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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.

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Recent wildfires in Canada and northern Minnesota brought a wave of smoke to Wisconsin in July, raising concerns in Rock County similar to those in 2023, when Beloit was ranked the city with the worst air quality in the nation.
• Rock County faces above average asthma rates, and air pollution from wildfire smoke combined with emissions from existing polluters can worsen these health risks. 
• The county relies on a particulate matter monitor in Rockford, Illinois, to track PM2.5 levels. Local advocates and community members are pushing for a regulatory monitor in Rock County, especially as industrial emissions increase.

Pablo Toral expected another successful summer field program at the Boundary Waters, continuing a tradition that has lasted close to 70 years. Instead, he found himself evacuating by canoe after wildfires forced his team to abandon the trip. 

Students had already started arriving at the research station for the program’s mid-summer session. They were supposed to spend the next month doing hands-on field research, canoeing and camping. Then came the evacuation alert giving everyone 20 minutes to pack up and leave. Toral, the chair of environmental studies and political science at Beloit College, said it was clear conditions were unlikely to improve, leading organizers to cancel the rest of the program.

After driving through the night, Toral returned to Beloit, only to find that the wildfires had followed him in the form of thick smoke and unhealthy air quality. 

Poor air quality is a serious concern for Beloit residents who worry about the emissions from nearby power plants and now wildfire smoke. Just three years ago, under similar wildfire concerns as this summer, the city was named the worst for air pollution in the United States.

Rock County also has above average asthma rates, making the poor air quality even more troubling for residents. 

Cristine Rameker, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ asthma program manager, told Wisconsin Watch that the most recent estimate of asthma-related hospitalizations per 10,000 people in Rock County — between 2022 and 2024 — was 39% higher than the statewide average, with a rate of 3.2 per 10,000 people compared to 2.3.

During those years, asthma-related emergency department visits per capita in the county were 23% higher than the statewide average at 34.2 visits per 10,000 people compared with 27.8 statewide. For children ages zero through 17, the average asthma-related emergency department visit is about 9% higher than the state average. 

The county ranked sixth-highest in the state for asthma hospitalizations and eighth-highest for emergency department visit rates between 2022 and 2024. Rock County is the ninth-largest county in the state in terms of population. 

In 2024 alone, data shows there were 138 asthma-related emergency visits among children in Rock County, or one every two-and-a-half days. 

Beloit School District data shows about 11% of students — 436 children — have asthma. Of those students, 110 have inhalers at school, while 326 do not have ready access to medication. 

Brittany Keyes, clean air policy manager with Healthy Climate Wisconsin and former vice president of the Beloit City Council, recalled a moment last fall when she was riding on a bus in Waunakee with a group of third grade girls from Beloit, including her daughter, after the girls finished their first 5K for a “Girls on the Run” event.

She described how the third graders had been training for months together, and now they were laughing, exhausted and proud of their achievement on the ride home. Until one girl began struggling to breathe. 

Keyes said a teacher was frantically searching through a bag for the girl’s inhaler — pulling one out, and then another. 

“She takes out a bag — nope, it’s not hers. She takes another bag — nope, not hers, not hers, nope, not hers,” Keyes said. “There were six inhalers for a group of 22 girls. … That’s not normal, and it doesn’t have to be that way, right?”

No particulate sensors in Beloit

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a type of pollution that is a combination of solid and liquid particles in the air, is a key concern for residents worried about air quality and asthma rates. 

Nick Mailloux, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, said a major reason why PM2.5 raises so much concern is its extremely small size — about 1/30th of the width of a human hair. 

Particulate pollution comes from a range of different sources, including power plants, vehicle emissions and industrial facilities — which Keyes and Toral both noted can all be found in Beloit. Additionally, Mailloux noted that wildfires are increasingly becoming a source of PM2.5 across the United States.

“A particle of that size is small enough that it bypasses a lot of our natural defenses,” Mailloux said. “These are particles that are small enough where they can pass through your airways and into your lungs, where then they can get into your bloodstream and cause inflammation that leads to lots of different respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological health harms.”

PM2.5 can cause new or worsened heart and lung diseases, along with a list of health effects like coughing, shortness of breath, fatigue, asthma attacks and more. 

While Keyes was still vice president of the Beloit City Council, she had read a 2021 report from Toral that found Rock County’s CO2 emissions increased by 325% between 2010 and 2019. After discovering that the emissions in her county were much higher than in counties like Dane and Winnebago, she contacted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

She learned the agency operated one monitor for ozone on the west side of Beloit, and only for six months out of the year. She said DNR officials recommended community sensors, such as PurpleAir monitors, if she wanted to start monitoring for herself. 

PurpleAir makes sensors that actively monitor PM2.5, temperature, humidity and pressure, collecting air quality data and making it publicly accessible. 

Keyes said different nonprofits across Beloit participated in a community project to install PurpleAir monitors in the city in late 2022, using a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency community sensor loan program. Early data raised concerns, but the DNR told her that only five months of data had been collected, which is far less than the three years needed to establish an annual standard, Keyes said. However, that’s all the EPA could lend them for their study.

The group had secured funding during their time with the EPA’s loan to install three monitors in Rock County, allowing for continuous monitoring with data collected every 10 minutes. Now, Keyes said they have been able to expand their monitoring network to more than 20 PurpleAir monitors in the county.

“Our effort has really built awareness, and even the Rock County Health Department went after a mini grant … and they were awarded it, and they got 10 sensors, and were able to put them up at schools around the county, so now it’s not just urban centers,” Keyes said. “It’s super cool if you look at PurpleAir now, how we have a better distributed geographical monitoring system.”

Then in early 2024, technology company and global leader in air quality monitoring IQAir contacted Healthy Climate Wisconsin with alarming news — Beloit was ranked the most polluted city in the United States in 2023. The company had pulled data from the PurpleAir monitors through 2023 to draw that conclusion. 

What makes Beloit ‘pollution central’

Toral pointed to numerous factors — including an unusual amount of wildfire smoke from Canada that year, regional pollution from nearby cities such as Madison, Chicago and Milwaukee, as well as transportation emissions, nearby power plants and industrial activity — that all make Beloit “pollution central.”

He said bigger cities surrounding Beloit like Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison reported very high rates of pollution that summer exacerbated by the smoke. Toral noted all of those cities closely track their air pollution data. He pointed to the sensors Beloit has compared to other surrounding areas, saying through the sensors, Beloit was able to document where the smoke from the 2023 wildfires converged. 

“Unusually, we got winds coming out of the northeast, and that brought back the smoke from the fires in Quebec,” Toral said. “Those are what led to the perfect storm — very active fire season, dry winter, slow snow precipitation in the winter, low precipitation in the spring, leading up to the fires lasting longer, being more aggressive.”

He said that while Beloit is small, its monitoring is on par with bigger cities like Chicago and Madison. So, while Beloit was ranked as most polluted, he said there’s also a lack of data from other cities in that area of the state and northern Illinois to officially confirm if it’s Beloit specifically. 

“You don’t know how polluted you are until you test, and Beloit is very unusual in the sense that it’s a very small town that actually has very good air pollution sensors,” Toral said.

Keyes said the organizations involved in Healthy Climate Wisconsin’s air monitoring effort recognized the need for more coordinated action, so they formed the Stateline Clean Air Coalition — a group of organizations and community members who meet monthly to advocate for cleaner air and healthier communities. 

She highlighted that for more than two years one of the coalition’s primary concerns had been to install a regulatory PM2.5 monitor in Rock County — specifically in Beloit. While Beloit has an ozone monitor, Keyes said it’s not ideally located and only operates for part of the year. 

“(Ozone) is a harmful air pollutant, but not the most toxic. And what we’re really concerned about is particulate matter,” Keyes said.

Community members, health care professionals and advocacy groups also have shared their concerns with the DNR, urging a regulatory PM2.5 monitor in the area. Some argued that Beloit may have some of the highest PM2.5 in the state, with some estimates from advocacy groups and community sensors exceeding standards.

The DNR relies on data from a regulatory monitor in Rockford, Illinois, rather than direct measurements from Beloit. An agency spokesperson emphasized that Wisconsin meets the current PM2.5 standard of 9.0 micrograms per cubic meter, based on 2022-24 regulatory monitor data. 

The DNR spokesperson cited the EPA, saying the three-year PM2.5 design value for Rockford from 2022 to 2024 was 8.3 micrograms per cubic meter, with an annual mean of 7.3 in 2024 — below the requirement for a regulatory-grade PM2.5 sensor.

Craig Czarnecki, the outreach coordinator of air management at the DNR, emphasized that regulatory monitors are used for official decision-making and produce the most reliable data, while community sensors like the PurpleAir monitors are better suited for general awareness.

“Data produced using low-cost sensors do not undergo the same rigorous quality assurance and are known to be biased high when compared with data produced by regulatory monitors. These limitations make low-cost sensors best suited for qualitative purposes such as making decisions on daily activities considering the current air quality,” Czarnecki said.

Despite ongoing requests from residents and advocates to install a regulatory-grade PM2.5 monitor in Beloit, particularly near known pollution sources and in heavily affected neighborhoods, the DNR has not committed to expanding its monitoring. The agency stated that the existing network meets federal requirements. 

Czarnecki also noted the department lacks funding to expand monitoring beyond federally mandated levels.

Residents also raised concerns about the estimated 2.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted in Rock County in 2022, with about 2.1 million coming from power plants. The DNR spokesperson noted that CO2 is not regulated in the same way as pollutants such as ozone or particulate matter. 

Keyes said concern over emissions increased as Beloit’s energy infrastructure began to expand. She pointed to Alliant Energy’s Riverside Energy Center and the additions of the West Riverside Energy Center, a 730 MW natural gas plant. 

Toral said emissions data showed the Riverside Energy Center produced about 2.8 million tons of CO2 emissions the last year it was required to report in 2023, surpassing plants in higher-populated areas, which Toral said shows a “disproportionate concentration of pollutants in one single point.” 

Although multiple coal plants used to be in the Rock County area, and burning coal was worse, Keyes noted that natural gas, primarily the burning of methane gas, is still very harmful for the environment and the health of communities. 

“The fossil fuel industry has marketed very hard to make us feel like natural gas isn’t harmful. But it is. It is still a fossil fuel,” she said. 

Alliant Energy has since proposed and been approved to build a liquified natural gas storage and processing facility in Rock County to meet growing demand. Taylor Adams, the senior communications specialist for Alliant Energy, said in a statement that the location was chosen for its proximity to infrastructure and customers and that the project will comply with environmental regulation. 

“Rock County serves our largest concentration of natural gas customers in Wisconsin and is located near established pipeline corridors, making it a logical location for this type of infrastructure,” Adams said. “The proposed facility would incorporate multiple design features intended to control and minimize emissions.”

Adams said air quality impacts are currently under review by the DNR and will be available for public comment. 

Who’s affected

Toral called the situation in Beloit, a low-income community of immigrants and people of color,  “a case of environmental injustice.”

Toral noted the effects of pollution often fall most heavily on vulnerable populations, including children, older adults and people with preexisting conditions. He added that noise pollution can worsen health outcomes by increasing stress, disrupting sleep and weakening the immune system. 

“If you basically are living close to traffic, a power plant, a factory, anything that generates noise — that really exacerbates people’s conditions,” Toral said. “That makes the body more vulnerable to then have to cope with the pollutants.”

Keyes highlighted that Beloit previously had lower emissions than Dane County, but as Madison was able to retire some of its natural gas and coal plants, the regional demand for electricity resulted in power plants — and emissions — expanding in Rock County. 

Keyes’ daughter was one of 15 youth plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit against the Public Service Commission and state Legislature last summer over laws that prohibit the PSC from considering air pollution when reviewing permits for new power plants, along with a failure to protect the youth from climate change.

“Dane County has made progress, but the celebration of progress is really greenwashing the fact that we are suffering,” Keyes said.

New record, new norm

Air quality records were broken across Wisconsin July 16 as wildfire smoke from northern Minnesota and Canada was carried into the Great Lakes region by winds. Much of the state experienced hazardous air conditions, with Air Quality Index levels reaching their highest points in at least 16 years. 

The smoke brought back memories of the 2023 wildfire season, when similar conditions covered much of the Midwest. 

Toral said this year’s fires are following a similar pattern to 2023. He said because the Great Lakes form a basin, smoke tends to converge there, making Wisconsin “ground zero” for this contamination. He added that the current fire season is already very active, and while the fires were more severe three years ago, this year’s fires are closer to Wisconsin. However, he said it’s still too early to know whether this year’s fire season is going to be worse than 2023. 

“We thought that the fire season we saw two years ago was one of a kind — was very unusual — and here it is again, two years later,” Toral said. “This is a very unusual pattern.”

Wildfire smoke raises air pollution concerns in Rock County, where asthma rates are among the highest 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.

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Most of the 29 people killed in ATV/UTV crashes so far this year had never completed an off-highway vehicle safety course, according to the latest data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

And DNR officials say that 15 of those who died were over the age of 60 — meaning they were among those who are not required to take safety courses under state law.

DNR data shows most of the people killed in off-highway vehicle incidents were not wearing seat belts or helmets, and frequently alcohol was a factor in the crashes. Those are all aspects the state’s safety courses try to explain to riders.

Jacob Holsclaw, the DNR’s off-highway vehicle administrator, said that’s a notable trend and one the state is starting to look at.

“Many of the crashes could be prevented simply by adopting a safety code of conduct,” Holsclaw said. The DNR offers tips and class information on its ATV/UTV page. 

The DNR recommends all operators to take a safety class, no matter their age.

The data for 2026 shows most people killed in ATV/UTV incidents were born before Jan. 1, 1988.

“What we’re seeing is a majority of the folks involved in these fatal or serious injury crashes were born before that date,” Holsclaw said. “So the class would have been optional.”

Under the law, riders over 38 are not required to take courses.

Only five people killed in OHV incidents were younger than 38, according to state data.

Three UTV/ATV operators were confirmed by state officials to be safety-certified at the time of the crash, according to DNR’s data for 2026. 

There are still five cases with unclear safety certification, but the DNR said their status is pending at this time.

Randy Harden, the president of the Wisconsin ATV/UTV Association, said his group has been working with the DNR to improve safety in the state’s riding population.

He says it’s often difficult to get older Wisconsinites to take protective gear seriously.

“That’s our challenge,” he said. “How do we keep communicating effectively to get the message over?”

Only three women died in UTV/ATV incidents this year. Two were over 65; the youngest was 40. All three women died on public roadways in Wisconsin.

Most of the fatalities were men, with a total of 25. The oldest was 83. One child died at 10 years old. 

And while 29 deaths this year were directly tied to crashes that happened this year, DNR officials said an additional OHV-connected fatality occured when a person died this year from injuries in a crash that occurred years ago, Holsclaw said. The medical examiner listed that death as a result of an ATV crash.

The top three kinds of fatal crashes were: rollovers, with 15 crashes; motor vehicle collisions with six; and people being ejected from the vehicle in four crashes, according to DNR data.

Harden says many riders mislead themselves into thinking they’re safe enough to ride in a machine without a helmet.

In reality, Harden says the vehicle doesn’t have air bags and riders have a real risk of being thrown out of the vehicle in a crash. 

“Even if you have your seat belt on, then your noggin is taking a beating in that roll cage,” he said. 

It’s not clear how many fatalities reflected in 2026 crash report data had alcohol in their system — but Holsclaw said it’s common in many OHV crashes.

As of Aug. 14, the DNR webpage for crash reports shows, out of 29 fatalities, 21 incidents where the BAC level is listed as “Pending.”

“It can take months for us to get alcohol or drug results back, and so that’s why we leave those open until we get that confirmation,” he said. 

But, Holsclaw said in a typical year, the department finds alcohol is a factor in between 40% and 50% of fatal crashes.

“That’s a pretty big percentage,” he said.

Five fatal crashes were confirmed to have involved alcohol, according to the DNR data. 

For comparison, Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources says that state has had only seven fatal crashes so far this year. In 2025, MDNR recorded 22.

This story was originally published by WPR.

More than half of people killed this year in Wisconsin off-road vehicle crashes were over 60 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 measles outbreak in the southwestern corner of Wisconsin continues to grow.

As of Friday, the state Department of Health Services has identified 41 confirmed and 7 probable cases across Iowa, Lafayette and Grant counties.

All but one of the people infected with measles in Wisconsin this year have been unvaccinated, according to state data. Just over half of the cases have been in children and teens, while 44% are in adults.

State and local health officials are working to stop the highly-contagious virus from spreading further. But that work is being made more complicated by low vaccination rates in some communities.

DHS spokesperson Jennifer Miller said in an email that while the situation remains fluid, “we are seeing confirmed cases in pockets of our communities where individuals are under-vaccinated or unvaccinated.”  

“Whenever there are pockets of lower immunization coverage — whether due to geographic location, health care access, or personal reasons — highly contagious viruses can spread quickly,” Miller wrote.

Like the rest of the U.S., childhood vaccination rates have fallen in Wisconsin as parents’ uncertainty, and in some cases skepticism, around vaccines has spread in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But state data shows some of the southwestern communities have had declining uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine series well before pandemic. 

Only 60% of two-year-olds in Lafayette County had received one or more of the shots in 2025. Grant County’s rate was just under 64%.

Iowa County, where the majority of the recent measles cases have been located, had a rate similar to the statewide average at nearly 81%. But it’s still well below the threshold needed to prevent an outbreak at 95%.

Plain community may be affected

One community in the region that may be affected by lower vaccination rates are the Amish and Mennonite faith groups. The Christian communities are collectively known as Plain people because of their selective use of modern technology and conservative style of clothes.

Wisconsin has the fourth-largest Amish population of any state in the country, with an estimated 27, 535 Amish people living in the state as of 2025. The population data from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania shows more than 3,000 Amish live across Grant, Lafayette and Iowa counties.

Mark Louden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of Germanic linguistics, is an interpreter and cultural liaison for the state’s Plain communities. He said the Plain people in Grant and Lafayette Counties have strong family ties to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. 

“There’s a lot of back and forth, just like people traveling back and forth, visiting and so forth, especially this time of year,” he said.

Lancaster County is home to the largest Amish settlement in the U.S. and is at the center of a major outbreak of measles that has sickened more than 300 people in Pennsylvania.

Louden said that while Amish and Mennonites have community standards for technology, health care choices are left up to individuals and their families.

“Even the most conservative or traditional groups out there do access Western healthcare,” Louden said. “While there may be some families that have their kids not vaccinated at all, that’s pretty exceptional.”

Louden characterized Plain communities as “vaccine cautious.” He said they’re more likely to choose which shots they want their children to get instead of just following a recommended vaccination schedule.

But he said their caution or even distrust of vaccines doesn’t just come from their cultural beliefs.

“(It) has been amplified by what they hear from their non-Plain neighbors, who are going down internet rabbit holes and watching certain networks,” Louden said.

Jack Sauer, chair of the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors, said like many places in the U.S., his county used to have higher rates of vaccination. But he questioned how much national rhetoric that questions childhood vaccinations, including from leaders of President Donald Trump’s administration, have had an impact.

“If you listen to anyone on the federal level, there’s a lot of going back and forth on whether the immunizations are good for you or bad for your or whatever they are,” Sauer said. “But I know when I was growing up, which was a long time ago, they were pretty well acceptable.”

Given the rapid spread of cases in neighboring Iowa County, he expects to see more cases in his county before the outbreak is over.

Iowa County Health Officer Debbie Siegenthaler said in an email that her department is working to identify cases and potential exposures and make sure people have access to testing and vaccination.

She strongly encouraged residents to check their vaccination status through the Wisconsin Immunization Registry or through their healthcare provider, especially as children head back to school.

“With increasing number of cases, we want residents to be aware of measles even if they have not been notified of a direct exposure,” Siegenthaler said in the email.

The county is holding a community vaccination clinic at the Mineral Point Rescue Squad office on Monday, Aug. 24 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Low vaccination rates drive southwest Wisconsin measles outbreak 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: 7 minutes

This story is part of a collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Door County Knock, exploring the factors that make pet ownership in Door County a pricey challenge. Read Wisconsin Watch’s story here. 

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Pet owners told Door County Knock about how they struggled to find rental properties that accept their furry friends. 
• Places that do often charge additional deposits tack on monthly charges per pet ranging from $25 to $75 or more and implement weight and breed restrictions. 
• Officials with the Wisconsin Humane Society say 24% of people who surrender a pet statewide cite housing as the reason. 
• Experts say dogs in particular can increase insurance costs, as dog bites are the number one claim under homeowner’s insurance nationwide. 
• Landlords say the extra deposit and fees help cover damage and labor costs for picking up after pets when owners fail to do so.

Owning a pet and finding rental housing can be difficult, especially in a tight rental market like Door County. As of May 2025, Sturgeon Bay’s vacancy rate — the percentage of total housing available – was less than 1%, and local housing experts say the rest of the county is similar. 

Add pet policies and extra fees, and finding affordable rental housing when you have pets is an even bigger challenge. 

Laurel Grey moved to Door County with two dogs and two cats. She had to stay in a motel while she was looking for housing, before selling her home in Onalaska. Grey said she called every place she could find and eventually got into a property in Sturgeon Bay. 

The apartment’s pet policy included an extra deposit and a $50 per animal per month fee — an extra $200 a month. Three of her pets died before apartment management changed the policy to prohibit pets, except for service animals or emotional support animals (ESAs). 

Though Grey’s remaining dog was grandfathered in and allowed to stay, she said, the monthly fee was raised to $75 per animal per month. The issue of pets and housing is one of economic inequality, she said. 

Anybody who can’t afford to own a home or chooses to rent is either not allowed to have a pet or has to pay significantly more in housing costs, according to Grey. 

“Do you realize how classist that is?… I used to be judgy of surrendering pets, but there may truly be no other option for some people,” she said.

Shelters feel the fallout

Housing insecurity and a lack of affordable pet-friendly housing are among the biggest reasons animals are surrendered to the Wisconsin Humane Society, according to Corey Viars, the organization’s media specialist for its Green Bay and Door County campuses. 

When people surrender pets to the Humane Society, they fill out an intake form that includes the reason they are doing so, Viars said, and “housing” is cited by 24% of people across the state. Of that number, almost half are related to moving, and a third are related to landlords not permitting an animal. 

“One of the most common reasons for surrender is moving and simply not being able to find pet-friendly housing,” Viars said. Pet deposits and pet rent increases add additional barriers to pet ownership, he added. 

The Door County Humane Society does not have as many animals as some of the other campuses, according to Viars, because it is one of the smallest campuses in the state. However, seven animals were adopted from Door County during the first week of August, he said. 

Strong emotions are almost always involved when people are giving up a member of their households. 

“Our intake desk is an emotional place, and those surrendering due to financial or housing reasons are no exception,” Viars said. People are “heartbroken” when they have to surrender a beloved pet because they have nowhere to go with them, he added.  

More than just a pet

Pets are more often than not a member of the family, according to Door County veterinarian Dr. Sherry Billett. 

In her practice at Peninsula Veterinary Hospital, Billett said she has seen firsthand the “substantial and oftentimes quite devastating” emotional impact of having to give up a beloved pet, but it is not a very common occurrence among her patients.

Most of the pet owners she encounters refuse to give up a pet and continue to search for housing, she said, even if it means moving out of Door County. 

“This is not hard to understand since, in the vast majority of cases, pets are members of the family, so it makes sense that the same loving dedication be extended to them as well as human family members,” Billett said in an email. 

She is aware of cases where a pet owner has to move to an assisted living or similar facility that will not allow pets, and others where individuals and families have difficulty finding any housing that will allow pets even with a deposit.  

Billett also sees the numerous benefits of caring for pets that extend beyond emotional well-being, she said. 

“Pets provide many people with the type of loving daily caretaking interactions that help prevent loneliness, that promote responsibility, that provide a reason to care for their own personal health in order to be able to take care of their pets, and that facilitate meeting other people when out on a walk or at a park,” she said. 

Officials say this is particularly important in a community with one of the largest aging populations in the state and which has identified loneliness and isolation as one of the top community health concerns. 

Aging and Disability Resource Director Jennifer Fitzgerald said she has also seen firsthand how pets help alleviate isolation and improve quality of life for both pets and the ADRC’s consumers. This becomes especially important when older adults lose a spouse, she added. 

ADRC clients encounter housing challenges involving pets, according to Fitzgerald, but the agency does not get directly involved. Rather, it provides people with a housing list as a resource, she said.

The risks landlords weigh

The Door County Economic Development Corporation keeps an inventory of available rental properties in the county, although it is not exhaustive, according to Executive Director Michelle Lawrie. However, the inventory can provide a snapshot of what pet owners encounter when looking for a place to live. 

The list contains 42 properties, and 21 of them explicitly identify themselves as pet-friendly. The rest do not specify whether they allow pets. 

Rebecca Willoughby is the property manager for SCS Sturgeon Bay Estates, a market rate housing development. All of the properties owned by SCS are pet-friendly, she said, but they have restrictions against certain breeds. 

A $250 deposit is required for pets, as well as a $50 per pet per month fee, Willoughby said. ESA and service animal owners are not charged additional fees or deposits. 

The deposit and fees are to offset the costs of pet damage, she said, such as cats or dogs urinating or defecating indoors, or scratching things. Cat urine can be especially difficult to remove, she said. Renters sometimes do not pick up after their pets outdoors, which leads to more labor for maintenance services, Willoughby added. 

The tight rental market in Door County does not factor into the policy, she said, and renter eligibility hinges on things like income qualifications and other leasing criteria. 

Dog-related liability is a real insurance concern as well, according to Andrew Franken, president of the Wisconsin Insurance Alliance. 

Insurance costs for property owners can be impacted by the presence of a dog, Franken said, and all companies handle the issue differently.

Nationally, dog bites are the number one claim under homeowner’s insurance. In Door County, there were approximately 63 dog bites reported to the Door County Department of Health and Human Services in 2025, according to data provided by county staff. 

When a dog bites someone a second time in Wisconsin, there is an automatic “double damage” law. It means the dog owner can be liable for twice the amount of damages if the owner knew about the first bite. 

Breed restrictions

Pet-friendly rental housing often specifies what types of dogs can live at a property. 

Larger dogs are disproportionately affected by restrictions, Viars said. Fifty-pound weight limits are common, and some insurers and rental companies do not allow specific breeds. Pit bull terriers, Doberman pinschers and Rottweilers are often the focus of these types of restrictions, according to rental industry sources. 

The Humane Society has stopped labeling dogs by breed, according to Viars, because breed identification can be inaccurate. 

“When we used to assign a breed, it was often a guess proven wrong by DNA tests,” Viars said. “We focus on the personality and attributes of each individual dog during adoption counseling.” 

Knock contacted Door County rental properties represented in DCEDC’s inventory to find out more pet policy details, and they ran a gamut of restrictions, with several mentioning breed and weight limits. 

What does ‘pet-friendly’ mean?

Among Door County property listings, the following pet policies were indicated: 

• no additional pet fee
• $25 per month per pet
• $45 per month per pet
• $50 per month per pet
• $75 per month per pet
• $250 deposit per pet
• half-month’s rent
• breed/weight restrictions

A renter with two dogs might be looking at an extra $100 per month in pet rent. That’s $1,200 a year before any deposit. Landlords say the fees correlate directly to expected costs brought on by animals. 

Balancing pets, people and housing 

The Humane Society said more pet-friendly affordable housing would result in fewer surrenders. The problem is not only a Door County one, according to Viars, but state and nationwide. 

Many of the people in Grey’s apartment complex are older adults — she herself is 69 — and she knows at least a dozen residents who would take a cat. One of her neighbors, who just turned 80, moved into the complex after a divorce, she said. She used to own cats and she adores them, Grey said. 

“It’s just sad. She’s someone who is lonely, who would benefit from having pets,” she said.

Emily Small is a reporter for Door County Knock and a Report for America corps member. Contact her at esmall@doorcountyknock.org.

Pets can make finding a home harder in Door County’s housing market 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: 7 minutes

This story is part of a collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Door County Knock, exploring the factors that make pet ownership in Door County a pricey challenge. Read Knock’s story here. 

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Rural residents, like those in Door County, bear the brunt of the veterinarian shortage, which leaves local clinics overbooked and unable to offer emergency services. 
• The nearest emergency veterinarian is in Appleton, though one will soon open in Bellevue. 
• The demand has placed increasing pressure on veterinary professionals, with burnout a common problem and high suicide rates among veterinarians. 
• UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine is the only training program for vets in the state. It only accepts 100 students annually due to a lack of physical space. 
• UW officials hope to renovate the vet school’s facilities to expand the class size.

Right after Wisconsin’s historic snowstorm in March, Jessica Chase’s dog started seizing on the floor of her Sturgeon Bay home. In five-minute intervals, the episodes grabbed control of Capri, a shepherd, husky and Rottweiler mix.

Panicked, Chase called the nearest emergency veterinary hospital: BluePearl in Appleton. The 24-hour vet is roughly a 90-minute drive for Chase on a good day — and likely much more that day, given more than 2 feet of snow blanketing the streets. 

Chase couldn’t fathom driving that far while her dog lay seizing in the back seat. She also didn’t know if she’d survive that long. Then, staff warned she could be waiting several more hours upon arrival, as the hospital was at full capacity. 

Less than 12 hours after her first seizure, Capri died on the kitchen floor. 

“It was the most mortifying experience ever,” Chase said. “It’s basically like my baby.”

For Door County pet owners like Chase, options are slim when crisis hits. The nearest emergency veterinarian is between one and three hours away, depending on how far north on the peninsula they reside. 

The dearth of options means residents must forgo care or make nail-biting drives with sick pets. Sometimes they arrive too late. 

Thanks to veterinarian shortages and Wisconsin’s limited capacity for training new vets, the problem is getting worse. And it’s not just an issue in emergencies: Many rural pet owners must also look far or wait long for routine vet care. 

There’s no easy solution. Existing Door County vet clinics are too overwhelmed to offer emergency services, and there are likely not enough doctors or patients to justify opening an ER facility. 

“I feel like if we had a clinic near us, even a half-hour away, it would have been much more reasonable to have someone look at her, than just having to sit there with our dog dying and there’s nothing we can do,” Chase said. “There was nobody to really call and talk to. Nobody walked us through it. No one gave us advice.”

Overwhelming demand

Peninsula Veterinary Hospital in Sturgeon Bay receives at least five calls a day from people who need emergency care. Staff work patients into the schedule if they can. But often, they’re not equipped to treat the issues, lacking the proper tools or staff.

“It’s like going to your family doctor with a broken leg,” said Amy Hults, a certified veterinary technician at the clinic. 

It was easier for residents to get by when BluePearl operated a facility in Green Bay, about 35 miles closer than Appleton. But the facility closed in early 2025. The company never offered a reason why. 

Nowadays, residents regularly complain about the issue to one another and on social media. The discourse gets louder in the summer months, when an influx of vacationers arrive, many unaware of the limited care options.

The chorus of complaints just may not be large enough. Research has shown that it takes a population of 100,000 people to have enough clients to sustain a round-the-clock facility, Door County vet Dr. Sherry Billett said. Door County is home to 30,000 year-round residents and welcomes more than 2.5 million visitors annually.

Other barriers stand in the way: Specialized equipment is pricey. The facility would need enough doctors and support staff to cover the clock — a notoriously difficult thing to find. 

Peninsula Veterinary Hospital has been trying to find a new vet for “a long time,” to no avail, Hults said. With high housing costs serving as a barrier — the average home value is nearly $440,000 according to Zillow — it’s challenging to get new hires to move to the county.

“Because of the overwhelming demand, we need to schedule appointments several weeks in advance, and sometimes even months in advance,” Billett said. “We hear from callers on a regular basis that other clinics are not taking any new patients, which adds to our case load.” 

They’ve gotten creative to fit in more patients, including overlapping bookings and having owners drop their pets off for the day, so they can work them in between appointments.

Burnout is a constant battle, Billett said. It’s stressful to juggle treating different species daily and handle the emotions of animals’ caretakers, she said. Suicide rates among veterinarians are high.

“That said, it is also an incredibly emotionally and psychologically rewarding profession for the right people,” Billett said.

Where are the vets?

So where are the right people?

There’s only one training program in the state: the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, where roughly 2,500 students vie for 100 open seats yearly. About half of the graduates will stay and practice in Wisconsin. 

The school isn’t churning out enough graduates to make a serious dent in the state’s shortage.  And its lecture halls and laboratories don’t have enough physical space to expand enrollment.

“We are capped out at the number of students we can admit because … the facilities just literally cannot fit any additional folks,” said Dr. Jonathan Levine, dean of the vet school.

“More and more people want to do this career, which is wonderful. It’s a terrific career,” he said. “The challenge is having enough spots to accommodate qualified, excellent applicants.”

To someday change that, UW-Madison is beginning to examine how it can renovate buildings and “expand our class size to meet the needs of Wisconsin and the region,” Levine said. 

Student debt also plays a role in where veterinarians choose to practice, said Dr. Jen Quammen, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association. AVMA data shows veterinarians’ average student debt upon graduation climbed to nearly $175,000 in 2025.

“Food-animal, rural and public health careers typically pay less than companion-animal practice in metro areas, so many graduates find themselves balancing where they feel called to practice with where they can realistically afford to practice,” Quammen said. 

Not all of these graduates work in emergency facilities or pet clinics. There’s demand for vets in many fields, Levine said, including research, at drug development corporations or in pathology. 

“It’s all those things that have sort of combined over the last decade to drive very high demand, and the supply of veterinarians is limited,” Levine said. “In rural communities it’s been particularly challenging, and that is not a new story. It’s … a decades-old story.” 

Solutions elusive

JoAnne Rosenfeld believes her Boston terrier, Butch, would still be alive if Door County had an emergency vet. 

In April, Butch began seizing while he slept, spinning his body in “jerky spurts” and yelping in pain. Rosenfeld and her son scooped up Butch, limp and struggling to breathe, and brought him to the car for the 90-minute haul to Appleton. 

Butch, almost 4 years old, died 18 miles from the destination. Rosenfeld pressed on, hoping CPR could save him, to no avail. 

“Heartbroken, despondent, anguished, heartsick and sad beyond belief,” Rosenfeld wrote in a letter with other local advocates, asking that county leaders and vets come together to find a solution. 

She offered one: Door County vets rotating weekends to be on-call for emergencies. 

“If there are 10 vets willing to help, their duties would be just once every 10 weeks, about five times a year, only nights and weekends, which would not interfere with daily activities,” she wrote.

Local clinic workers say such an arrangement isn’t realistic, as they’re already fighting burnout. 

“There is no way that a doctor or nurse could work their full 40- to 50-hour workweek and still be capable and fresh for after-hours or weekend emergencies,” Billett said. “This would add to the stress and the burnout that it is already a constant battle.”

While emergency care inside county limits seems unfeasible, closer help could soon be on the way. National chain Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG) will soon open a new 24-hour emergency location in Bellevue, about 40 miles closer than BluePearl in Appleton. Its website says the Brown County location is “coming soon,” and a ribbon-cutting will be hosted on Aug. 27. 

VEG’s site offers no contact information for the new branch. The company did not respond to a request for comment. 

But closer care would be a welcome relief for Sister Bay resident Nancy Treleven, who has driven a six-hour round trip to get care for her French bulldog, Winston. 

“It’s just scary when you’re in the car with a pet that’s not well,” Treleven said. “I’m focused on driving, but I’m completely stressed because I’m worrying about how my dog is doing, and if I’m gonna get there in time, and what happens if everything’s not OK, and I can’t make it back home tonight. Where am I staying? What am I doing?” 

Nationally, legislation addressing the problem is in the works. AVMA is advocating for Congress to pass the Rural Veterinary Workforce Act, which would offer $120,000 in student loan relief to veterinarians who commit to three years of service in rural shortage areas. 

Editor’s note: A caption in a previous version of this story misspelled the name of Brienna Derbique.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Vet shortage overwhelms clinics, leaves owners to drive hours for emergency care 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

Wisconsin health leaders worry future work requirements for Medicaid recipients will create both an administrative and ethical burden for doctors and other providers.

Starting next year, adults ages 19 to 64 will be required to work, go to school or volunteer for 80 hours per month to qualify for coverage under the safety-net program. 

The new rule, which was included in Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” last year, provides exemptions for several groups, including people who are pregnant, live with children under 19 and those with a recognized disability.

There is also an exemption for people with serious or complex medical conditions, or those considered “medically frail.”

In guidance released in June, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, said state Medicaid programs should consider not only a person’s diagnosis or condition but also “the extent to which the condition impairs an individual’s ability” to meet the new requirements.

But Dr. Ken Schellhase, a primary care physician and member of the Wisconsin Medical Society, said making that determination is not simple, even for a doctor.

“That will require training and skills that the typical primary care doc does not have,” he said. “Honestly, that’s a big reason why most docs in primary care practices don’t do the official disability evaluations for Social Security.”

Doctors working in occupational medicine or rehabilitation are specially trained to objectively determine someone’s functional capacity, Schellhase said, but few such providers practice in those fields.

Speaking to reporters on July 30, Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary Kirsten Johnson said the state needs more guidance from CMS as it develops a system for verifying who qualifies for the exemption. 

She said DHS plans to use existing records like medical billing to verify that someone is unable to meet the work requirements. CMS will also allow recipients during the first year to self-attest that they are unable to work.

Scott Stewart, CEO of the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association, said the existing system for health insurance claims is not designed to indicate a person’s level of impairment or their ability to work.

“It’s set up to say this is what a patient has, but it’s not set up to say anything more than that,” Stewart said. “You have to really also think about the privacy aspects of that. Now you’re saying that I have to potentially give a patient’s chart, which they have to sign off on in terms of HIPAA, to say that they are medically frail and meet all definitions?”

Schellhase worries that involving medical charting and billing could influence how doctors care for their patients, including how quickly they make a diagnosis. He described someone seeking for treatment of asthma symptoms.

“Not everybody who wheezes has asthma, and so sometimes we struggle with as a diagnosis code,” he said. “Do we put in just wheezing? Or have we seen it enough times, but it’s just not absolutely confirmed that yeah, this person probably has asthma? There’s a lot of gray area in that.”

He said patients with conditions not considered severe enough for exemption could see their health decline if they lose health insurance. And he worries the new process will create a conflict of interest for doctors who have a professional obligation to help, not harm, their patients.

“We’re supposed to be that patient’s advocate, to do whatever’s in our power to help them and get them the help that we think that they need,” he said. 

Stewart, whose organization represents the state’s federally supported community health centers, said increasing paperwork requirements have lead to more people losing access to care.

He’s concerned that health systems will be incentivized to help patients qualify for an exemption to keep their coverage so providers can continue to bill the program for care.

“We’ve seen issues with the Medicare Advantage program and things like that in the same way, around wanting patients to have access to these programs, but having the kind of perverse financial incentive to get them on (the program),” he said.

WPR contacted several major Wisconsin health systems for comment on the potential impact of the work requirements but received no responses. 

The Wisconsin Hospital Association, or WHA, declined WPR’s interview request. In a statement, WHA’s senior vice president for finance and payment, Christian Moran, said the association appreciates DHS’s efforts to “minimize additional regulatory burdens on hospitals and providers while helping eligible individuals maintain Medicaid coverage and reducing the risk of higher uncompensated care in Wisconsin hospitals.”

Moran wrote that WHA will continue to watch the state agency’s plans as more details become available.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Wisconsin doctors worry Medicaid work rules will create ethical, administrative burdens 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: 9 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Wisconsin Watch spoke to community leaders in northeast Wisconsin to understand how support systems work, how people who are unhoused can get help in each county and who counts as homeless. 
• Officials explain how waitlists for housing programs work, how they’re funded, why people who are unhoused are more visible in cities and ways people who have housing can help. 
• The story includes links to resources and a flowchart available for free download.

An estimated 1,200 people are homeless in northeast Wisconsin — and that could be a vast undercount. Nonprofit leaders say shelters are at capacity on a regular basis and a lack of affordable housing is contributing to the problem. 

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, someone would have to work 112 hours per week at minimum wage to afford a modest 1-bedroom rental home in Wisconsin. Amid rising costs, Jackie Baumgart, director of youth services for Foundations Health & Wholeness, says rural counties Foundations serves have few homeless shelters.

“We need a shelter or three in every county … If there was somebody to call and get somebody in every time, we could do wonderful work, because it wouldn’t always be in crisis,” Baumgart said. 

Experts say there are misconceptions about who counts as homeless and how the homeless response system works. That prevents people from accessing resources and contributes to stigma around homelessness. 

To understand how support systems work, how to get help in each county and who counts as homeless, Wisconsin Watch put together a guide of frequently asked questions about homelessness informed by interviews with community leaders in northeast Wisconsin. 

Click here to download a free flowchart on how to access homelessness resources in northeast Wisconsin.

How many people are homeless in my region?

Homelessness is measured nationwide by a “point in time” (PIT) count — a snapshot of all the people experiencing homelessness on a single night. The federal government requires this to happen annually in January, but all counties in northeast Wisconsin conduct an additional summer count in July. 

During the PIT count in January, volunteers found 560 individuals who were living in shelters or on the street in Brown County. Other counts can be broken down into coalitions that include multiple counties. 

Northeast (Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto and Shawano counties): 83 people

Lakeshore (Door, Kewaunee, Manitowoc and Sheboygan counties): 224 people

Fox Cities (Calumet, Outagamie and northern Winnebago counties): 330 people

To count someone as homeless, volunteers must speak to people who seem to be living on the streets to confirm they’re unhoused. Those who are sleeping on the couch of a friend or family member don’t count. This means many people aren’t included in the count who might be considered homeless, especially in rural areas. That’s important because the PIT count is indirectly tied to the amount of grant funding designated for each region.

Who is considered homeless?

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, breaks its definition of homelessness into several categories. These categories determine which programs or aid you can apply for. 

Category 1: Literally Homeless

This includes who most people generally picture when they hear the word “homeless” – anyone who is unsheltered and could be sleeping outside, in a tent or in a car. It also includes people living in a temporary homeless shelter or using hotel vouchers. 

Category 2: Imminent Risk of Homelessness

This category includes individuals or families who will lose their housing within 14 days of applying for homeless assistance and who lack resources to obtain other permanent housing.

Category 3: Homeless Under Other Federal Statutes

This group includes unaccompanied youth under age 25 or families with children who don’t meet the previous definitions, but still lack permanent or stable housing, which often means living in someone else’s home due to economic hardship. Referred to as being “doubled up,” this could look like someone sleeping on a friend’s couch or staying in another family’s basement. Category 3 can also include youth who are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or campgrounds due to lack of alternative options. 

In the 2024-25 school year, over 20,000 students in Wisconsin were homeless, including 15,400 who were “doubled up,” according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Although this category is considered homeless under the federal definition, doubled up students don’t qualify for most federal homeless assistance. Instead, they are supported by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which requires each school district to designate a homeless liaison and provide transportation for students experiencing homelessness.

“A majority of our students experiencing homelessness are living doubled up,” said Kristine Nadolski, state coordinator of Education for Homeless Children and Youth. “It’s a big piece kind of missing in other counts, and I do think that our students are still under-identified.”

Category 4: Fleeing/Attempting to Flee Domestic Violence

Anyone who does not have a residence due to fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence is placed in Category 4. Specific shelters exist solely for domestic violence survivors that provide crisis intervention, counseling, support groups and legal advocacy.

Categories cover broad swath of people

Overall, these four definitions encompass a wide variety of people who aren’t usually included in the broader public perception of homelessness. Eliza Cussen is the community engagement director for Pillars, a shelter and low-income housing agency in Appleton. She said some people might not consider themselves homeless even though they fit one of these definitions.

“If you have moved in with your mom because your landlord raised your rent and you couldn’t swing it, you might not identify as homeless,” Cussen said. “So that can make people really hesitant to call for those services, or think that they are deserving.” 

How do I get help?

There are many ways to find services, including calling 211, your county Aging and Disability Resource Center or your local government. If you’re seeking shelter, you should probably access Coordinated Entry as a first step, which will place you on a list that all organizations in your area can pull from based on your eligibility. 

211: https://211wisconsin.communityos.org/, dial 211, or text your zip code to 898211.

Findhelp: https://findhelp.org/ 

Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Door, and Kewaunee counties — You are under the Lakeshore Homeless Coalition and Lakeshore CAP.

• Coordinated Entry: Lakeshore CAP 920-694-0041​
  • Lakeshore CAP Resources by County 
  • Door County Lakeshore CAP Resource Guide 
  • Door County ADRC Resource Guide 
  • Food Resources outside of Brown County  
  • Manitowoc County Lakeshore CAP Resource Guide 
  • Manitowoc and Kewaunee County ADRC Resource Guide
  • Kewaunee County Lakeshore CAP Resource Guide
  • Manitowoc Public Library Community Resources  

Brown County — You are under the Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition.

• Coordinated Entry: House of Hope 920-884-6740, Wise Women 920-883-7202, Golden House 920-435-0100
  • Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition Resources
  • Brown County Places to Go 
  • Brown County ADRC **Please note: Newcap is closed**

Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Shawano Counties – You are under the Northeast Homeless Coalition.

• Coordinated Entry: Foundations Health & Wholeness 920-381-7533  
  • Shawano Area United Way Resource Guide for Shawano and Menominee counties
  • 2026 ADRC Wolf River Directory **Please note: Newcap is closed**
  • Oconto County Food Resources
  • Food Resources outside of Brown County  
  • Marinette County ADRC Resource Guide **Please note: Newcap is closed**
  • Tri County United Way Resource List

Outagamie, Calumet, northern Winnebago Counties  — You are under the Fox Cities Coalition

• Coordinated Entry: Liz Crowley, city of Appleton 920-832-6460
  • Fox Cities Housing Coalition Resources
  • Pillars Community Resources 
  • Calumet County ADRC 
  • Oshkosh / Winnebago County Housing Authority Resources
  • City of Appleton Resources 
  • Outagamie County ADRC 
  • Fox Valley Food Pantry Brochure 
  • Fox Valley Street Smart Resources 

Other resources:

• Free and low-cost medical clinics: The National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics 
• Homeless liaisons in Wisconsin schools: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Homeless Liaison Directory 
• Food banks: Feeding America Find Your Local Food Bank tool 
• Step-by-step guide to getting help from the National Alliance to End Homelessness
• Job Centers of Wisconsin 
• Northeastern Region Domestic Violence Services Directory from End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin

How do waitlists for housing programs work? 

Waitlists are managed through a system called Coordinated Entry, which is designed to streamline the housing application process. Rather than operating on a first-in, first-out basis, the system prioritizes people based on their level of need.

Organizations statewide can access this list and pull people who meet their requirements when a spot opens up. To be put on the Coordinated Entry list, people are asked questions about their chronic disabling conditions, medical needs, the length of their homelessness and more.

Instead of calling every housing program in your area to get on a waitlist, you will already be on a list that they can see and pull from. They can figure out your eligibility.

Who gets the highest priority depends on the different requirements of each agency. You will also be asked about things like veteran status or if you are fleeing domestic violence. Applicants are also asked which counties they would consider moving to, allowing them to access housing if a spot opens elsewhere. 

How are these programs funded? 

Regional Continuum of Care programs distribute federal funding for homelessness service organizations. Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties have their own CoCs, while the Balance of State CoC oversees the rest of the state through regional coalitions. 

Each federal grant is designated for specific types of support, such as homeless prevention, emergency shelter — through HUD’s Emergency Solutions Grant — or the CoC’s motel vouchers, permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless and transitional housing with the goal of helping residents achieve stable housing elsewhere

Successful applicants must meet one of HUD’s homeless definitions, in addition to other eligibility requirements. Grants are sometimes designated for specific populations like veterans, domestic violence victims, youth or individuals who are chronically homeless. Plus, anti-poverty nonprofits and homeless shelters often don’t have enough beds available for the existing homeless population, which is why people sit on waitlists for months or years. 

A recent HUD memo announced broad changes to Continuum of Care funding. Josh Benti, homeless initiative project director for the Greater Green Bay Blueprint to Prevent and End Homelessness, said CoCs across the country now must compete for 40% of HUD’s budget based on criteria like criminalizing homelessness. Previously, 10% of funds were competitive. 

This represents the Trump administration’s broader shift from the Housing First model, which prioritizes providing permanent housing for people and then addressing the root causes of their homelessness.

On Aug. 7, a district court ruled in favor of a coalition of state governments – including Wisconsin – to effectively block HUD’s 2026 notice of funding, saying HUD failed to provide the proper notice and public comment period required.

Why do I see more homeless people in cities?

Rural homelessness is usually harder to see. It’s more common for people in rural areas to live out of their cars or doubled up with a family member or friend, especially since there aren’t as many shelters. Lots of people might not even consider themselves homeless if they are sleeping on someone’s couch. 

Because rural areas are sprawling, with many people doubled up, homelessness can be harder to count. That means rural coalitions may report lower numbers in the PIT count, which indirectly reduces federal funding.

Rural areas also have fewer resources — like shelters or supportive housing — forcing more people to relocate to Green Bay or other cities.

But the solution isn’t always to move. Shawano Area Matthew 25 Executive Director Kendra Brusewitz said people used to being homeless in Shawano might struggle to adapt to living in a larger city. She sometimes encourages people to relocate, but only if they don’t have any support systems in their community. 

“Affordable housing is a challenge everywhere,” Brusewitz said. “So it’s not healthy for anybody to make all these promises, too, of like, ‘Hey, if we just get you to Green Bay, you’ll have all of these opportunities and resources,’ and then they’re in a community that still has the same issues, and then they don’t have supports there either.” 

How can people who have housing help?

Many organizations that don’t provide shelter still interact with people experiencing homelessness and can benefit from understanding how the homeless response system works. These organizations can help brainstorm community-wide solutions, Benti said.

“Housing is something that affects us all, either housed or unhoused … Our hospitals aren’t homeless providers, but they provide services to those who are experiencing homelessness,” he said. “Our employers hire and employ people who are experiencing homelessness. … So, it’s getting all these systems to work and communicate and collaborate better.” 

People who want to help can donate if they have disposable income or volunteer with organizations serving people experiencing homelessness. Volunteering can start with contacting a local shelter or attending a coalition meeting. 

Northeast Coalition (Shawano, Oconto, Marinette and Menominee counties): Contact Abby Ries at abby.ries@wibos.org

Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition: https://bchhcwi.org/get-involved-2/ 

Fox Cities Housing Coalition: https://www.foxcitieshousing.org/calendar 

Lakeshore Coalition (Door, Kewaunee, Manitowoc and Sheboygan counties): https://lakeshorecap.org/ 

Even if you can’t donate or volunteer, you can still help fight the stigma surrounding homelessness. Brusewitz said she welcomes tours of the SAM25 shelter for greater community understanding. 

“We’re not a big city, but we do have people who are struggling,” Brusewitz said. “The stigma with homelessness, too, of like, ‘Well, they should just get a job,’ or ‘Maybe they should just quit doing drugs or drinking,’ and that’s not always the case.” 

Ryan Graham, homeless systems manager for the Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care, said widespread homelessness reflects a broader affordability issue, with many people just one crisis away from losing their housing. 

“What you’ll see is we have all these people who just can’t afford basic needs or can’t afford their current housing, and they’re one bad event from becoming street homeless,” Graham said. “If we don’t have any kind of homeless prevention or diversion programming to stop that from happening, you’re just increasing the bottleneck that we have at our crisis response system, which we don’t have enough of already, right? So it’s really a tough environment across the country, but in particular in a lot of our rural counties.”

This story was updated to reflect that the Coordinated Entry system places people on waitlists for federally funded housing programs. It was also updated to correct the fact that Continuums of Care organizations distribute funding for homelessness service organizations. Wisconsin Watch regrets the errors.

How to get help: A guide to homelessness resources in northeast 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.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Tom Ritter and his son, Cory, had worked together with their families every harvest season for the past 20 years.

“My daughter loved to ride in the semi during harvest with my dad,” said Cory. “I remember seeing them leave the field together, and just the time that he took and the importance that he put on spending that quality time with family.”

But last year’s harvest was different; instead of Tom and Cory working together, tragedy hit the family on Aug. 20.

“Someone drove by and saw the semi was overflowing. The corn was still coming out, but it was overflowing, and thought this isn’t good and started knocking on doors,” Cory said. “My mother’s house is just a couple of doors in town, and they knocked on her door, and she called me and had a feeling we knew what happened.”

The area around the Ritter family farm in Blue Mound, Illinois, was surrounded by neighbors, police and firefighters trying to find Tom. 

It turned out that he had gone inside the grain bin to fix a piece of equipment. While he was working on it, the grain suddenly shifted and began to move, trapping him.

“I still have the mental image of all these neighbors that just showed up. It was a hot day, sweating and scooping as hard as they could, trying to see if we could save him,” said Cory.

Tom was found against one of the walls of the grain bin. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. 

Half of grain bin accidents are still fatal

A recent report from Purdue University shows these types of accidents are up. In 2024, 34 grain bin entrapment cases occurred compared to 27 in 2023, representing a 25% increase.

Dr. Salah Issa, an assistant professor and extension specialist at the University of Illinois, said data on grain bin accidents is hard to come by. 

“The way we collect this data is mostly through news clippings. It’s hard to put a pin on where they’re occurring exactly, like if there is a type of grain bin where they occur more frequently than others,” he said.

According to Issa, grain storage in the 1960s was very different from today’s systems. Storage facilities were generally smaller and less mechanized before the widespread use of the large steel grain bins and grain-handling equipment common on many farms today. The earliest documented grain bin entrapment case occurred in 1964.

When a farmer is trapped in a grain bin, the odds of survival are poor. Historically, 70% of accidents were fatal, Issa said.

That fatality rate has come down, but it remains high.

”Strong efforts in training for rescue personnel have contributed to the reduction of the severity,” Issa said. But he adds that about 20 to 40 people die in grain bins annually, about half of all accidents.

 “Fifty percent is pretty bad.”

Issa said weather and spoiled grain play a role in most accidents. Grain can get too wet and clump at the bottom, or crust on top — creating a false sense of security for workers who walk on the surface.

“This happened a while ago, with a father and son,” he said. “A young boy went inside a grain bin that had a crust that had formed. The kid runs across the grain bin, and nothing happens, and the farmer runs after him, and when he reaches the middle, it breaks and he falls through it and ends up losing his life.”

Grain can also build up on one side of a bin and collapse like an avalanche, burying a worker.

Young and older workers are at the highest risk; about half of accidents involve people older than 60 and younger than 21.

“In 2010, we had a really bad case where three boys under the age of 20, I think one or two of them were 14 or 15, they ended up drowning,” Issa said.

Regulatory gaps leave many farms without oversight

Grain bin safety training is offered by universities, industry groups and safety organizations across the country. Still, reaching every farming operation remains a challenge.

Farms with fewer than 10 employees are exempt from federal safety standards, and the lack of oversight also extends to young family members who help on the farm.

“It’s a devastating issue, and it should never happen,” Issa said. “Because of the frequency rate, it’s very easy to run into the thought that this is not going happen to me until it ends up happening to you.”

Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said more regulation would help, but that added rules and costs would likely face pushback from farmers.

“Most farmers don’t appreciate a more regulatory framework, and it is difficult to implement and expensive to implement,” he said. “All the more reason before we get to that point that we expand on our efforts to educate farmers, to use voluntary incentives to put these things in place — and that really is important.”

As for Cory, he is unsure about regulation because every farm has its own unique situation.

“I don’t know if I’m for regulation because every farm is different, every situation is different,” Cory said.

For him, it’s more about slowing down and paying attention.

“Is it a dangerous job on the farm? Yes. Is it the most dangerous job on the farm? I don’t know. But it’s just, it’s all about people thinking twice, and that’s what it really takes,” he said.

New safety tools help, but prevention remains the best defense

Issa said that 95% of these incidents are preventable and that prevention starts by installing systems in or near grain bins that can safely break up clumps and address grain-flow problems from outside the bin.

An alternate solution that Issa and his team have researched is using compressed air to break up grain clumps from outside the bin, though the method can be time-consuming because it only breaks up clumps near the outlet, and the use of high-pressure compressed air requires strict safety precautions.

Issa said that as a last resort, if someone needs to enter a grain bin, all equipment should be shut off and disconnected from its power source. The equipment should also be locked and tagged so it cannot be turned on while someone is inside the bin. He added that workers should wear a harness and have a spotter outside the bin watching them.

“I have a story of three people who went into repair a grain bin, and a trucker came by not knowing they were in there and pulled out grain, and they ended up drowning,” said Issa.

California and Indiana have their own state workplace safety programs that enforce grain bin safety regulations. In California, if someone needs to enter a grain bin, written authorization from a supervisor is required, or a supervisor must be present during the entire operation. California’s regulations also require multiple safety procedures to be followed before entering the bin.

“They will have to install anchor points on the grain bin if the grain bin is older. If it’s newer, then there are anchor points there already,” said Issa. “When they’re installing the anchor points, they should work with a structural engineer so they can tell them how much weight this can support. They need an anchor point that supports at a minimum 1,000 pounds of force, but actually more is recommended.” 

In Nebraska, farmers can rent a robot called Grain Weevil that can be used while filling grain bins to help prevent fines — damaged kernels that tend to cluster in the center —  from building up and causing grain to spoil faster. The robot can also break up crusted grain while the bin is being emptied, reducing the need for farmers to enter the bin.

As for Cory Ritter, he continues honoring his dad’s legacy by prioritizing family while juggling everything else. In the middle of a day packed with work and interviews for this story, he still made time to watch his daughter compete in a high school track competition before leaving on a six-hour drive for work that stretched into the early morning hours.

“I remember what my dad told me: The job will get done. The important thing is to come home to your family every night,” said Cory. “It all starts with the personal responsibility of slowing down and thinking about what you’re doing, and that’s why I wanted to share this story, so that other people can think about that.”

And doing things even if they are hard. 

“It’s hard to drive past this (the grain bin) and still see these holes inside, but I looked at it in the fall, especially as all the harvest traffic goes by this road to our local co-op,” said Cory. “I told myself it’s a reminder for everybody how fast accidents can happen and that take time to slow down and be safe.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.

Grain bin accidents remain deadly. One farmer hopes his family’s story can help. 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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The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is preparing to implement new federal Medicaid work requirements that could put health insurance coverage at risk for tens of thousands of BadgerCare Plus members.

Department of Health Services Secretary Kirsten Johnson and Wisconsin Medicaid Director Amanda Dreyer answered reporters’ questions Thursday about how the state plans to implement the new requirements and what members should do now.

Here’s what you need to know.

Who is impacted

The new requirements were created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which requires states to implement Medicaid work requirements for some adults.

In Wisconsin, the requirements apply to BadgerCare Plus members ages 19 to 64 who do not have a dependent child younger than 19 living with them.

About 200,000 Wisconsin adults will be subject to the new requirements. The agency estimates about 63,000 people are at immediate risk of losing their health care coverage because the state does not currently have documentation showing they meet the requirements or qualify for an exemption.

New requirements

To keep Medicaid coverage, affected members must show they completed at least 80 hours of employment, volunteer work, school, job training or another qualifying activity in a single month during the 12-month period since they were last approved for health care coverage.

Some people may qualify for exemptions, including those who are medically frail or family caregivers, but Department of Health Services leaders say they are waiting for federal guidance on what documentation will be required. 

Work requirements will take effect for new Medicaid applicants early next year. Starting in January 2027, new applicants must meet the federal work requirement in the month before they apply.

Current BadgerCare Plus members will be subject to the requirements when they renew their coverage starting in March 2027.

What you can do

State officials say the most important step is making sure the department has current contact information.

Medicaid members should keep their mailing address, phone number and email address up to date to ensure they receive important notices about the upcoming changes. Members can update their information through the ACCESS Wisconsin website or the ACCESS smartphone app.

The department also recommends keeping documentation such as pay stubs, volunteer records or school enrollment information that may be needed during the renewal process.

Where possible, the Department of Health Services plans to use existing medical records and diagnosis codes to identify people who qualify for exemptions rather than requiring new paperwork. During the program’s first year, members who believe they are medically frail may self-attest while the department obtains supporting documentation.

Resident outreach

The Department of Health Services is working with health care providers, counties and community organizations to prepare for the changes, with a particular focus on helping people experiencing homelessness and others who may have difficulty meeting the new reporting requirements. 

The department has also created a “Medicaid: New Federal Work Requirement” webpage that it will update with new information about eligibility, exemptions, reporting requirements and implementation timelines.

Johnson said the state’s goal is to ensure everyone who qualifies for Medicaid can keep their coverage despite the new federal requirements.

Department of Health Services leaders estimate the first year of implementation will cost about $10 million in system upgrades. The agency is still finalizing staffing and training costs. Officials say they will continue working with local partners to help members understand the new rules and avoid unnecessary loss of health coverage.

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

New Medicaid work requirements are coming. Here’s what you need 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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• Business owners and individuals have mobilized to provide food, water and supplies to those impacted by Monday’s tornado and to clear fallen trees from the area.  
• Wisconsin Watch spoke to several people about why they volunteered their time and resources. 
• Waverly Beach Bar & Grille distributed 500 box lunches daily through Thursday to help affected community members, who include its own employees.  
• Organizations like Operation BBQ Relief provided food to survivors and first responders to “give them just a couple minutes reprieve from all this.”

A walk around downtown Menasha reveals the heart of devastation after an EF3 tornado surged through parts of Neenah, Appleton and Menasha on Monday at 11:56 a.m., traveling 12 miles. Ceramic roof tiles lie shattered on the sidewalk, trees bend at unnatural angles, downed power lines block streets and roofs are torn from churches and homes. 

Community members are still recovering from losing homes and businesses, and thousands of residents remain without power two days later. But the neighborhoods hit the hardest buzz with activity. Chainsaws roar on every street as volunteers clear trees to reopen roads and protect what’s left of people’s houses. 

Roy Eckberg, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Green Bay, told Wisconsin Watch the tornado developed quickly as two storms merged.

“Typically, most tornadoes, you probably get a few minutes to maybe 10 minutes (of warning), but in this case, the rapid development was something I’ve never seen in northeast Wisconsin,” Eckberg said. “It was that fast. It was shocking.” 

Ben Clemmer, who lives just a mile away from severely damaged businesses including Mandersfield’s Home Bakery and Tony’s Bar, was working from home when the tornado hit. 

“It was pretty crazy looking. You know, there’s that kind of freaky storm glow that people talk about. That was very real … Seeing trees bending basically all the way over to horizontal was kind of incredible,” he said. “The surprising part, I guess, to me, is that there’s any trees left.”

Since he had a generator, Clemmer set up a phone charging station outside his house Tuesday so neighbors could maintain access to critical updates and communication. Downed power lines left the entire city – about 18,000 residents – without electricity, according to the Associated Press. 

He’s one of many community members eager to help disaster survivors. Businesses and individuals have mobilized to provide food, water and supplies and to clear fallen trees.  

Helping hands reach out

Jesse Hieb, of Muskego, drove his truck around the worst-hit parts of Menasha, handing out water and Gatorade bottles from a cooler with James Enderle, outreach pastor for Living Savior Lutheran Church. Hieb has experience with disaster relief, including when a flood hit Muskego last August.

“Pop’s (Pub) down in Muskego is trying to put together supplies from that community,” Hieb said. “They were hit with a flood last year, so they’re just trying to pay it forward. So we’re gonna go down, pick those supplies up, come back up tomorrow, do the same thing. Drive around with ice cold water, trying to just help people get through the day.” 

Local business owners transformed their restaurants into food distribution sites, like Waverly Beach Bar & Grille, which planned to give out box lunches from 1 to 4 p.m. daily through Thursday. 

Even though the restaurant wasn’t hit by the tornado, Operations Director Dion Block said many employees were impacted, and residents began using the space as a temporary shelter while waiting to return to their homes. He ordered 500 box lunches per day from his supplier Monday night and mobilized his staff to hand out meals and water on Tuesday.

“We range from people who just lost something like a fence or a tree that damaged their house to … multiple employees whose families lost their home,” Block said. 

Tornado survivors with no place to stay were bused to Christ the Rock Community Church, which continues to provide overnight shelter. 

Emlyn Thomas of Operation BBQ Relief, a nonprofit disaster relief organization, gave out bratwurst at a tent just outside Christ the Rock. He was serving food at a National Night Out event in Chilton on Monday evening when he heard news of the tornado. He immediately packed the leftovers, drove to the Appleton area and served first responders. 

“Tornadoes usually are very narrow in their focus; it’s a line,” Thomas said. “This was not that narrow. This was pretty wide. I have never seen a firehouse destroyed. Station 41 was leveled. So this is in some ways unprecedented.”

Operation BBQ Relief began in 2011 after an EF5 tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, and now deploys volunteers to disasters across the country to provide barbecue meals to storm victims and first responders. Thomas said his crew will stay outside Christ the Rock until Thursday at minimum. 

“We call it the one hot meal that matters,” Thomas said. “Some of these folks, short of it being you lose a kid, this is the worst day of their life. They’ve lost everything. Your wedding pictures are in somebody’s yard 25 miles away. Every possession you had is gone. We can show up and we can give them just a couple of minutes reprieve from all this.”

Chris Ghobrial, owner of 18 Acres Food Truck, drove up about an hour and a half from Watertown and was giving out smashburgers outside of Christ the Rock on Tuesday. 

“It’s just part of our outreach program to give back to the communities that are in need, especially because we’ve been blessed with what we have and want to reciprocate the blessings,” Ghobrial said. 

‘Learning to cope’

A curfew remains in effect from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for the village of Fox Crossing and the city of Menasha. A boil water advisory also remains in effect for some Fox Crossing water utility customers. As of Wednesday morning, crews restored electricity to parts of Menasha, but thousands of Outagamie and Winnebago county residents still lacked power.

Two days after the tornado, Clemmer said the community is grappling with the long-term implications of rebuilding. 

“There’s lots to do, and yet sometimes it feels like there’s nothing you can do about it,” Clemmer said.

“We’ve started to transition from the initial shock of the event to now shifting more fully into a recovery mode. It’s just kind of learning to cope, I guess, with the new situation, … what do you have to do to … continue moving forward.” 

Officials are asking nonresidents to avoid traveling to Menasha and not to self-deploy to affected areas. Winnebago County officials are circulating a resource guide with information on cooling and charging sites, food, Wi-Fi centers, shelters, medical equipment and ways to donate. Volunteers can sign up to be officially deployed at Volunteer Fox Cities or in person at 1478 Midway Road.

Miranda Dunlap contributed reporting to this story.

Volunteers mobilize across Fox Cities after tornado 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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In Milwaukee at H.W. Longfellow School’s Community Learning Center, which is operated by the South Side nonprofit Journey House, staff are always finding new ways to immerse students in art and culture.

To help, Cherise Myers, Journey House director of community partnerships, said the nonprofit utilizes state Child Care Bridge payments to bring in instructors specializing in art, dance, digital media and more.

Now Longfellow and other Milwaukee Public Schools-based before- and after-school programs must grapple with how to continue exposing students who don’t often get exposure to art while losing thousands of dollars in stabilization payments.

“This is kind of putting the nail in the coffin,” Myers said. “Not being able to have the money to contract or work with these opportunities.”

The Child Care Bridge Payments Program was the state’s temporary solution to the federal government sunsetting Child Care Counts, a monthly federal child care stabilization program born out of the pandemic that supported nearly 1,400 child care providers in the city of Milwaukee. 

The Wisconsin Legislature budgeted for a year of Child Care Bridge payments, which ended last month. 

Journey House received over $6,300 from the state in 2026 to support the Longfellow Community Learning Center. About 90 MPS-based before- and after-school programs collectively received $1.2 million in 2025.

Activities to be cut

Milwaukee Recreation, which received Child Care Bridge funding to operate child care as part of its programming at MPS locations, has struggled to attract and retain high-quality staff with competitive wages.

The monthly Child Care Counts and later state Child Care Bridge funding were critical in raising wages and giving employee bonuses, Community Learning Center coordinator Leighton Cooper said. 

Cooper, who coordinates Community Learning Centers through Milwaukee Recreation, said the funding helped staff stay longer at their programs overall.

“It’s causing us less and less to have to go out and find and recruit more and more staff to operate our programs,” he said. 

Now that Child Care Counts and Child Care Bridge payments have ended, Cooper said Milwaukee Recreation may have to cut funding for some supplies and activities, stop giving bonuses and cut staff positions beyond the required ratios from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.

“Our staff wages certainly can’t be changed,” Cooper said. “Staff are paid and that’s going to help us to keep staff in spaces.”

Journey House received less funding than other Community Learning Centers, and Myers said the organization already can’t always compete with wages at other schools.  

Myers said the ended funding may not affect new employees who were hired on starting pay, but veteran employees may leave if pay drops. Many already rely on other jobs to make ends meet, she said. 

Still, Myers said the money helped Journey House bring in instructors from local colleges, universities and community organizations to lead activities because those instructors aren’t always free.

Myers said Journey House programming depends on student needs, but the organization runs chess and Lego clubs, flag football, basketball and cheerleading classes, painting and metal classes and more.

500 programs across state losing funds

Across Milwaukee, about 90 MPS-based Community Learning Centers and before- and after-school camps received $1.2 million in 2025, according to Wisconsin Department of Children and Families data. 

Randy Neve, lead of the Wisconsin Out of School Time Alliance, estimates more than 500 before- and after-school programs serving school-aged children statewide are losing monthly stabilization payments. Milwaukee’s MPS-based programs are among them.

Many of the providers who received state and federal stabilization payments were early-childhood centers serving infants and toddlers, NNS reported in June. 

But Neve said these programs, including the ones across MPS, serve thousands of 4- to 12-year-olds. The loss of stabilization payments will affect that population of children and families. 

“In the long run, the kids are the ones that lose out and are hurt,” Neve said.

Push for the state

The state budgeted for one year of Child Care Bridge payments in the biennial budget. 

Legislators including state Sen. LaTonya Johnson, who represents District 6 on Milwaukee’s North Side, proposed SB 322 to support child care providers, but the bill didn’t get a hearing, NNS reported. 

Neve said the Wisconsin Out of School Time Alliance is working with other organizations to advocate for greater funding for before- and after-school programs like the one Journey House hosts at Longfellow. He and other partners are educating policymakers about what the loss of this funding will mean for providers and families. 

Myers said many of the families at Longfellow are already struggling with the rising cost of living, and the loss of stabilization payments will ultimately hurt students and families. 

“Things are tough, and it’s sad to say that this is just going to make things tougher,” Myers said.

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Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

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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.

After-school programs lose thousands each month as child care stabilization funding ends 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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• UW Health leaders created a new company called WorkForward to help health care systems and state agencies nationwide create their own apprenticeship programs. 
• UW Health officials started offering apprenticeships to their employees in 2018. 
• The program has helped the company fill entry-level roles and retain existing staff while filling gaps for in-demand positions. 
• But experts say apprenticeships aren’t a silver bullet: They require clinical staff to supervise apprentices; employers have to pay staff for hours they’re in school; and each state has its own regulations for apprenticeships.

Violet LaClair was ready to leave her job. 

As a certified nursing assistant at UW Health in Madison, she used the skills she developed while caring for her dying grandmother for nine years. Her co-workers had supported her through her gender transition. She’d even won an award for providing “extraordinary” care. 

She loved her workplace, but after four years, she wanted a change.

“I felt like I’d done it all,” LaClair said. “I felt like at some point I needed to challenge myself more.” 

She thought about going back to school, but that didn’t seem doable. She was already in her 40s and didn’t have time or money to spend.

Then she learned she could get trained to be a medical assistant for free, while working, through an apprenticeship program UW Health started in 2018. She pays no school costs, and she gets paid for the time she spends in class. 

Three days a week, she works at the company’s Union Corners clinic, where she gets patients situated, takes blood pressure, flushes ears and more. 

“I can pretty much do anything the doctor asked me to,” LaClair said. Two days a week, she takes classes on pharmacology, laboratory procedures, and law and ethics.

“I think the program is great,” LaClair said. “It’s given me a whole new chapter in my life, and something to be excited about.” 

Opportunities like these are novel, but increasingly common. The idea is simple: Maybe the country’s next nurses, surgical technologists and medical assistants are already working in hospitals and clinics. The people who’ve spent years booking appointments or drawing blood might jump at the chance to train for new careers — if their employers will help them do it. 

UW Health now offers apprenticeship options for 17 professions, including surgical techs, pharmacy technicians, respiratory therapists and registered nurses. Apprentices pay nothing for their course work, and they get paid to be in class.

To date, more than 1,000 apprentices have graduated. 

Bridgett Willey, who oversaw the launch of those apprenticeships, said they’ve helped fill a critical gap. Wisconsin colleges alone just aren’t graduating enough students to meet the needs of the three major health systems in southern Wisconsin, Willey said. 

The popular programs, which attract far more applicants than they can accommodate, have helped the company fill entry-level roles and hold onto existing staff. Before it began offering apprenticeships, as many as 3 in 10 positions for medical assistants, nursing assistants and pharmacy technicians were unfilled, Willey said. Today, it’s around 1 in 10. 

“We’ve increased our supply by growing our own and training our own folks,” Willey said. 

UW Health isn’t the only health system trying this model. Apprenticeships, once a rarity in health care, have become increasingly common at hospitals and clinics nationwide.

But offering this kind of on-the-job training isn’t always easy. Now, UW Health plans to use what it’s learned to help other states overcome the financial and bureaucratic barriers that can stand in the way. In May, the health system announced it created a separate company called WorkForward to help health systems and state agencies elsewhere set up apprenticeships. Willey, who directs that new project, thinks it’s the first such initiative by a U.S. health care company.

The health care apprenticeship surge

Historically, apprenticeships have been a key on-ramp to technical trades like plumbing and carpentry, allowing trainees to earn as they learn.

Now, apprenticeships are flourishing in U.S. hospitals and clinics, too. In just five years, the number of registered apprentices in the health care field has grown by more than 40%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, as employers have expanded existing programs and others have started new ones. 

The boom comes as demand for health care workers has shot up across the country, triggered by the growing needs of an aging population and a wave of longtime health care workers retiring. By 2038, the country will be short about 109,000 registered nurses, 61,000 physical therapists, 33,000 pharmacy technicians and 13,000 respiratory therapists, according to projections by the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis.

Meanwhile, vocational and on-the-job training is becoming increasingly popular across the board, said Susan Skillman, senior principal research scientist at the University of Washington Center for Health Workforce Studies. 

“Apprenticeships in general are growing,” Skillman said. “We’re kind of in that place in the nation where the pendulum is moving away from four-year college degrees.”

Staff seize opportunity to advance

Some health apprenticeships last months while others last years. At UW Health, apprentices training to become medical assistants finish in 10 months while future registered nurses train for four years.

No matter the length or industry, all apprenticeships involve a combination of on-the-job training and classroom instruction. In the case of Wisconsin’s registered apprentices, who are approved through the state’s Department of Workforce Development, employers must pay apprentices for the time they spend in class. In some cases, the employer pays for the apprentices’ school costs, too. 

At UW Health, the employer covers tuition. The health system’s staff also coordinate the apprentices’ work and school schedules to avoid conflicts. 

Those were big selling points for Brianna Matheson, 35, who had worked as a medical assistant for 12 years when she learned last spring that UW Health was starting a three-year surgical tech apprenticeship. She’d spent time in the operating room before, and she liked helping with clinical procedures.

“I was just ready for something more,” Matheson said. “I was in clinics for so long, doing the same thing for so long. I wanted to learn again, be a student again, and be a novice.”

When the application opened, she was the first to apply. 

“I had kind of given up on the idea of going back to school because I, like so many others, need full-time income, and I didn’t really want to give up all of my free time to work full time and go to school in the evenings and weekends,” said Matheson, who now processes and delivers supplies to the operating room at Madison’s University Hospital. 

Not only does she not pay tuition, but the Department of Workforce Development offers a stipend for scrubs, reimburses mileage to and from school, and even covers some daycare costs for apprentices with kids, Matheson said. 

The position also let Matheson keep her prior $25 hourly wage, reflecting the raises she’d earned during more than a decade on the job. When Matheson graduates in May 2028, she’ll earn surgical tech wages, which range from around $30 to $44 an hour, according to current UW Health job listings.

“I would not have been going back to school at this point in life to pursue this without the support of specifically the apprenticeship program that UW Health is offering,” Matheson said. “I wouldn’t have done it on my own.”

Apprenticeships attract new job applicants

Offering apprenticeships could help health systems draw entry-level job applicants like 25-year-old DeForest native Alex Lippman. 

Lippman trained as a certified nursing assistant in high school, then worked at a skilled nursing facility in Madison. He started college at Arizona State University with plans to become a doctor, but moved back to Wisconsin when his grandmother fell ill in his sophomore year. He wanted to continue his education but figured he’d missed his chance.

Then, in 2023, UW Health announced it was starting the state’s first apprenticeship for registered nurses. That apprenticeship, like all of UW Health’s multiyear apprenticeships that lead to degrees, are open only to employees who’ve worked for the system for at least six months. 

“I had a plan of trying to get into this program because going back to school on my own was no longer feasible,” Lippman said. He got a job as a certified nursing assistant and began the apprenticeship the next year. 

Today he takes classes at Madison College and works three night shifts a week caring for patients with brain and spine injuries in University Hospital’s neuro intensive care unit. He’s on track to graduate in 2028.

UW Health’s shorter training programs, meanwhile, are open to new applicants as well as current employees. Already, some have finished one and moved onto another, looking to advance their careers, Willey said.

“What we’re seeing is that people come in through one of our entry-level (apprenticeship) programs like medical assistant or nursing assistant, get their feet under them working in that capacity, and then now they’re applying for our degreed registered apprenticeship programs,” Willey said.

This isn’t the first time the company has built its own pipeline of health care workers. In 2013, Willey started a program called Health Occupations and Professions Exploration, or HOPE, where high school students spend a Saturday learning to do CPR, place a breathing tube in a mannequin, and more. The goal, Willey said, is to show students the range of careers available in health care. The program has trained about 6,500 students.

How much can the model grow?

Apprenticeships offer a unique way to address workforce shortages and help employees move up on the job, said Andy MacCracken, who coordinates health workforce planning for North Carolina at the NC Center on the Workforce for Health. That, he said, is one reason the number of apprentices and apprenticeships in the health care field has soared in recent years. 

Still, he said, it’s not clear exactly how much of the health worker shortage can be solved through apprenticeships. 

“We need to have a realistic view about what we’re actually aiming for when deploying apprenticeships as a solution,” MacCracken said. “I think apprenticeships are a really helpful tool in the toolbox. They’re not the only one.”

One challenge: It’s expensive to pay the clinical staff needed to supervise apprentices, so it can be hard for health system leaders to make the business case to their boards. Even health systems that embrace apprenticeships may not be able to accept as many apprentices as they’d like. 

UW Health pays for its apprenticeship program with a mix of its own funds, private donations and public funds, though Willey said the latter is usually only available for starting up a new program.  

Still, there are always far more applicants than openings. When the registered nursing apprenticeship launched in 2023, 200 employees applied for 16 slots. Last year, 70 people applied for 40 medical assistant apprenticeships.

Another challenge: Each state has its own laws about what counts as an apprenticeship and what standards an employer must meet when offering one. Likewise, the regulations for each profession may vary from state to state too. And then there are the accrediting agencies that approve educational programs, which are still getting used to the idea that students might get paid for their clinical training hours.

Willey said WorkForward will publish research on apprenticeship approaches that work, lobby for resources to support such programs and help other states identify potential funding sources. The company is a nonprofit, she said, which will apply for private and public grants. It will not receive direct funding from UW Health. 

Currently, she said, WorkForward is working in Massachusetts with Tufts Medicine and Mass General Brigham — the state’s largest health care employer — and 12 of the state’s community and technical colleges.

“It would be great if we could take the solutions that we’ve built and spread (them at) scale across the U.S. … Health care continues to be a driver of new jobs for the U.S. economy,” Willey said, “and we have an aging population who needs more care, and so we need to be addressing these things now.”

MacCracken said he hasn’t heard of another health care employer taking on this role, but he thinks it makes sense, as employers may be more willing to listen to other employers. 

In North Carolina, he said, he’s already seen how a few model programs can pave the way for others. 

“I think because of the successes of some of the early adopters who have put these programs in action, we’re seeing great results, and so that’s helping inspire more action and scalability and replication.” MacCracken said. 

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

Can Wisconsin’s health apprenticeships become a national model? UW Health thinks so 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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Several U.S. states are experiencing an outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a stomach infection that causes frequent, watery, “explosive” diarrhea. More than 5,000 cases have been reported as of July 16 across the country, according to several state health departments, with most cases in Michigan and New York. 

At least 61 cases had been reported in Wisconsin, most of them linked to international travel.

The infection doesn’t transmit from person to person: It’s spread through eating food or drinking water that has been contaminated with feces. While public health officials are still investigating the exact source of the current outbreak, previous outbreaks have been caused by contaminated lettuce, raspberries, cilantro, and basil. 

Cyclosporiasis usually spreads more easily in the summer because of the heat, given that “the parasite in the stool, in the environment, and in vegetables within high temperatures can become infectious,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist and associate dean at the University of California, San Francisco, tells Public Good News.

Read on to learn more about the current cyclosporiasis outbreak.

What are the symptoms?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most common symptoms of cyclosporiasis include: 

• Frequent, watery diarrhea
• Weight loss
• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Cramping
• Loss of appetite
• Bloating
• Increased gas

Less common symptoms include vomiting, headaches, and low-grade fever. 

What should I do if I have symptoms? 

If you have symptoms, stay hydrated, and contact your health care provider. The only way to diagnose cyclosporiasis is to get your stool tested. If your sample is positive, Dr. Chin-Hong explains that your doctor may prescribe an antibiotic to treat it.

What is causing this outbreak? 

Michigan has reported over 4,000 cases as of July 16. Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive for the state, tells PGN that “based on our early signals, that there is some implication that lettuce, bagged lettuce or bagged salad kits could be involved in this outbreak.”

However, other foods have not been completely ruled out, and the exact source of the outbreak in other states is unclear.

How can I protect myself from cyclosporiasis? 

Chin-Hong explains that you don’t have to avoid eating all fruits and vegetables, especially if you live in a state where cases are low. 

However, if you live in a state where cases are high, including Michigan, New York, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Texas, there are some precautions you can take. 

In Michigan, Bagdasarian says, “if you are going to eat a salad or lettuce right now, the safest way to do that is to buy a whole head of lettuce to remove the outer layers and remove any damaged parts, and then of course washing.” Bagged lettuce is harder to wash again at home, while whole heads let you remove the outer leaves where contamination is more likely.

Additionally, she says that “if it’s something that can be peeled, you should peel it, [and] if it’s something that can be cooked, cooking is actually the best way to reduce your risk.”

Overall, the CDC says that to prevent cyclosporiasis, you should take the following precautions when it comes to fresh produce: 

• Wash your hands with soap and water before touching raw fruits and vegetables.
• Wash all fruits and vegetables before eating or cooking (However, keep in mind that washing fruits and vegetables can reduce dirt and some contaminants, but it may not completely remove cyclospora.) 
• Cut damaged areas of fruits and vegetables.
• Refrigerate cooked, cut, or peeled fruits and vegetables within two hours.

What are the differences between cyclosporiasis and other types of food poisoning (caused by bacteria like E. coli or salmonella)? 

The main difference, according to Chin-Hong, is that cyclosporiasis can last longer and a person can get better and then get symptoms again. However, similarly to other types of food poisoning, the frequent diarrhea can cause dehydration, which, he adds, can lead to people being hospitalized.

Another difference is that unlike other similar illnesses, cyclosporiasis symptoms don’t begin right away. Most people become sick about one week after eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water, though it can take anywhere from two days to about two weeks.

Who’s most at risk? 

Bagdasarian says that people who face a higher risk with cyclosporiasis include those who are immunocompromised and people who are at higher risk for dehydration, including very young children and older adults. 

She adds that “if you have people in your family, in your household who fall into any of those categories, it would be wise to be extra cautious about the food you’re eating, including when you go out to eat at a restaurant or a fast food chain.”

For more information, talk to your health care provider or local health department.

This story was produced and originally published by Public Good News, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to community health. It partners with trusted local voices throughout the U.S. to distribute accurate, accessible, and inclusive health news in English and Spanish.

Disclosure: The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is a partner of The Public Good Projects, the organization that owns Public Good News.

What to know about cyclosporiasis 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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Wisconsinites breathed record-breaking levels of air pollution Thursday as wildfire smoke from northern Minnesota and Canada wafted across much of the Great Lakes region and the Northeast. Many monitoring stations across the state recorded pollution considered hazardous for the first time in at least 16 years — the span covered by most monitoring stations’ records.

As of 8 a.m. on Friday, Air Quality Index, or AQI, levels in Madison had peaked above 450 — far above the AQI’s 301 threshold for “hazardous” air quality, where everyone — not just sensitive groups — should take precautions to avoid breathing dangerous air. 

Milwaukee’s AQI reached 644 earlier on Thursday — more than twice the hazardous threshold. Air quality deteriorated even further in northwestern Wisconsin, with the index reaching 967 along the Minnesota border earlier in the day. 

Many Wisconsin communities, including Milwaukee, Waukesha, Odanah and Appleton, were still observing AQI over the 301 threshold Friday morning.

The index categories typically run only from zero to 500.

Thursday’s pollution surpassed levels once considered unprecedented. Before Canadian wildfire smoke pushed the AQI to record highs across Wisconsin in July 2023, cities including Madison, Milwaukee and Waukesha had not recorded an AQI above 200 since at least 2010, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of historical AQI data.

But wildfire smoke has elevated air pollution in Wisconsin each summer since 2023. Major cities have periodically recorded higher AQI readings around July, though Thursday’s levels were the first to surpass those recorded in 2023.

“This is a hazardous air quality episode that we have not experienced before,” Craig Czarnecki, air management outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said in an email.

DataWatch: Wisconsin air pollution reaches record highs as wildfire smoke engulfs the state 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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On Milwaukee’s North Side, women 40 and up are coming together to jump double Dutch. Members say that beyond the ropes they are building a sisterhood, strengthening their health and becoming confident in aging.

40+ Double Dutch Club is a nonprofit founded in Chicago by Pamela Robinson in 2016 that uses double Dutch and other fitness activities to encourage wellness, sisterhood, mental health and more for women over 40.

“It amazes me how God can use something as simple as a plastic clothesline to connect women all over the world,” said Robinson, who is also the group’s CEO and board president. 

Robinson, 55, launched the organization after discussing the idea with her friend Catrina Dyer-Taylor. At the time she was battling depression. 

“My husband and I were about to get divorced, my oldest kids were grown and I just had my youngest one in the house,” Robinson said. “I needed to find a happy place.”

She promoted the meetup on social media, and many of her friends and community members came out to support her.

“I remember telling (Dyer-Taylor) that if no one came then we’d tie the ropes to a fence and jump together,” Robinson said. “However, we never had to do that because our friends came out.” 

Since being founded, the organization has expanded into hundreds of subclubs nationwide, including Milwaukee’s. 

“I knew that God wanted me to do something and it’s given me purpose and he has put me on a path where 40+ Double Dutch is a part of that,” said Angela Scott, captain and founder of Milwaukee’s double Dutch subclub.

Launching the Milwaukee subclub

Scott, 54, established the 40+ Double Dutch subclub in Milwaukee in 2024 after discovering the organization on Facebook. She took weekend trips to Chicago and sometimes Texas to participate with women of the club.

“The feeling I got from the ladies when I entered the gym was like I’ve known them all my life,” Scott said. 

As a breast cancer survivor, Scott said she was glad to have found something that brought her comfort that wasn’t a traditional gym space. 

“Double Dutching is a full body workout, and I don’t like the gym, but I knew I needed something to keep my body moving and to keep cancer out of my body,” Scott said.

Once officially joining 40+ Double Dutch, Scott talked to Robinson about bringing a subclub to Milwaukee.

“She said that they had been wanting one in Milwaukee, they just had no one that was interested and committed,” Scott said.

Milwaukee’s subclub now consists of 37 members. Among them is Scott’s mother, Shirley Tomlinson, 76, who is the first and oldest member.

“I feel like my family has grown here and that’s a very positive thing for a person my age,” Tomlinson said. “It helps keep me feeling young, and there’s a lot of support in it.”

Tomlinson said she joined the club after hearing about her daughter’s Chicago experience and watching the film “Beyond the Ropes: The 40+ Double Dutch Club Documentary.“

Though Tomlinson doesn’t jump double Dutch, she does other things for the subclub like record keeping, videography, planning birthday celebrations and more. 

“I do everything I can because I’m my daughter’s ride or die,” she said.

Reliving childhood memories

Scott said double Dutch gives her a joyous nostalgia from growing up, especially as she learned how to double Dutch from her aunt who was like a big sister.

“If you were a girl that jump-roped, then you know it takes you back to that space,” Scott said. 

When the Milwaukee subclub appears at local events like the Juneteenth parade, residents typically will jump in the ropes with smiles and recall memories as they walk down the streets.

“As you watch us grow, you can see God’s hand in it,” Tomlinson said.

The women of Milwaukee’s subclub meet from 6:30 to 8 p.m. every Wednesday at Abundant Faith Church of Integrity, 7830 W. Good Hope Road.

The meet typically begins with a stretch, then leads to open play that includes dances and songs to let them double Dutch, hula hoop or play a rhythmic game. 

One fitness activity recreated by 40+ Double Dutch is African Hopscotch, which includes members jumping to a song called “Double Dutch Bus” by Frankie Smith and sometimes holding pompoms. 

To end the session, members close with a double Dutch hymn followed by a circle of prayer. 

“We hold hands and then we sing the song,” Scott said. “Regardless of what meet you go to each one will have the same format.”

Building a strong sisterhood

Scott said the relationships being built at the club remind her of the organization’s mission. 

“Part of the mission is friendship, fitness, fun and fellowship,” she said. “All of those things resonate with me and in my spirit because it’s a sisterhood that’s based on God’s direction.”

When away from the ropes, members try to support each other in different ways.

“There are several of the ladies in our club that have businesses, and we’ll do anything to support them,” Scott said. 

For Tomlinson, who experienced a few health crises this year, it brought relief knowing that there was a sisterhood standing behind her.

“They reached out to me and let me know they were praying for me,” she said. “It’s like having a big family of daughters.”

Achieving long-term goals

Within the next few years, Scott hopes to see the subclub grow in membership and the women begin to intentionally take more time for themselves.

“I truly believe that a healthy and strong woman makes a healthy and strong world because we are the mothers of this world,” she said. “If the woman is not healthy mentally, physically or spiritually, then the world is not healthy.”

Another goal of hers is to visit with incarcerated women. 

“For whatever reason that they’re there, I just want to take them out of that space for just 30 to 40 minutes,” she said. 

Tomlinson said it amazes her to see her daughter lead, receive support from the community and promote health to other women. 

“It’s been wonderful watching her grow and watching how dedicated she is because that’s a big responsibility,” she said.

How to join 40+ Double Dutch Club

If you are a woman over 40 and interested in joining, click here to find a subclub near you and find details about weekly meetups.

Membership is $120 and includes a digital ID card, access to all nationwide subclubs, subclub support and more. 

Scott said the summer has been the busiest time for the organization and wants to remind women that you don’t have to jump to be a part of it. 

“People are starting to realize we’re in the city and we like it that way because the more women that know then the more that can be impacted by what we have to offer,” she said.

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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.

‘You can see God’s hand in it’: How Milwaukee women are building a double Dutch community through sisterhood and fitness 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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Wildfires in northern Minnesota and Canada have caused some of the worst air quality on record for Wisconsin. The entire state remains under an Air Quality Advisory for fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke until noon on Friday, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

As of 2 p.m. Thursday, most of the state’s air quality was in the “very unhealthy” or “hazardous” Air Quality category. That means that everyone, not just sensitive groups, should avoid outdoor activities, the DNR said.

In areas near Superior, the Air Quality Index rose above 800, while parts of eastern Wisconsin including Milwaukee and Kenosha measured above 650. National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Sheppard told Wisconsin Watch these levels are some of the worst on record. 

“What we’ve heard from some of our partners is that the Air Quality Index values that we’re seeing are definitely either never before seen or up there,” Sheppard said. “I’ve been working here for three years, and I’ve seen nothing anywhere near that high.” 

Index values in Wisconsin have exceeded the records set by wildfires in June 2023, DNR spokesperson Craig Czarnecki said in an email, noting that the figures “will still need to be quality assured.” At that time, levels peaked at 273, which means concentrations in Superior and the Milwaukee area have more than doubled. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends setting up a portable air cleaner or filter in a room that can be closed off from outside air and setting your air conditioner  to recirculate mode if possible or close the outdoor intake damper. 

Fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, is a main pollutant released from wildfire smoke that can enter the bloodstream. Dr. Joan Schiller, a member of Healthy Climate Wisconsin and retired medical oncologist, told WPR this can exacerbate lung conditions.

“I don’t think people realize how far away you can be from the fire itself and still have health problems,” Schiller said. “These health problems typically manifest themselves as respiratory problems, such as exacerbation of COPD or asthma or emphysema.” 

How can I check the air quality in my area?

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors the air around the country and compiles an air quality index, or AQI.

Here’s what to know about the index and how to keep tabs on your area, especially in U.S. regions dealing with smoke from Canadian wildfires.

What does the air quality index measure? 

The index rates how clean or polluted the air is each day. The EPA uses this measure to keep tabs on five kinds of air pollutants. The main concern from the wildfire smoke is fine particle pollution. These particles are tiny enough to get deep into the lungs. They can cause short-term problems like coughing and itchy eyes and, in the long run, can affect the lungs and heart.

What do the numbers and colors mean? 

The index categories typically only run from zero to 500 – although levels have reached well above 500 in multiple parts of the state. The higher the number, the worse the air quality. That range is broken down into six color-coded categories. Green or yellow — in the zero to 100 range — the air is pretty clear. Once it gets up to orange, the air quality could be a concern for sensitive groups like children, older adults or those with health conditions.

In the red and purple zones, the air quality is considered unhealthy for everyone.

And if the index gets to maroon — at 301 or above — pollution levels are hazardous.

At these high levels, take precautions to avoid breathing in the dangerous air. That can mean reducing your outdoor activities, running air purifiers inside and wearing a well-fitting mask like an N95 when you’re outside.

What’s the air quality right now? 

Check AirNow.gov, which updates every hour. The site shows a real-time map of the air quality across the country and also includes a forecast for the day ahead. The map pulls in measurements from a network of air monitoring stations across the country. States and cities may also offer more local guidance.

How long will smoke last in Wisconsin? 

According to Sheppard and the National Weather Service (NWS), a southerly wind on Friday means smoke is anticipated to retreat from west to east  – likely bringing an end to the advisory for much of the state. 

“With those southwest winds, the air is going to get kind of clearer and healthier in a southwest to northeast manner,” Sheppard said. “Areas further north and east in Wisconsin are going to be most likely to hang on to that smoke.” 

Areas along Lake Superior may also need to have the advisory extended, NWS said. But Sheppard said winds could bring back a second wave of smoke to the rest of the state as soon as Saturday. 

“The weather models tentatively are telling us that the second batch of smoke could be as strong, or perhaps even worse,” he said. 

The Associated Press contributed reporting, as did Hongyu Liu of Wisconsin Watch.

Wildfire smoke brings hazardous air quality in Wisconsin. Here’s how to stay safe 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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• Newcap was a leading provider of homeless services for 10 counties: Brown, Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Shawano, Forest, Langlade, Oneida and Vilas.
• The organization’s abrupt closure in March left counties scrambling to fill the gaps. 
• In Shawano County, for example, residents no longer have a year-round homeless shelter. 
• Furthermore, Newcap took the lead in three regional homeless coalitions, and its staff served in key roles, fulfilling responsibilities for Coordinated Entry, the point-in-time count and federal and state funding. 
• Newcap’s Brown County federal grants have been transferred to House of Hope and Foundations Health & Wellness.

It’s been more than three months since the anti-poverty nonprofit Newcap closed, laying off 90 employees and leaving more than 100 low-income households on the brink of homelessness. For Shawano County residents, that means losing their only year-round homeless shelter. 

At Safe Haven domestic abuse shelter in Shawano, Executive Director Mindy Lohff started getting dozens more crisis calls and observing more unsheltered people on the streets or in wooded areas.

“We’ve seen an increase in our shelter stays directly, we’ve seen an increase in the calls for looking for shelter,” Lohff said. “Unfortunately, if they aren’t actively fleeing domestic violence or sexual violence, they’re not eligible (to) stay here, and there’s nowhere for them to go in Shawano County.” 

It’s not just that Lohff has nowhere to direct unsheltered people in Shawano. Newcap was a leading provider of homeless services for 10 counties — including Brown, Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Shawano, Forest, Langlade, Oneida and Vilas. In 2025, Newcap had the capacity to provide nearly 250 beds across those counties, from emergency shelter to permanent housing. 

These mostly rural counties have been rocked by Newcap’s abrupt closure March 31, which came amid financial challenges and leadership changes. Former CEO Cheryl Detrick was placed on leave shortly before the nonprofit closed its doors and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, revealing that it owed nearly $4 million to creditors. 

The nonprofit’s closure reveals how the loss of a single agency can have a staggering effect, especially in rural areas where resources for the unhoused are already few and far between. As a federally designated regional leader — or Community Action Agency — Newcap held the keys to funding for many programs and can’t be easily replaced by a single organization. 

Working together on shelter solutions

Shawano Area Matthew 25 is a seasonal overnight homeless shelter open from Oct. 15 to May 15. Newcap’s closure means Shawano County residents no longer have a homeless shelter to turn to during warmer months. Newcap also led Shawano’s homeless coalition, meaning it controlled state funding for SAM25. Executive Director Kendra Brusewitz said she’s still waiting on $12,000 in funds. 

Over the summer, SAM25’s resource center is still open, providing food, showers, laundry and other assistance. 

“We just continue to see an increase in the numbers coming through our resource center,” Brusewitz said. “Not having a place to refer people, families to in the area during the summer months is challenging.”

Without Newcap, nonprofit leaders realized there was no longer a way for Shawano County residents to access Coordinated Entry – a prioritization list that matches people with housing resources throughout the state based on their eligibility. 

Safe Haven and SAM25 teamed up with Shawano Area United Way to form a coalition, educating local officials on housing needs and brainstorming solutions. Brusewitz and Lohff took charge of signing people up for Coordinated Entry. 

“We’ve actually had clients getting pulled for the housing assistance because they wanted to move to other counties, so that’s been great,” Lohff said. 

They’ve also applied for grants to fund a housing coordinator for Shawano County and collaborated with Bonduel middle and high schools to make hygiene kits. The coalition’s efforts aren’t funded, nor are they part of anyone’s job description. But Shawano community leaders feel it’s necessary.

“A lot of us have lived here, grown up here, and we’re so passionate about it, so some of (the work) may be slightly out of the scope, but it’s so important,” Lohff said.

Support for survivors

Newcap’s grants allowed victims of domestic violence in Shawano and neighboring counties to obtain permanent housing, which is vital since Safe Haven is an emergency shelter, Lohff said. So far, no agency has been identified to permanently take on the grant. 

“The financial assistance for them to be able to obtain the housing has vanished,” Lohff said. “Within the realm of domestic violence, so many of our clients experience financial abuse … and that’s one of the reasons why they don’t leave that abusive relationship, is because their abuser holds finances over their head.” 

Rainbow House, a domestic violence shelter serving Marinette and Oconto counties, was similarly left as one of the area’s only providers after Newcap closed. Executive Director Courtney Olson told Wisconsin Watch she’s received a “steady increase” in calls since then.

Like Safe Haven, Rainbow House cannot respond to general calls for housing. As it is, its waiting list for domestic violence clients continues to grow, which means ensuring their safety in other ways.

“In response to these long waits, we are working hard to keep survivors safe in their own homes whenever possible,” Olson wrote in an email. “That means offering more on the security side (cameras, cell phones, panic alarms, lock replacements, temporary restraining orders) and working with landlords to remove the person causing harm from a lease rather than displacing the survivor.”

A ‘long, slow road’

Regional Continuum of Care programs distribute federal funding for homeless shelters. Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties have their own CoCs, while the Balance of State CoC oversees the rest of Wisconsin through regional coalitions. 

Although based in Brown County, Newcap also served as the lead agency for the Wisconsin Balance of State’s Northeast Coalition — in Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto and Shawano counties — and the NWISH Coalition – made up of Forest, Langlade, Oneida, and Vilas counties. 

The loss of Newcap comes at a time when national funding for Continuum of Care programs is already uncertain. President Donald Trump’s proposed 2027 fiscal year budget would eliminate the Continuum of Care program, reducing all homeless assistance funding by $400 million. 

Meanwhile, the 2026 budget will require the Wisconsin Balance of State to compete with Continuum of Care programs nationwide for a greater portion of funding based on the Trump administration’s priorities. An estimated 1,287 people could lose their housing in Wisconsin, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. 

The Balance of State is acting as a temporary lead for the Northeast and NWISH coalitions, ensuring the “point-in-time” homeless count happens – an essential step to securing federal funding – and filling vacant board positions. 

Balance of State homeless systems manager Ryan Graham said they’re essentially starting from square one, and they won’t be able to replace Newcap easily. 

“Now, it’s about, ‘How do we rebuild some kind of homeless response in that area?’ because the agency that pretty much did all of that and provided the capacity to do it is no longer there,” Graham said. “They were the coalition lead, they were the point-in-time lead, they were the state funding lead.” 

Graham has been impressed by organizations like Safe Haven and SAM25 stepping up, but finding an organization qualified to take on Newcap’s responsibilities is still hard. 

“It’s going to be a long, slow road, “ Graham said. “Hopefully, it won’t be too slow, but we’re really starting from scratch in a lot of areas, especially in the Northeast and NWISH Coalition, as far as building a homeless response system.”

Federal grants transferred to Brown County nonprofits

Even in Brown County, where organizations do exist to take on Newcap’s clients, it’s still not that simple. 

When Newcap closed, the 134 households that depended on federally funded programs were immediately put at risk of homelessness. Public officials advocated to get four federal grants transferred to local organizations and waited nearly a month after Newcap’s closure to receive confirmation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

House of Hope in Green Bay will take on three of the four grants, but Director of Community Engagement Beth Hudak said it’s collaborating with multiple Brown County agencies to manage cases for Newcap’s former clients. 

“One of the biggest lessons we learned … is that when one agency holds all of the funding – does all of the work – when something happens, our community is devastated by it,” Hudak said. “What we really want to make sure we’re emphasizing in the future is having many, many more organizations involved in all of this work.” 

House of Hope’s primary mission is to serve homeless youth — not to provide permanent housing for adults, which some of the grants stipulate. But according to Hudak, HUD said House of Hope was the only agency qualified to take on the grants. 

“I don’t think we really had an option … HUD said that it was either us or the contracts would go to other parts of the state,” Hudak said.  

House of Hope will personally take over a $440,000 grant for youth rapid rehousing in Brown County. Through working with other agencies, it hopes to find subrecipients for a $1.1 million permanent supportive housing grant for individuals in Brown County. 

The third grant was specifically designated for supportive housing in rural northeast Wisconsin. Hudak said House of Hope is working closely with the Balance of State’s Northeast and NWISH coalitions even though they have yet to receive access to the grant funds.

Foundations Health & Wholeness, also based in Green Bay and primarily serving youth, will take on the fourth direct federal grant from Newcap, which provides nearly $300,000 for a youth mobile outreach program. 

Jackie Baumgart, director of Foundations Youth Services, said the grant fits into the work they’re already doing: engaging with homeless youth where they’re at since their access to transportation is often limited. 

“Why we were approached for this is because we do community-based services, and we don’t have specific offices where everybody works,” Baumgart said. “So our staff are out in the community … Our hope is to have a counselor go out and do a mental health check-in with young people that wouldn’t otherwise be able to access these services.” 

The organization will also take over Coordinated Entry for the NWISH and Northeast coalitions, filling another gap left by Newcap. Baumgart said her nonprofit plans to operate with more transparency and collaboration with other organizations. 

“My vision for what to do versus what has been done is to change it up a little bit and make it a more publicly known list for housing … I really want to make sure that we are teaching other organizations how to use it, when to use it, how to take people off of it, when to put people on, so that it’s not us doing all the work,” she said. 

Moving forward

In Green Bay, Newcap’s closure has made way for a unique new homeless shelter that takes in people who have been banned from other shelters in Brown County. Although controversial, Safe Haven Hope Center received a permit in May to use one of Newcap’s former buildings to shelter 19 individuals. 

Safe Haven technically rents the property from Newcap, which means Executive Director Cathi Oreto isn’t sure if it will be able to keep the property as Newcap liquidates its assets. But for now, she’s moving forward with a harm-reduction approach, offering a community-centered shelter with an extremely forgiving policy.

“We know that we’re going to have to ask people to leave, but when we ask them to leave, we’re going to ask them — and we have asked them — to leave for today and come back tomorrow,” Oreto said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the first time, 10th time, or one millionth time, our exit strategy is the same.” 

Meanwhile, a Brown County coalition is making sure the point-in-time count still happens on the night of July 22. Although Newcap led the point-in-time count for the past five years, Hudak said some Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition members have participated for decades. 

“I think we have it pretty well handled,” Hudak said. “One of the biggest issues that we’re coming across is just sort of a lack of data transfer, so some of the more in-depth information that Newcap had, we don’t necessarily have access to because of how quickly they closed.” 

In the future, Hudak said they’ll make sure the entire coalition has access to PIT documentation, instead of just one organization. It’s part of a broader effort to build interdependence between local anti-poverty nonprofits to minimize the impact of one closing. 

That network includes community members, too. Hudak said volunteers are always needed, and anyone who cares about homelessness can provide a fresh perspective. The NWISH and Northeast coalitions are also looking for members.

“All of our coalitions are always looking for more people to be in and support the work, and you don’t have to be a service provider to do that … Having outside perspectives is hugely, hugely important for making sure that we’re doing the best work that we can for the people that we serve,” she said.

‘There’s nowhere for them to go’: Newcap closure leaves northeast Wisconsin counties scrambling to prevent more homelessness 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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In early May, as I sat waiting for a connecting flight at O’Hare, I decided to finally do something that had been on my list for far too long: schedule a checkup.

It had been years since I’d seen a primary care doctor. I had a baby the year before, and with all the pregnancy appointments, I felt like I was getting enough checkups. But when I called my clinic, I learned that I’d been away long enough to be considered a new patient, and they didn’t have space for me. 

No problem, I thought. I looked up other primary care providers on my insurance company’s website and chose one more or less at random. I called to schedule an appointment.

The person who answered the phone warned me that the doctor was booking “quite far out.” I wasn’t shocked: I’ve heard that a shortage of primary care doctors is leading to long wait times. I waited to hear just how long it would be.

I don’t recall if the next available appointment was in August or October. I do recall that it was in 2027, more than a year away.

“Let’s try someone else,” I said. I scheduled an appointment with another doctor for August 2026, about three months out. 

What about you? How long have you had to wait to see a doctor recently, and how does that wait compare with years past? 

As a pathways to success reporter, I report on how workers get trained for the jobs Wisconsin needs most. I’m interested in the steps Wisconsin is taking to help more people become primary care providers, and whether those efforts are working. Drop me a note at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org or call or text me at ‪608-620-5610‬.

How long have you waited for a doctor’s appointment? 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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• Village programs like SAIL help older adults stay independent by connecting them with volunteers, social activities and trusted service providers.
• Members both give and receive help, creating a neighbor-to-neighbor support network that reduces isolation and helps people age in their own homes.
• Dane County’s SAIL is one of the nation’s oldest village organizations, and similar programs are expanding as communities look for new ways to support an aging population.

Lush greenery and bright flowers surround John Short’s longtime Madison home. But the 83-year-old is not the one with a green thumb. 

That belongs to a volunteer through Sharing Active Independent Lives (SAIL), who visits regularly to work in Short’s garden. It’s one benefit he receives as a member of  SAIL, a nonprofit-run network that helps older adults in Dane County find community and stay independent. 

While Short needs yardwork help, he can still drive. So he volunteers those skills, taking fellow members to appointments. Other members help with household chores while tech-savvy volunteers offer computer advice. One woman even volunteers by calling members on their birthdays. 

The network of older adults helped pioneer the village model, a national movement that encourages neighbors to support each other as they age in the communities they choose. Dane County members ages 55 and older pay sliding-scale dues to access volunteer services, social activities and a list of vetted service providers. 

SAIL launched in 2005 and is considered the country’s second-oldest village model. Now, there are 285 villages, including two others in Wisconsin, according to the Village to Village Network, which brings villages together to share best practices.

Short joined SAIL more than two years ago, becoming one of about 500 members. Aside from receiving help in his garden, he has used the village’s list of background-checked service providers to hire a handyman. 

Short didn’t mind handing off some of the home maintenance after taking care of it for nearly three decades. He’s filled his extra time by reading more books and playing more bridge. 

Members can also join regular social activities, including clubs for books and biking. Members ages 90 years and older get an additional perk: a special lunch twice each year. 

Short has yet to qualify for that invitation. He finds connection through chats during volunteer driving shifts. While he typically refrains from asking passengers their ages, he recalls that the first woman he drove was 102.

The rides, often to doctor’s appointments, have “been kind of fun,” he said.

Such joy from volunteering doesn’t surprise Christine Klotz, president of the village’s operating council. 

“You get more from SAIL when you give more,” she said. 

Klotz, 75, joined SAIL with her husband a decade ago, paying full membership dues for years despite not needing services beyond social connection.

“I just really believe in the model and believe in the concept of paying it forward,” Klotz said. “I want the organization to be strong when we need it.” 

Unlike other aging resources, members design and direct SAIL, Klotz said. “You’re joining a group of people who are committed to work together to help each other as we get older.”

Want to join a village?

Dane County residents can learn more about SAIL at sailtoday.org or by calling 608-230-4445. 

Northern Door County residents can learn more about Do Good Door County at dogooddoorcounty.org/sail or 920-333-1083.

Felician Village, a senior living community in Manitowoc, coordinates Felician Village at Home. To learn more, visit felicianvillage.org or call 920-684-7171, ext. 425.

What if you don’t live near a village? 

Check with your Aging and Disability Resource Center to learn about similar programs nearby, said Ann Albert, the executive director of AgeBetter, the nonprofit that runs SAIL. 

Places of worship, libraries and local organizations that are actively recruiting volunteers can offer similar social benefits and a sense of connection found in the village model, said Shannon Guzman, the director of housing and livable communities with AARP Public Policy Institute. 

Want to start a village? Contact the Village to Village Network for resources and guidance.

It takes a village: This Dane County community helped pioneer a national movement for aging together 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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