A Dane County supervisor says rising rents in her downtown Madison district have contributed to her decision to resign from her spot on the county board.
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The development in Wauwatosa is in response to high demand for housing, but the issue also has locals divided on how best to meet it.
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Wisconsin is experiencing a housing crunch, and the northwest area of the state is no exception.
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Local affiliates of Habitat for Humanity of Wisconsin will meet in Green Bay to continue addressing the state’s affordable housing crisis.
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A long-awaited home in north Madison will soon open its doors to young people aging out of foster care.
The post Madison nonprofit opens home for former foster kids appeared first on WPR.
Just before midnight, with a fresh layer of snow sticking to the ground, volunteers Sandy Hahn and Britanie Peaslee slowly drive through Jefferson County’s local parking lots, gas stations, truck stops, parks, trails and laundromats, keeping their eyes peeled.
They’re grateful for the snowfall, which makes it easier to see footprints, fogged windows and occupied vehicles. They have a long night ahead of them, and being in a rural area makes their job — finding those without shelter — even more challenging.
“It’s a little bit easier when it is colder because you can see, OK this windshield is frosted from the inside, somebody’s been breathing in there for quite a while,” Peaslee said.
In Johnson Creek, they find most of the homeless living in cars parked behind the Pine Cone Travel Plaza — a local restaurant, gas station and truck stop. The duo carefully approach each vehicle — one with a sleeping child in the back — with blankets and a four-page questionnaire.
But that’s assuming the unhoused are willing to engage with the strangers at all, let alone at 3 a.m. while it’s 7 degrees and snowing outside.
Jan. 22 marked Hahn and Peaslee’s fifth time participating in the annual “point in time” (PIT) count — a one-night snapshot of the number of people experiencing homelessness across the United States, including Wisconsin. The pair were among the eight volunteers conducting the counts in Jefferson County, a number Hahn considered to be low. Being in a small, rural area, they struggle to recruit volunteers.
This one-night snapshot — first conducted in 2005 — is the only required count of all people experiencing homelessness each year in the United States. The volunteers must follow strict guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Peaslee said locating people is the biggest challenge in rural areas. Many are sleeping in abandoned buildings or other private property they can’t access. The volunteers do their best not to miss anyone, while also keeping their own safety in mind.
“Depending on how treacherous it is outside, sometimes we’ll go into the woods,” Hahn said.
In addition to gas station parking lots, they’ve seen several third-shift workers parked at local factories who are living in their cars.
Each January count isn’t released until December, even though lawmakers will soon set housing and emergency shelter funding for the next two years in the upcoming state budget.
Last year there was an 18% increase in the homeless count nationwide based on the count taken in January 2024. In rural Wisconsin the increase was 9%. In Jefferson County the volunteers recorded three homeless people a year ago. This year the final tally was 13 — a number that likely still doesn’t come close to capturing the true population.
HUD determines that the yearly PIT count must be conducted on the same night in January in every state across the country. Each Continuum of Care — regional organizations operating under HUD that carry out the counts — may conduct a July count in addition to the mandated one in January.
“They want us to go out in the middle of the night because they feel that’s when people would be sleeping, and they would be hunkered down in their standard spots,” said Diane Sennholz, who leads the count in Lincoln, Marathon and Wood counties. “If we were to go out during the day, they might be at the library or the grocery store or walking around.”
Wisconsin’s Balance of State CoC, which covers all 69 counties in Wisconsin besides Milwaukee, Dane and Racine, requires each county in its jurisdiction to carry out a summer count. Others, like Dane County, typically conduct only the required January count.
Frigid temperatures tend to drive more people into emergency homeless shelters, making the count easier. That model might work in cities, but in rural areas like Jefferson County, there are no homeless shelters.
Out of necessity, those experiencing homelessness in a county with no shelters will do everything they can to stay on a friend’s couch or find somewhere warm, making them harder to find and impossible to include in the count. Those temporarily staying with a friend or family member don’t count.
Jefferson County’s summer PIT count has increased each year since 2021 — a trend that can be seen statewide. In 2022, the county’s January count was zero compared to seven recorded in the summer count.
“We definitely don’t find as many in January as we would in summer,” Hahn said. “People are more willing to open up their barns, their garages, their extra bedroom, especially on weeks like this when it’s negative 40.”
Peaslee and Hahn, who are both involved in the community’s poverty-fighting coalition, know the problem is worse than what the count portrays.
“We’re not finding an eighth of how many are truly out there,” Peaslee said.
On the night of the count, Hahn and Peaslee headed to a truck stop in Johnson Creek where people are known to sleep in their cars. The vehicles were lined up on the farthest end of the lot. One person refused to roll down the window and speak to them.
It happens often, but Peaslee and Hahn can’t blame them. After all, it’s the middle of the night, and they are two strangers who come bearing a four-page survey. HUD requires the volunteers to gather as much information about the individual as possible.
The pair spoke to someone in another car who knew the individual and confirmed they were unhoused, leading Hahn to fill out an observation form. Volunteers have seven days following the count to attempt to make contact with those individuals again to confirm whether they were homeless on the night of the count. Without that confirmation, they can’t be counted.
The following week, Hahn had no luck tracking down the individual. The person was placed on an observation sheet, but not included in the official count.
Volunteers are not allowed to assume that someone is “literally homeless” in accordance with HUD definitions. But Hahn noted that the car was running in the middle of the night for warmth and there were blankets covering the windows for privacy. Unhoused people who could otherwise be counted are being missed in these instances.
“If somebody has all these personal belongings in their car, you can kind of tell at that point that they’re experiencing homelessness,” said Lyric Glynn, who leads the count in Kewaunee, Door, Manitowoc and Sheboygan counties. “But we can’t count them all the time because they’re sleeping and we haven’t been able to do a survey with them.”
This year, two individuals in Jefferson County ended up on the observation form instead of being recorded in the official count. In July, that number was 10.
The day after the count, Hahn makes calls to determine how many hotel vouchers were distributed that night. Those who are unhoused and temporarily staying in a hotel are counted in the count, but only if they’ve received a voucher for their stay. HUD specifies that if they’re paying for the room themselves, or if someone else is paying for them, they cannot be included, excluding even more of the population from the count.
In Jefferson County, Hahn said those motel vouchers are hard to come by due to minimal funding. People in hotels often pay through other means.
“There are so many barriers,” Peaslee said.
While federal funding for housing and shelter programs isn’t directly tied to the results of the count, it is used in determining a community’s level of need, according to Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The federal McKinney-Vento Act also requires HUD to determine whether a community is reducing homelessness, and the count is one of multiple criteria scored in the evaluation.
Despite its flaws, Wisconsin’s PIT count shows that statewide homelessness has been increasing. In the “balance” of the state, the mostly rural homeless population increased from 2,938 individuals in 2023 to 3,201 in 2024, the highest number recorded since 2017.
In 2020, a federal moratorium established a temporary pause on evictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the federal government lifted that measure in August 2021.
Glynn said she has concerns about lawmakers, agencies and other officials relying on more than year-old PIT count data.
“When they’re using outdated numbers from years ago, especially early pandemic numbers, they’re not gauging what happened after the pandemic when the eviction moratorium ended and when individuals started getting evicted from units,” Glynn said.
The delayed release of these yearly counts is also a problem when applying for local grants, Glynn said. Application reviewers often look at counts from the previous year. The CoCs have the most recent totals, which sometimes don’t match HUD’s latest figures.
In a state budget year, it would help if officials could have earlier access to the latest counts, Glynn said.
In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Legislature rejected Gov. Tony Evers’ recommendations to spend some $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.
The Legislature also rejected the $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez joined a group of volunteers in western Wisconsin on the night of the count this year, where she expressed concerns about rising housing costs and emergency shelter services. She said Evers’ budget “is going to have those types of investments.”
Evers is set to announce his 2025-27 state budget proposal on Feb. 18.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that municipalities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping in public places. Oliva predicts this ruling will impact the count results this year.
“I wonder what will happen in places that have been ticketing and fining people. Those people are going to hide,” Oliva told Wisconsin Watch. “Why would you want to be found, especially if you know that it’s possible that you’ll get ticketed or put in jail for being homeless?”
Volunteers like Peaslee and Hahn, who work with the homeless population in their community, still see value in conducting the count. For them, it is an opportunity for outreach and allows them to offer resources to those with whom they haven’t previously made contact. They remind people they are more than a number.
“Yes, you need the gritty details to report to HUD, but really making them feel like they are human and that their story matters,” Peaslee said. “And we’re not just putting down a data point to have a data point. We want to know, how can we help you?”
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Tents in the Street Angels warming room in 2021. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
In Milwaukee, during a spate of freezing winter weather earlier this month, cold-challenged frontline organizations are providing crucial services to hundreds of residents, many of whom are unhoused. Night to night, week to week, the level of need some advocates and outreach groups have witnessed is staggering.
Eric Collins-Dyke, deputy administrator for Milwaukee County Housing Services, said that since early December, the housing division’s outreach teams have encountered between 75 and 100 people on a regular basis. Last Monday, a day center was opened inside the Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Center, which serves over 100 people daily. While Collins-Dyke said he was happy to see the center serving so many people, he also saw it as a sign of how many people are in need. The most recent data showed that the county’s warming rooms “had seen 800 unique individuals” since opening in late November, he said.
Pastor James West, executive director of Repairers of the Breach in Milwaukee, also said that the group’s resource center sees up to 140 people each day. “Nothing less than 100,” West told Wisconsin Examiner. Repairers of the Breach provides food, private showers, employment assistance, free health care, telephones, and other services every day except Sunday. Since late November, West’s staff have been on “double duty,” he said. Dozens of people are showing up at night, in addition to those who arrive during the day. Recently, when temperatures across the state dropped below freezing, Repairers of the Breach was open for a 44-hour stint – including on Sunday – due to the cold. Over those days, West saw many people including the elderly, wielding canes or walkers, and struggling with mental illness come in.
While Milwaukee’s unhoused population is made up of a diverse group of people from many backgrounds, a growing number are elderly. “I think of the 800 unique individuals, 248 were over 60 [years old] off the top of my head,” said Collins-Dyke. “That’s an increase that we’ve seen. So unfortunately we’re seeing individuals who are older experiencing unsheltered homelessness.” It’s something that the county is “trying to wrap our arms around,” Collins-Dyke explained, with plans for a new grant focusing on elderly unhoused people in the works.
From Nov. 27 to Dec. 13, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office documented five deaths due to hypothermia. All of the individuals – four male and one female – ranged from 56 to 82 years old. Three of them were logged as “homeless” and were found in the cities of Milwaukee and Oak Creek.
According to Medical Examiner records the oldest victim, 82-year-old Michael Kies, was found dead in November after Meals on Wheels, which provides meals to 2.2 million seniors nationwide, and Kies’ loved ones asked police to conduct a welfare check. Kies was found in his bedroom.
In early December, the Oak Creek Fire Department reported the death of Jehovah Holy Spirit Jesus, 60, who was found seated in a chair behind trash dumpsters outside the business Eder Flag. Jesus “appeared dressed for the weather and was not visible from the roadway,” medical examiner records state. Surveillance footage reportedly captured Jesus walking in a nearby field on Nov. 28. By the time staff returned to work on Dec. 2, Jesus – believed to be unhoused and struggling with mental illness – was found cold and unresponsive behind the business.
Three more elderly residents died from Dec. 11-13, including two unhoused Milwaukeeans who died on the same day. One of them, 64-year-old Carolyn Lovett, was taken to the Aurora Sinai Medical Center by firefighters for hypothermic cardiac arrest. She’d been found unresponsive in a roadway, medical examiner records state. Although friends of Lovett arrived at the hospital later, including a cousin who said that they lived together, records list her as homeless.
That same day, firefighters also found 60-year-old Richard Montgomery in a vacant, fire-damaged house on Milwaukee’s North Side. Montgomery’s family had contacted city departments for a welfare check on Montgomery. One of his neighbors – who believed Montgomery struggled with schizophrenia – had also requested a welfare check. The house was owned by Montgomery’s parents, who’d been deceased for many years, reports state. Although multiple fires had left the home uninhabitable, Montgomery continued living there, according to records.
In the third and fourth weeks of January, arctic cold whipped Wisconsin with 30-35 below zero wind chills. Residents in southern Wisconsin were warned that just 15 minutes of bare skin exposure to the cold could cause frostbite. By the end of January, three more people (ranging from 40-69 years old) had possibly succumbed to the cold. WISN reported that on Jan. 12, a 64-year-old man was found under a bridge. The next day, a 69-year-old man was found in a vehicle that was being used as shelter. Two days later on Jan. 15, a 40-year-old man was found on a heating mechanism near railroad tracks.
The recent deaths spanned from the south of Milwaukee to the north. Although Repairers of the Breach is based in Milwaukee’s King Park neighborhood, the group sees people from as far away as Waukesha and Germantown.
King Park has become a focal point for housing issues in Milwaukee over the years. In 2021, people expressed concerns about a growing tent community made up of dozens of people in the park. Although county officials have worked to find housing and services for those living in King Park, the area has never been entirely free of unhoused people looking for space and privacy.
Last summer, King Park’s unhoused population again began to rise as the Republican National Convention approached. During the convention, out-of-state police officers from Columbus Ohio killed Sam Sharpe, a man who’d been living in the park. Sharpe was known to housing outreach groups like Street Angels, who said after his death that they serve up to 300 unhoused residents a night. Whereas some find quiet spots off to themselves, others group together in encampments, or stick together in nomadic caravans of half-working vehicles.
While county and advocate groups work to get unhoused people supplies and shelter, many living on the street also display a unique kind of resilience. Collins-Dyke told Wisconsin Examiner that “seeing sort of the resilience and the ingenuity of a lot of the people that we serve on the street is pretty incredible, to be able to survive.”
Nevertheless, county teams always encourage even the hardest of folks to come with them and come to a warming site. Collins-Dyke also noted that the county is working with landlords to get people housed more quickly. The county’s housing navigation and outreach teams, Collins-Dyke explained, are currently working to assess people visiting warming sites to get them into housing.
In December 2024, Milwaukee County received federal funding for housing support and other services for elderly residents, and those transitioning out of the Community Reintegration Center (formerly known as the House of Corrections). “Housing is a matter of public health, and housing security is a critical social determinant of health,” County Executive Crowley said at a press conference announcing the funds.
“Our shared vision for Milwaukee County includes expanding equitable access to safe, quality and affordable housing and supportive services for those in need,” Crowley added. “By supporting our aging population and investing in reentry housing services for those seeking a second chance, we are working to improve outcomes for some of our most vulnerable residents and build a stronger Milwaukee County for all.”
“Housing is a key social determinant of health. We want to ensure that older adults and people reentering their communities from the CRC have access to safe and affordable housing,” said Shakita LaGrant-McClain, Executive Director of the Department of Health and Human Services. “Through these efforts, we are working to empower vulnerable residents to lead full lives.”
Orders by the Trump administration, however, have thrown the grant and other funds into uncertain territory. A two page memo from the Office of Management and Budget announced the sudden freeze of federal program funds to state and local governments. Wisconsin joined other states and the District of Columbia in filing a lawsuit to stop funding from being cut off to local and state governments, and af ederal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration must wait at least a week before pausing funds. On Wednesday, the administration rescinded the memo.
Before the memo was rescinded a Milwaukee County spokesperson said in an email statement to Wisconsin Examiner that County Executive David Crowley “remains concerned” about the memo “and the potential impacts to not only County projects and services, but the overall health and safety of Milwaukee County residents, families, and children who rely on federally-funded programs and services.”
Numerous Milwaukee County departments rely on federal funding including human services and transportation services. “We will continue engaging with local, state, and federal leaders on this evolving matter,” said the spokesperson.
Pastor West also stressed collaboration between the county government and community groups. Beyond receiving government funds, West wonders “why not outsource it to us…Let us service the people in the way that we know how to service that’s been successful.” That would allow different community organizations working on the frontlines of the housing issue to learn from each other, he said. “I will say in the last five years, there’s been more of that,” said West of support from the city and county. “And it’s working.”
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Green Bay Correctional Institution | Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner
A consulting and management firm will begin on-site visits to Wisconsin prisons next week, the next step in a third-party review of the state’s prison system.
Falcon Correctional and Community Services, Inc. “exists to elevate mental health services in jails and prisons” for incarcerated Americans with mental illness, according to the firm’s website. Amidst concerns over the conditions of confinement in state facilities, Falcon is studying some aspects of life inside Wisconsin prisons to find areas for improvement.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections recognized the value of a third party reviewing policies and procedures and providing recommendations for improvement, DOC Secretary Jared Hoy said in a July 9 letter to lawmakers on Wisconsin’s 2023 Assembly Committee on Corrections.
On the same day, prison reform advocates spoke in front of the committee, giving testimony about solitary confinement and other issues. The Department of Corrections has received scrutiny after deaths of incarcerated people and criminal charges against staff at Waupun Correctional Institution.
“This is just one step of many that we at the department are taking to make improvements at our facilities to help keep staff safe and improve the conditions for those in our care,” Hoy said of the review in the letter.
Falcon teams have been deployed to review restrictive housing practices in at least four states, according to the firm’s proposal: Washington, Connecticut, Louisiana and Massachusetts.
Bringing in Falcon is an acknowledgement of serious problems in the department, said Mark Rice, the transformational justice campaign coordinator at the nonprofit WISDOM. Rice hopes the study will lead to change, but he also thinks the department should make improvements based on information that is already available.
“Solitary confinement is being used far too frequently,” Rice said. “People have been dying. People have not been able to get access to medications that they need in some situations. People have not had adequate health care during emergency situations. And so certainly [there have] been several deaths that were preventable.”
In November, the DOC and Falcon signed a contract. The Examiner received the contract and accompanying documents through public records requests to the DOC.
The partnership includes a comprehensive study of the Division of Adult Institutions’ health care program, behavioral health program, correctional practices and restrictive housing practices.
The study was projected to take six months, the documents say, with a cost of about half a million dollars.
Currently, the Falcon team is on the fourth stage of the study, according to Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the Department of Corrections. This involves beginning group workshops, according to the contract documents.
The fifth stage is titled “Onsite Visits and Facility Studies,” and it is scheduled for weeks eight through ten of the partnership. The Falcon team will begin on-site visits next week, Hardtke said.
Some priorities listed in the plan focus directly on incarcerated people. These include timely emergency treatment, access to and administration of necessary medication, psychiatric services and access to recreation.
Other priorities are focused on employees. These include facility leadership culture, staff wellness and safety and behavioral health and health care staffing.
The second part of the partnership is labeled as optional. It involves technical assistance for implementing the study recommendations and includes Falcon measuring the impact of the changes after 30, 90 and 180 days.
Hardtke said the DOC plans to release recommendations from Falcon after the project concludes.
One section of the proposal covers six areas of focus for Falcon’s experts. It tasks Falcon’s experts with conducting analyses related to training, recruitment, culture and retention of staff, as well as restrictive housing and initiatives aiming to reform it.
One of the other areas of focus is a report with “actionable recommendations and a roadmap for addressing behavioral health, health care and correctional practices, including restrictive housing, and their impact on [incarcerated people] and staff.”
The report should include a timeline for execution and proposed ways to evaluate and adjust the implementation of the recommendations, the section says.
WIDOC_Falcon_Scope_Proposal_8.22.24In a section about restrictive housing, the proposal says the DOC is “engaged in an agency-wide culture change” to more rehabilitative practices. Restrictive housing includes disciplinary separation — when an incarcerated person has committed a violation. It also includes instances when staff remove an incarcerated person from the general population for reasons such as their own safety.
The state limits when incarcerated people in disciplinary separation can leave their cells. They may do so “as needed for urgent medical or psychological attention, showers, visits, recreation and emergencies endangering their safety in the cell or other reasons as authorized by the warden.”
For November 2024, 3.4% of incarcerated people tracked were in disciplinary separation, according to the DOC.
Also for November, the average sentence to disciplinary separation was 37.4 days, while the average time spent there was 23.6 days. The average time spent in disciplinary separation declined overall from January to November..
The most common reasons for disciplinary separation are disobeying orders, disruptive conduct, disrespect, threats and assault, according to DOC data from November 2019 to November 2024.
Advocates have called for reform of solitary confinement in Wisconsin, which can be defined as confining a prisoner for 22 or more hours a day without meaningful human contact. In 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture said indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days should be prohibited, citing the mental damage caused by social isolation.
The Falcon team hopes “to reduce reliance on restrictive housing as a tool.” The group’s analysis will cover prevention of restrictive housing when possible and alternatives and modifications to restrictive housing time. It will also focus on the return of incarcerated people to other housing after leaving restrictive housing.
To substantially decrease reliance on restrictive housing, “the scope of systemic change must reach far beyond the restrictive housing areas,” the proposal says.
When the Examiner shared the contract documents with WISDOM’s Mark Rice, the focus on solitary confinement reform drew his attention. He hopes the publication of a report will lead to the end of long-term solitary confinement in Wisconsin.
“We’ve really been leading the charge on that issue for over a decade, and have seen not a huge amount of progress, not the progress that we want to see,” Rice said.
Susan Franzen told the Examiner that she’s encouraged by the focus on behavioral health and restrictive housing. Franzen is the director of operations for Ladies of SCI, another prison reform advocacy group. She said she’d like to see incarcerated people have the opportunity to share what it’s like trying to get mental health care in prison.
“They mention that they’re going to partner with all relevant stakeholders [for the study],” Franzen said. “But there is no mention of speaking to or engaging with inmates or their family members.”
Falcon experts will gather information through staff interviews, workshops, site visits and existing documents, forms and data, according to the proposal document. The Falcon Method of analysis “relies heavily” on interpreting quantifiable data instead of using “only subjective testimonies,” the proposal states.
“DOC values input from friends and family and while they won’t be engaging directly with Falcon consultants the department is certainly considering their viewpoints as leadership makes decisions on this project,” Hardtke said.
The consultants will continue to interact with “a wide variety of staff” throughout the DOC and during the site visits, she said.
Franzen pointed to unfilled positions for DOC psychological services, where the agency has a vacancy rate of 21.6%. She hopes the Falcon partnership will benefit incarcerated people who need psychological services.
In October, the Examiner reported on the Falcon partnership and the idea of creating an independent ombudsman to increase oversight of the prison system. Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), chair of the 2025 Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, and Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac), vice chair of the 2025 Assembly Committee on Corrections, weighed in.
Rice doesn’t see the Falcon partnership as a substitute for independent oversight, but he thinks “lives can be saved” if it leads to improvements in the prison system.
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Last winter, Eric Zieroth dressed in as many layers as he could and stayed beneath a down blanket each night. He learned it was the best way to keep warm while living in his car in far northwestern Wisconsin.
During those cold months, he and his then-20-year-old daughter Christina Hubbell had to wake, start the vehicle and blast the heat a few times a night before shutting it off again.
For over a year, the pair regularly parked their PT Cruiser — a car older than Hubbell that Zieroth, 47, called “a shoebox on wheels” — in a corner spot at a public boat landing on Long Lake. The lot is less than a mile from the rural city of Shell Lake, with a population of less than 1,400.
Down a dirt road and tucked into the woods, they slept at the secluded launch to stay out of the way in the town where they spent most of their lives. Now, because they are homeless, they have been ostracized for showering, parking and sleeping in public places.
Washburn County has no homeless shelters, and they don’t have family to stay with. Hubbell’s mom and Zieroth divorced in 2022. The following year, when Hubbell was 19, her mom told her to start paying rent or leave.
Hubbell’s job at a Dollar General in Shell Lake — their only source of income — keeps them from relocating to a shelter in another county. They are on a waitlist for a low-income housing unit.
Zieroth is awaiting a surgery that will allow him to get back to work. With no way to heal or keep the wound clean, he said he couldn’t get the operation while living in his car. If it weren’t for his daughter, the former mechanic said he might have considered committing a crime and getting booked into jail instead of spending another winter in the vehicle.
“There’s no way I could do it again,” Zieroth said. “I had to figure out something else this year.”
In rural Wisconsin, homelessness is often hidden behind a veil of individuals and families who are couch surfing and sleeping in their vehicles instead of sleeping on city streets or camping out in parks. Resources are few and far between, shelters are always full, and funding can be a significant challenge at the local, state and federal level.
After falling for years, the state’s estimated homeless population has been rising since 2021. This past year it rose again from 4,861 in 2023 to 5,037. In the “balance” of the state — all 69 counties outside Milwaukee, Racine and Dane — the homeless population increased from 2,938 individuals in 2023 to 3,201 in 2024, according to data Wisconsin Watch obtained from the region’s continuum of care organization, which conducts homeless counts each year.
Despite accounting for over 60% of the state’s homeless population in 2023, these mostly rural counties collectively contain just 23% of the state’s supportive housing units — long-term housing models with on-site supportive services, which experts say is the best way to address chronic homelessness. But providing long-term housing and services on top of shelter is an expensive, labor-intensive task for small, rural providers with limited funding.
According to the Department of Public Instruction’s latest data, 18,455 students experienced homelessness during the 2022-23 school year — a number that has increased each year since 2020. Some 11,000 of these students reside in districts outside of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Green Bay.
The annual data collected on homelessness are an undercount, especially in rural areas, said Mary Frances Kenion, vice president of training and technical assistance at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. That means less funding for already disadvantaged smaller communities.
“Where there’s more concentration of people, that’s always going to drive funding, because we have block grant funding that is directly tied to the census,” Kenion told Wisconsin Watch.
Despite rural communities having fewer nonprofits than urban ones, shelters and housing assistance programs are leading the way to address the expanse of homelessness in rural Wisconsin.
“Funding and access to resources is a challenge … but there are some really bright spots in rural communities, because they are doing more with less,” Kenion said. “We’re seeing a ton of innovation and resilience just by virtue of them being positioned to do more with less.”
But shelter directors and anti-poverty advocates face many hurdles when it comes to funding, resources and support.
Rural shelter providers across the state identified several solutions to the problem: Cutting out county governments as the middleman for state reimbursements, increasing the availability of new rental units, consolidating multiple definitions of homelessness, more consistent and proportional state funding, and assistance with case management are just a few.
The annual “point-in-time” (PIT) homeless counts are collected by continuum of care organizations across the country on a single night during the last week of January. Wisconsin has four designated organizations with three covering Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties and one for the other 69 counties.
The counts are submitted to Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for consideration and funding determinations. They are meant to include those living in temporary shelters, as well as unsheltered people living on the street, but do not include people in other sheltered situations. Those living in cars are often missed.
“They’re typically either in their car or they’re on somebody’s couch,” said Jenny Fasula, executive director of Wisconsin’s Foundation for Rural Housing. “People on the couches don’t count in your PIT counts because they’re ‘housed.’ People in cars in rural areas — I don’t even know where you’d find them, except maybe a Walmart parking lot.”
Since 2009, HUD — the main federal agency that handles homelessness — has targeted permanent supportive housing programs with long-term, sustainable services like case management for federal funding. The national shift from temporary housing programs reflects a widely adopted “housing first” approach — that the security of a permanent shelter is the first, necessary step before people can address the root causes of their homelessness.
“Temporary housing programs shifted their gears towards that other type of service so they could continue to operate and get funding to operate,” Wisconsin Policy Forum researcher Donald Cramer told Wisconsin Watch.
While permanent housing programs effectively lowered Wisconsin’s homeless population in both rural and urban areas before the pandemic, the shift hasn’t been easy for rural shelters that are strapped for cash and resources.
“As a shelter, when you have 50 people, it’s impossible to have the funding to hire case managers that are really involved and able to really assist people,” said Michael Hall, a former Waupaca County shelter worker and director of Impact Wisconsin — a nonprofit providing housing and recovery services in a six-county rural region.
“We’re small,” said Adam Schnabel, vice president of a homeless shelter in Taylor County, adding that without more staff, the shelter can’t have someone in charge of post-departure case management to make sure people stay in housing.
“We’re trying to find volunteer case managers,” said Kimberly Fitzgerald, interim director of the Rusk County Lighthouse shelter. “People to volunteer their time, to work for free, to do case management. Good luck with that.”
Restrictions on federal funding and multiple definitions of homelessness are another barrier for rural homeless providers, said Millie Rounsville, CEO of Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency.
The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act defines homelessness specifically for youth as minor children who “lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.” But HUD defines homelessness in multiple categories: 1) an individual or family who is immediately homeless and without shelter and 2) those at imminent risk of homelessness. Consolidating these definitions is key, according to Rounsville.
Homeless children and families in the rural region surrounding Superior tend to be doubled up in some kind of housing, Rounsville said. While they often meet the McKinney-Vento definition of homeless, they are considered category two homeless under HUD’s definitions.
But in order to qualify for HUD-funded Rapid Rehousing programs, individuals must fall under category one.
“The funding needs to be flexible,” Rounsville said. “We can’t assume that every community across the country has the same need.”
To provide permanent supportive housing and receive funding, shelters and nonprofits also have to serve and document chronically homeless populations. According to HUD, that means a member of the household has to have a documented disability. Providers like Rounsville are additionally required to provide third-party verification that someone has been category one homeless for a year or more.
“If you were in a larger city where you have a lot of shelters or street outreach, that third-party verification would be a lot easier than when you’re in a rural community,” Rounsville said.
Rural Wisconsin is lacking affordable, habitable homes.
“When you layer the limited footprint of service providers in a rural community, packed with a housing supply that is already insufficient and continuing to shrink, that creates a perfect storm for rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness,” Kenion said.
Providers in Rusk County, Taylor County, Bayfield County and Waupaca County said that without low-income options and available rental units, they often can’t get people into permanent housing.
“As fast as units open up, they get filled,” Fitzgerald said. “In Ladysmith specifically, there are next to no rental units. So even if somebody did get approved for the housing program, where are we going to put them?”
Among affordability and shortage issues, rural areas are also home to the state’s aging housing stock.
“The housing stock is very old,” Fasula said. “So now you have higher energy bills. And the rent may be lower, but your energy bill is twice as much.”
Her work at the Foundation for Rural Housing provides one-time emergency rental assistance to prevent evictions and homelessness across the state.
“People stereotype them to think ‘Oh, we have these programs because people don’t know how to manage their money.’ It’s not that,” Fasula said. “These are folks that come in that just have a crisis. … They don’t have anything to fall back on. Any little hiccup is a big impact for them financially.”
The foundation is partially funded by the state’s critical assistance grant program, which is awarded to just one eligible agency in Wisconsin. Fasula said the foundation still relies on many private funding sources.
While working to eventually afford an apartment in Shell Lake, Hubbell is making $13.50 an hour at the Dollar General, but only scheduled to work 20 hours a week. The living wage calculation for one adult in Washburn County is $19.45 an hour working 40 hours a week, according to the MIT living wage calculator.
“Homelessness is a housing issue. It’s a symptom of an economy and policies that aren’t working,” Kenion said. “Yes, housing costs tend to be lower in rural communities, but so do wages.”
In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ recommendations to spend some $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.
The Legislature also nixed $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.
The state funds two main grants for homeless shelters and housing annually. The State Shelter Subsidy Grant (SSSG) receives around $1.6 million per year, and the Housing Assistance Program receives $900,000.
But for small shelters like Taylor House — the only homeless shelter in rural Taylor County — Schnabel says the funding is “pennies.” The facility has a continuous waitlist.
“We are a lost people up north, here in the rural areas,” Schnabel said. “I feel like there’s so much focus and so many monetary resources provided to Dane and Milwaukee counties.”
The north central Wisconsin shelter with a 17-person capacity received $10,000 from SSSG this year, Schnabel said. That’s around $588 per person. But four emergency shelters in Milwaukee with a combined capacity of around 392 received $400,000 from the $1.6 million grant total — $1,020 per person.
“It’s not just local individuals we’re serving,” Schnabel said. “We’re serving individuals from Milwaukee County, Dane County, Fox River Valley, Chippewa. They’re coming from all over because those homeless shelters are either at capacity or their waitlist is too long.”
The state’s Recovery Voucher Grant Program awarded $760,000 to grantees in 2024 to provide housing to those experiencing homelessness and struggling with opioid use disorders. Half of these funds went to three providers in Dane, Milwaukee and Waukesha counties.
Another state resource is the Homeless Case Management Services (HCMS) grant program, which distributes up to 10 $50,000 grants per year to shelters and programs that meet eligibility requirements.
Shelter directors like Fitzgerald said the state’s reliance on grant funding to address homelessness and housing needs isn’t sustainable for small providers. While helpful, these pots of money quickly run out, and many of them don’t cover operating costs or wages.
“A lot of these funding sources, it’s like a first come first serve basis, so there isn’t money necessarily allocated to cover our expenses,” Fitzgerald said. “When the funding runs out, we’re SOL.”
The Lighthouse is the only homeless shelter in Rusk County. Many surrounding shelters are also full, and some counties don’t have shelters at all, leaving people with limited options.
“As fast as we empty out, we fill up. So it’s kind of a revolving door,” Fitzgerald said. “Our first priority is to serve Rusk County residents, but we’re in the business of helping, so I don’t turn people away.”
Some shelter workers and advocates say in rural Wisconsin, homelessness is addressed only to the extent that their local governments and administrations are willing to acknowledge the issue and get involved.
“A lot of these people go unnoticed, unchecked in the system, and there just aren’t any county services, especially in our community, that are there to help individuals that are struggling,” Hall said. “We, with a lot of duct tape and a shoestring, hold it down.”
Providers in several rural counties noted that there aren’t any shelters that are owned or operated in any capacity by local governments. In most cases, Washburn County Social Services can only direct homeless residents like Zieroth and Hubbell to the Lakeland Family Resource Center, which provided them with a list of shelters too far out of their reach.
“We don’t have the extra gas or a decent enough vehicle to go too far from Shell Lake,” Zieroth said.
The Ashland Community Shelter is the only shelter in a four-county rural area. The city applied for the federal grant funds that allowed Rounsville’s agency to acquire the shelter, but she noted that if it hadn’t taken that step, there wouldn’t be a shelter in Ashland today.
“You still need that county government saying, ‘Hey, we have a program, we need funding,’” Cramer said. “If your county is not looking to deal with homelessness, then they’re probably not asking for that funding either.”
Hall and Schnabel said local governments need to be more involved in their work, whether that be providing a county employee to serve as a shelter director, or simply making better use of the few resources they have.
Schnabel added that small shelters often cannot pay their directors a decent wage, resulting in frequent staff turnover. Taylor House has had four directors in the last 18 months, he said. The inconsistency leaves “a bad taste” in the mouth of those reviewing their grant applications.
According to Hall, some counties are much more willing than others to utilize Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) — a state program aimed at addressing substance abuse and mental health needs. The program allows counties to contract employees and case managers at local shelters who provide services such as skills development and peer support. If the notes are done properly, the county can bill those expenses back to the state through BadgerCare.
But despite those being reimbursable expenses, some county officials either don’t know how or are unwilling to engage in the program, Hall said.
“The tool is there, it just needs to be utilized,” he said. “Because of their unwillingness to try something, it oftentimes ends up having to tell people ‘no,’ and we’re moving them to another county.”
He added that allowing local shelters that serve those covered under BadgerCare to bill the state directly for these services instead of relying on the county to initiate it “would solve the problem tomorrow.”
Hall also noted that county governments can use their opioid settlement funds to provide housing and shelter to those with eligible needs, yet some have instead spent it on other things.
Waupaca County, for example, told Wisconsin Watch it has spent nearly $100,000 in opioid settlement funds on awareness campaigns, training, a counselor position and equipment that helps local police quickly identify narcotics in the field.
Grant funding is often allocated to regional “parent” organizations, like a Salvation Army, which then distribute the money to local nonprofits and shelters. But Schnabel said the state must force the hand of counties that “choose not to see homelessness.”
“By requiring that these funds go through the county to be disbursed to the homeless shelter, it forces the county to have a relationship and have skin in the game with the shelters,” he said.
Another challenge is that some small communities like Ashland reject homeless shelters, assuming they will bring negative footprints.
“There’s going to be needles, the neighborhood houses are going to be robbed, children are going to be ran over on the highway,” Rounsville said. “There’s all kinds of things that came up when we were doing the change of use for this hotel to become a shelter. It was something that not everybody wanted to see in the community.”
The small city of Clintonville approved an ordinance last winter enforcing a 60-day limit on local hotel stays in a six-month period, citing drug concerns, disorderly conduct and disturbances. Many homeless individuals in the area are put up in those hotels.
“We’re trying to figure out, what are we going to do with those 50 people this winter when the police departments come through and say they have to get out,” Hall said.
Studies estimate that every year, someone experiencing chronic homelessness costs a community $30,000 to $50,000, according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Yet for each person who is homeless, permanent supportive housing costs communities $20,000 per year.
“These are our neighbors in any community, and when they are no longer homeless and they are thriving, they reinvest that into the economy, into the community, into the neighborhood,” Kenion said.
While often doing more with less, local nonprofits are still the ones that are built to do this work, Hall said.
“There is no solution. There is no algorithm to get us to an answer,” Schnabel said. “But what we know is that there needs to be a place that they can go to be safe, and have warm, secure housing until they can get back on their feet.”
In June, Zieroth and Hubbell pulled their car into a Shell Lake gas station parking lot to sleep, shortly before a police officer was called and arrived to tell them they were trespassing and had to leave.
In August, the father and daughter stopped at the Shell Lake ATV Campground to use the public showers, when a campground employee entered and demanded that Zieroth get his daughter and leave. The employee called Shell Lake police, who escorted him off the property.
A resident living next to the boat launch where they stayed eventually took issue with them parking their car at the public lot. In October, Hubbell said the homeowner stormed into the Dollar General while she was working and told her they couldn’t sleep there anymore, threatening to call the police.
And one night after finding a group fishing at the boat launch, the pair decided to drive to another public landing in Burnett County where they parked and slept. Still under their blankets, they woke the next morning to a DNR officer and county sheriff’s deputy approaching, asking about Zieroth’s “drug of choice.” According to Wisconsin Court System records, Zieroth served time in prison for burglary as a 21-year-old, but has never faced drug-related charges.
They were told to leave.
“They just did not want us in this area. We’re less than a mile from where we grew up, and from where she went to school and graduated,” Zieroth said, pointing to his daughter. “I’ve made my life here … everything points to ‘get out.’”
While still homeless, the pair were fortunate enough to find a temporary place to stay as the weather gets colder — a small room in the unfinished basement of an acquaintance who didn’t want to see them living out of their car. They are joined by their dog Bella, who Zieroth won’t abandon after she woke him the night his camper caught fire in 2022, allowing him to escape and likely saving his life.
Zieroth and Hubbell have an old bed, a recliner and a bathroom for now. But their most cherished comfort is that the room is heated — something they don’t take for granted after a winter spent in their car.
With a roof over their heads, Zieroth hopes to finally get the surgery he needs, but he’s unsure of how long they can stay.
They insist on paying the homeowners $50 a week — all they can afford — for letting them stay in the basement. Zieroth uses his skills as a mechanic to fix things around the property, and Hubbell picks items up for them at the Dollar General whenever she can.
Once healed, he wants to get back to work and acquire a property of his own, but his first priority is his daughter. After getting on her feet, Hubbell hopes to go to cosmetology school in Rice Lake.
“She has her whole life ahead of her and experience has taught me that some real bad beginnings get really good endings, and she deserves a good one,” Zieroth said.
If you or someone you know is experiencing or is at risk of experiencing homelessness, please consider the following resources:
Wisconsin Foundation for Rural Housing (one-time emergency assistance)
The Wisconsin Community Action Network (identify the agency that serves your county)
Impact Wisconsin (recovery residence and services provided in Waupaca, Waushara, Outagamie, Portage, Winnebago and Shawano counties)
Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care (identify your county to locate services)
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Wisconsin’s rural homelessness crisis and the fight to do ‘more with less’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
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