the count taken in January 2024. In rural Wisconsin the increase was 9%. In Jefferson County the volunteers recorded three homeless people a year ago. This year the final tally was 13 — a number that likely still doesn’t come close to capturing the true population.

Why does the PIT count happen during the coldest month of the year? 

HUD determines that the yearly PIT count must be conducted on the same night in January in every state across the country. Each Continuum of Care — regional organizations operating under HUD that carry out the counts — may conduct a July count in addition to the mandated one in January.

“They want us to go out in the middle of the night because they feel that’s when people would be sleeping, and they would be hunkered down in their standard spots,” said Diane Sennholz, who leads the count in Lincoln, Marathon and Wood counties. “If we were to go out during the day, they might be at the library or the grocery store or walking around.” 

Wisconsin’s Balance of State CoC, which covers all 69 counties in Wisconsin besides Milwaukee, Dane and Racine, requires each county in its jurisdiction to carry out a summer count. Others, like Dane County, typically conduct only the required January count. 

Frigid temperatures tend to drive more people into emergency homeless shelters, making the count easier. That model might work in cities, but in rural areas like Jefferson County, there are no homeless shelters.

Out of necessity, those experiencing homelessness in a county with no shelters will do everything they can to stay on a friend’s couch or find somewhere warm, making them harder to find and impossible to include in the count. Those temporarily staying with a friend or family member don’t count.

Jefferson County’s summer PIT count has increased each year since 2021 — a trend that can be seen statewide. In 2022, the county’s January count was zero compared to seven recorded in the summer count.

“We definitely don’t find as many in January as we would in summer,” Hahn said. “People are more willing to open up their barns, their garages, their extra bedroom, especially on weeks like this when it’s negative 40.”

Peaslee and Hahn, who are both involved in the community’s poverty-fighting coalition, know the problem is worse than what the count portrays. 

“We’re not finding an eighth of how many are truly out there,” Peaslee said. 

The PIT count’s pitfalls 

On the night of the count, Hahn and Peaslee headed to a truck stop in Johnson Creek where people are known to sleep in their cars. The vehicles were lined up on the farthest end of the lot. One person refused to roll down the window and speak to them.  

It happens often, but Peaslee and Hahn can’t blame them. After all, it’s the middle of the night, and they are two strangers who come bearing a four-page survey. HUD requires the volunteers to gather as much information about the individual as possible. 

The pair spoke to someone in another car who knew the individual and confirmed they were unhoused, leading Hahn to fill out an observation form. Volunteers have seven days following the count to attempt to make contact with those individuals again to confirm whether they were homeless on the night of the count. Without that confirmation, they can’t be counted. 

The following week, Hahn had no luck tracking down the individual. The person was placed on an observation sheet, but not included in the official count.

Volunteers are not allowed to assume that someone is “literally homeless” in accordance with HUD definitions. But Hahn noted that the car was running in the middle of the night for warmth and there were blankets covering the windows for privacy. Unhoused people who could otherwise be counted are being missed in these instances.

“If somebody has all these personal belongings in their car, you can kind of tell at that point that they’re experiencing homelessness,” said Lyric Glynn, who leads the count in Kewaunee, Door, Manitowoc and Sheboygan counties. “But we can’t count them all the time because they’re sleeping and we haven’t been able to do a survey with them.”

This year, two individuals in Jefferson County ended up on the observation form instead of being recorded in the official count. In July, that number was 10. 

The day after the count, Hahn makes calls to determine how many hotel vouchers were distributed that night. Those who are unhoused and temporarily staying in a hotel are counted in the count, but only if they’ve received a voucher for their stay. HUD specifies that if they’re paying for the room themselves, or if someone else is paying for them, they cannot be included, excluding even more of the population from the count. 

In Jefferson County, Hahn said those motel vouchers are hard to come by due to minimal funding. People in hotels often pay through other means.

“There are so many barriers,” Peaslee said.

Counts tied to community’s level of need

While federal funding for housing and shelter programs isn’t directly tied to the results of the count, it is used in determining a community’s level of need, according to Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The federal McKinney-Vento Act also requires HUD to determine whether a community is reducing homelessness, and the count is one of multiple criteria scored in the evaluation. 

Despite its flaws, Wisconsin’s PIT count shows that statewide homelessness has been increasing. In the “balance” of the state, the mostly rural homeless population increased from 2,938 individuals in 2023 to 3,201 in 2024, the highest number recorded since 2017. 

In 2020, a federal moratorium established a temporary pause on evictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the federal government lifted that measure in August 2021. 

Glynn said she has concerns about lawmakers, agencies and other officials relying on more than year-old PIT count data. 

“When they’re using outdated numbers from years ago, especially early pandemic numbers, they’re not gauging what happened after the pandemic when the eviction moratorium ended and when individuals started getting evicted from units,” Glynn said.

The delayed release of these yearly counts is also a problem when applying for local grants, Glynn said. Application reviewers often look at counts from the previous year. The CoCs have the most recent totals, which sometimes don’t match HUD’s latest figures.

In a state budget year, it would help if officials could have earlier access to the latest counts, Glynn said. 

​​In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Legislature rejected Gov. Tony Evers’ recommendations to spend some $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.

The Legislature also rejected the $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez joined a group of volunteers in western Wisconsin on the night of the count this year, where she expressed concerns about rising housing costs and emergency shelter services. She said Evers’ budget “is going to have those types of investments.” 

Evers is set to announce his 2025-27 state budget proposal on Feb. 18.

Court ruling could affect counts

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that municipalities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping in public places. Oliva predicts this ruling will impact the count results this year. 

“I wonder what will happen in places that have been ticketing and fining people. Those people are going to hide,” Oliva told Wisconsin Watch. “Why would you want to be found, especially if you know that it’s possible that you’ll get ticketed or put in jail for being homeless?” 

Volunteers like Peaslee and Hahn, who work with the homeless population in their community, still see value in conducting the count. For them, it is an opportunity for outreach and allows them to offer resources to those with whom they haven’t previously made contact. They remind people they are more than a number.

“Yes, you need the gritty details to report to HUD, but really making them feel like they are human and that their story matters,” Peaslee said. “And we’re not just putting down a data point to have a data point. We want to know, how can we help you?”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Wisconsin’s ‘point in time’ homeless count: Who gets counted, who doesn’t? 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.

One thing we pride ourselves on at Wisconsin Watch is responding to tips from the public about the real problems affecting people’s lives.

That’s how Hallie Claflin’s story about rural homelessness began.

On Oct. 6, Eric Zieroth emailed us with this message: “Local homeless family unable to even use public showers that are maintained by the city government in a community that there’s no help for them in.”

Hallie and photographer Joe Timmerman made the four-hour trek from Madison to Shell Lake to learn more about Eric’s story. As the editor, one thing I emphasized was that telling the story of Eric and his daughter spending last winter in their car as they struggled with health issues, low-wage work and unaffordable housing was only the beginning of a broader story about rural homelessness.

Less than a week after Hallie was the first to report on Wisconsin’s homeless population rising above 5,000 for the first time since 2017 (despite a decline in Milwaukee), national news outlets first reported on an 18% increase in homelessness nationwide. The affordability crisis is hitting home for many in Wisconsin, and though we’ve made strides to improve housing in Milwaukee, rural areas are suffering. Many of these areas are represented by the Republicans who control the Legislature and are in position to steer resources to their communities.

Throughout the upcoming legislative budget session, Hallie will be covering how issues like rural homelessness are addressed, if at all. We’ll continue to put a human face on the problems facing society and hold politicians accountable for finding solutions.

You can help by sending us tips using this form. Or if you have a question about how state government works (or doesn’t work!), you can send it to us here.

Thanks to the dozens of people who have reached out to us in recent months. We can’t necessarily report on every tip, but we do review each one. We’re working on our system to follow up with people who submit tips we’re not well positioned to investigate — to explain why. To prioritize our resources, we focus on stories most likely to resonate with readers and improve lives. 

We appreciate hearing from people who trust us with their story or ideas, even when they don’t immediately result in coverage. 

After looking into rural homelessness, we saw that it checked multiple boxes for a Wisconsin Watch story.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

How a tip helped us understand rural homelessness in Wisconsin 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.

Last winter, Eric Zieroth dressed in as many layers as he could and stayed beneath a down blanket each night. He learned it was the best way to keep warm while living in his car in far northwestern Wisconsin. 

During those cold months, he and his then-20-year-old daughter Christina Hubbell had to wake, start the vehicle and blast the heat a few times a night before shutting it off again. 

For over a year, the pair regularly parked their PT Cruiser — a car older than Hubbell that Zieroth, 47, called “a shoebox on wheels” — in a corner spot at a public boat landing on Long Lake. The lot is less than a mile from the rural city of Shell Lake, with a population of less than 1,400.

Down a dirt road and tucked into the woods, they slept at the secluded launch to stay out of the way in the town where they spent most of their lives. Now, because they are homeless, they have been ostracized for showering, parking and sleeping in public places.

Washburn County has no homeless shelters, and they don’t have family to stay with. Hubbell’s mom and Zieroth divorced in 2022. The following year, when Hubbell was 19, her mom told her to start paying rent or leave. 

Hubbell’s job at a Dollar General in Shell Lake — their only source of income — keeps them from relocating to a shelter in another county. They are on a waitlist for a low-income housing unit. 

Zieroth is awaiting a surgery that will allow him to get back to work. With no way to heal or keep the wound clean, he said he couldn’t get the operation while living in his car. If it weren’t for his daughter, the former mechanic said he might have considered committing a crime and getting booked into jail instead of spending another winter in the vehicle. 

“There’s no way I could do it again,” Zieroth said. “I had to figure out something else this year.”

In rural Wisconsin, homelessness is often hidden behind a veil of individuals and families who are couch surfing and sleeping in their vehicles instead of sleeping on city streets or camping out in parks. Resources are few and far between, shelters are always full, and funding can be a significant challenge at the local, state and federal level.

After falling for years, the state’s estimated homeless population has been rising since 2021. This past year it rose again from 4,861 in 2023 to 5,037. In the “balance” of the state — all 69 counties outside Milwaukee, Racine and Dane — the homeless population increased from 2,938 individuals in 2023 to 3,201 in 2024, according to data Wisconsin Watch obtained from the region’s continuum of care organization, which conducts homeless counts each year.

Despite accounting for over 60% of the state’s homeless population in 2023, these mostly rural counties collectively contain just 23% of the state’s supportive housing units — long-term housing models with on-site supportive services, which experts say is the best way to address chronic homelessness. But providing long-term housing and services on top of shelter is an expensive, labor-intensive task for small, rural providers with limited funding.

According to the Department of Public Instruction’s latest data, 18,455 students experienced homelessness during the 2022-23 school year — a number that has increased each year since 2020. Some 11,000 of these students reside in districts outside of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Green Bay.

The annual data collected on homelessness are an undercount, especially in rural areas, said Mary Frances Kenion, vice president of training and technical assistance at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. That means less funding for already disadvantaged smaller communities. 

“Where there’s more concentration of people, that’s always going to drive funding, because we have block grant funding that is directly tied to the census,” Kenion told Wisconsin Watch. 

Despite rural communities having fewer nonprofits than urban ones, shelters and housing assistance programs are leading the way to address the expanse of homelessness in rural Wisconsin. 

“Funding and access to resources is a challenge … but there are some really bright spots in rural communities, because they are doing more with less,” Kenion said. “We’re seeing a ton of innovation and resilience just by virtue of them being positioned to do more with less.” 

But shelter directors and anti-poverty advocates face many hurdles when it comes to funding, resources and support.

Rural shelter providers across the state identified several solutions to the problem: Cutting out county governments as the middleman for state reimbursements, increasing the availability of new rental units, consolidating multiple definitions of homelessness, more consistent and proportional state funding, and assistance with case management are just a few.

Point-in-time counts, federal funding and HUD 

The annual “point-in-time” (PIT) homeless counts are collected by continuum of care organizations across the country on a single night during the last week of January. Wisconsin has four designated organizations with three covering Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties and one for the other 69 counties. 

The counts are submitted to Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for consideration and funding determinations. They are meant to include those living in temporary shelters, as well as unsheltered people living on the street, but do not include people in other sheltered situations. Those living in cars are often missed. 

“They’re typically either in their car or they’re on somebody’s couch,” said Jenny Fasula, executive director of Wisconsin’s Foundation for Rural Housing. “People on the couches don’t count in your PIT counts because they’re ‘housed.’ People in cars in rural areas — I don’t even know where you’d find them, except maybe a Walmart parking lot.”

Since 2009, HUD — the main federal agency that handles homelessness — has targeted permanent supportive housing programs with long-term, sustainable services like case management for federal funding. The national shift from temporary housing programs reflects a widely adopted “housing first” approach — that the security of a permanent shelter is the first, necessary step before people can address the root causes of their homelessness. 

“Temporary housing programs shifted their gears towards that other type of service so they could continue to operate and get funding to operate,” Wisconsin Policy Forum researcher Donald Cramer told Wisconsin Watch. 

While permanent housing programs effectively lowered Wisconsin’s homeless population in both rural and urban areas before the pandemic, the shift hasn’t been easy for rural shelters that are strapped for cash and resources.

“As a shelter, when you have 50 people, it’s impossible to have the funding to hire case managers that are really involved and able to really assist people,” said Michael Hall, a former Waupaca County shelter worker and director of Impact Wisconsin — a nonprofit providing housing and recovery services in a six-county rural region. 

“We’re small,” said Adam Schnabel, vice president of a homeless shelter in Taylor County, adding that without more staff, the shelter can’t have someone in charge of post-departure case management to make sure people stay in housing.

“We’re trying to find volunteer case managers,” said Kimberly Fitzgerald, interim director of the Rusk County Lighthouse shelter. “People to volunteer their time, to work for free, to do case management. Good luck with that.” 

Restrictions on federal funding and multiple definitions of homelessness are another barrier for rural homeless providers, said Millie Rounsville, CEO of Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency. 

The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act defines homelessness specifically for youth as minor children who “lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.” But HUD defines homelessness in multiple categories: 1) an individual or family who is immediately homeless and without shelter and 2) those at imminent risk of homelessness. Consolidating these definitions is key, according to Rounsville. 

Homeless children and families in the rural region surrounding Superior tend to be doubled up in some kind of housing, Rounsville said. While they often meet the McKinney-Vento definition of homeless, they are considered category two homeless under HUD’s definitions. 

But in order to qualify for HUD-funded Rapid Rehousing programs, individuals must fall under category one.

“The funding needs to be flexible,” Rounsville said. “We can’t assume that every community across the country has the same need.”

To provide permanent supportive housing and receive funding, shelters and nonprofits also have to serve and document chronically homeless populations. According to HUD, that means a member of the household has to have a documented disability. Providers like Rounsville are additionally required to provide third-party verification that someone has been category one homeless for a year or more.

“If you were in a larger city where you have a lot of shelters or street outreach, that third-party verification would be a lot easier than when you’re in a rural community,” Rounsville said.

It’s a housing issue

Rural Wisconsin is lacking affordable, habitable homes.

“When you layer the limited footprint of service providers in a rural community, packed with a housing supply that is already insufficient and continuing to shrink, that creates a perfect storm for rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness,” Kenion said. 

Providers in Rusk County, Taylor County, Bayfield County and Waupaca County said that without low-income options and available rental units, they often can’t get people into permanent housing.

“As fast as units open up, they get filled,” Fitzgerald said. “In Ladysmith specifically, there are next to no rental units. So even if somebody did get approved for the housing program, where are we going to put them?”

Among affordability and shortage issues, rural areas are also home to the state’s aging housing stock. 

“The housing stock is very old,” Fasula said. “So now you have higher energy bills. And the rent may be lower, but your energy bill is twice as much.” 

Her work at the Foundation for Rural Housing provides one-time emergency rental assistance to prevent evictions and homelessness across the state. 

“People stereotype them to think ‘Oh, we have these programs because people don’t know how to manage their money.’ It’s not that,” Fasula said. “These are folks that come in that just have a crisis. … They don’t have anything to fall back on. Any little hiccup is a big impact for them financially.”

The foundation is partially funded by the state’s critical assistance grant program, which is awarded to just one eligible agency in Wisconsin. Fasula said the foundation still relies on many private funding sources.

While working to eventually afford an apartment in Shell Lake, Hubbell is making $13.50 an hour at the Dollar General, but only scheduled to work 20 hours a week. The living wage calculation for one adult in Washburn County is $19.45 an hour working 40 hours a week, according to the MIT living wage calculator.

“Homelessness is a housing issue. It’s a symptom of an economy and policies that aren’t working,” Kenion said. “Yes, housing costs tend to be lower in rural communities, but so do wages.”

State funding 

In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ recommendations to spend some $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.

The Legislature also nixed $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.

The state funds two main grants for homeless shelters and housing annually. The State Shelter Subsidy Grant (SSSG) receives around $1.6 million per year, and the Housing Assistance Program receives $900,000.

But for small shelters like Taylor House — the only homeless shelter in rural Taylor County — Schnabel says the funding is “pennies.” The facility has a continuous waitlist. 

“We are a lost people up north, here in the rural areas,” Schnabel said. “I feel like there’s so much focus and so many monetary resources provided to Dane and Milwaukee counties.” 

The north central Wisconsin shelter with a 17-person capacity received $10,000 from SSSG this year, Schnabel said. That’s around $588 per person. But four emergency shelters in Milwaukee with a combined capacity of around 392 received $400,000 from the $1.6 million grant total — $1,020 per person.

“It’s not just local individuals we’re serving,” Schnabel said. “We’re serving individuals from Milwaukee County, Dane County, Fox River Valley, Chippewa. They’re coming from all over because those homeless shelters are either at capacity or their waitlist is too long.”

The state’s Recovery Voucher Grant Program awarded $760,000 to grantees in 2024 to provide housing to those experiencing homelessness and struggling with opioid use disorders. Half of these funds went to three providers in Dane, Milwaukee and Waukesha counties. 

Another state resource is the Homeless Case Management Services (HCMS) grant program, which distributes up to 10 $50,000 grants per year to shelters and programs that meet eligibility requirements.

Shelter directors like Fitzgerald said the state’s reliance on grant funding to address homelessness and housing needs isn’t sustainable for small providers. While helpful, these pots of money quickly run out, and many of them don’t cover operating costs or wages. 

“A lot of these funding sources, it’s like a first come first serve basis, so there isn’t money necessarily allocated to cover our expenses,” Fitzgerald said. “When the funding runs out, we’re SOL.” 

The Lighthouse is the only homeless shelter in Rusk County. Many surrounding shelters are also full, and some counties don’t have shelters at all, leaving people with limited options. 

“As fast as we empty out, we fill up. So it’s kind of a revolving door,” Fitzgerald said. “Our first priority is to serve Rusk County residents, but we’re in the business of helping, so I don’t turn people away.” 

Small shelters face county-level hurdles 

Some shelter workers and advocates say in rural Wisconsin, homelessness is addressed only to the extent that their local governments and administrations are willing to acknowledge the issue and get involved.

“A lot of these people go unnoticed, unchecked in the system, and there just aren’t any county services, especially in our community, that are there to help individuals that are struggling,” Hall said. “We, with a lot of duct tape and a shoestring, hold it down.” 

Providers in several rural counties noted that there aren’t any shelters that are owned or operated in any capacity by local governments. In most cases, Washburn County Social Services can only direct homeless residents like Zieroth and Hubbell to the Lakeland Family Resource Center, which provided them with a list of shelters too far out of their reach.

“We don’t have the extra gas or a decent enough vehicle to go too far from Shell Lake,” Zieroth said.

The Ashland Community Shelter is the only shelter in a four-county rural area. The city applied for the federal grant funds that allowed Rounsville’s agency to acquire the shelter, but she noted that if it hadn’t taken that step, there wouldn’t be a shelter in Ashland today. 

“You still need that county government saying, ‘Hey, we have a program, we need funding,’” Cramer said. “If your county is not looking to deal with homelessness, then they’re probably not asking for that funding either.”

Hall and Schnabel said local governments need to be more involved in their work, whether that be providing a county employee to serve as a shelter director, or simply making better use of the few resources they have.

Schnabel added that small shelters often cannot pay their directors a decent wage, resulting in frequent staff turnover. Taylor House has had four directors in the last 18 months, he said. The inconsistency leaves “a bad taste” in the mouth of those reviewing their grant applications.

According to Hall, some counties are much more willing than others to utilize Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) — a state program aimed at addressing substance abuse and mental health needs. The program allows counties to contract employees and case managers at local shelters who provide services such as skills development and peer support. If the notes are done properly, the county can bill those expenses back to the state through BadgerCare. 

But despite those being reimbursable expenses, some county officials either don’t know how or are unwilling to engage in the program, Hall said. 

“The tool is there, it just needs to be utilized,” he said. “Because of their unwillingness to try something, it oftentimes ends up having to tell people ‘no,’ and we’re moving them to another county.”

He added that allowing local shelters that serve those covered under BadgerCare to bill the state directly for these services instead of relying on the county to initiate it “would solve the problem tomorrow.”

Hall also noted that county governments can use their opioid settlement funds to provide housing and shelter to those with eligible needs, yet some have instead spent it on other things. 

Waupaca County, for example, told Wisconsin Watch it has spent nearly $100,000 in opioid settlement funds on awareness campaigns, training, a counselor position and equipment that helps local police quickly identify narcotics in the field.

Grant funding is often allocated to regional “parent” organizations, like a Salvation Army, which then distribute the money to local nonprofits and shelters. But Schnabel said the state must force the hand of counties that “choose not to see homelessness.” 

“By requiring that these funds go through the county to be disbursed to the homeless shelter, it forces the county to have a relationship and have skin in the game with the shelters,” he said. 

Another challenge is that some small communities like Ashland reject homeless shelters, assuming they will bring negative footprints.

“There’s going to be needles, the neighborhood houses are going to be robbed, children are going to be ran over on the highway,” Rounsville said. “There’s all kinds of things that came up when we were doing the change of use for this hotel to become a shelter. It was something that not everybody wanted to see in the community.” 

The small city of Clintonville approved an ordinance last winter enforcing a 60-day limit on local hotel stays in a six-month period, citing drug concerns, disorderly conduct and disturbances. Many homeless individuals in the area are put up in those hotels. 

“We’re trying to figure out, what are we going to do with those 50 people this winter when the police departments come through and say they have to get out,” Hall said. 

Studies estimate that every year, someone experiencing chronic homelessness costs a community $30,000 to $50,000, according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Yet for each person who is homeless, permanent supportive housing costs communities $20,000 per year.

“These are our neighbors in any community, and when they are no longer homeless and they are thriving, they reinvest that into the economy, into the community, into the neighborhood,” Kenion said.

While often doing more with less, local nonprofits are still the ones that are built to do this work, Hall said.

“There is no solution. There is no algorithm to get us to an answer,” Schnabel said. “But what we know is that there needs to be a place that they can go to be safe, and have warm, secure housing until they can get back on their feet.”

Shunned by their community

In June, Zieroth and Hubbell pulled their car into a Shell Lake gas station parking lot to sleep, shortly before a police officer was called and arrived to tell them they were trespassing and had to leave. 

In August, the father and daughter stopped at the Shell Lake ATV Campground to use the public showers, when a campground employee entered and demanded that Zieroth get his daughter and leave. The employee called Shell Lake police, who escorted him off the property. 

A resident living next to the boat launch where they stayed eventually took issue with them parking their car at the public lot. In October, Hubbell said the homeowner stormed into the Dollar General while she was working and told her they couldn’t sleep there anymore, threatening to call the police.

And one night after finding a group fishing at the boat launch, the pair decided to drive to another public landing in Burnett County where they parked and slept. Still under their blankets, they woke the next morning to a DNR officer and county sheriff’s deputy approaching, asking about Zieroth’s “drug of choice.” According to Wisconsin Court System records, Zieroth served time in prison for burglary as a 21-year-old, but has never faced drug-related charges.

They were told to leave. 

“They just did not want us in this area. We’re less than a mile from where we grew up, and from where she went to school and graduated,” Zieroth said, pointing to his daughter. “I’ve made my life here … everything points to ‘get out.’”

While still homeless, the pair were fortunate enough to find a temporary place to stay as the weather gets colder — a small room in the unfinished basement of an acquaintance who didn’t want to see them living out of their car. They are joined by their dog Bella, who Zieroth won’t abandon after she woke him the night his camper caught fire in 2022, allowing him to escape and likely saving his life. 

Zieroth and Hubbell have an old bed, a recliner and a bathroom for now. But their most cherished comfort is that the room is heated — something they don’t take for granted after a winter spent in their car. 

With a roof over their heads, Zieroth hopes to finally get the surgery he needs, but he’s unsure of how long they can stay. 

They insist on paying the homeowners $50 a week — all they can afford — for letting them stay in the basement. Zieroth uses his skills as a mechanic to fix things around the property, and Hubbell picks items up for them at the Dollar General whenever she can.

Once healed, he wants to get back to work and acquire a property of his own, but his first priority is his daughter. After getting on her feet, Hubbell hopes to go to cosmetology school in Rice Lake.

“She has her whole life ahead of her and experience has taught me that some real bad beginnings get really good endings, and she deserves a good one,” Zieroth said.

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Wisconsin’s rural homelessness crisis and the fight to do ‘more with less’ 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.