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• Wisconsin Watch reporters joined more than 60 volunteers in Brown County’s summer point-in-time count last month — a one-night snapshot of the number of people experiencing homelessness in communities across the United States, including Wisconsin.

• Some volunteers had experienced homelessness themselves. 

• The volunteers officially counted 179 people experiencing homelessness. That’s seen as an undercount because volunteers do not count people who are sleeping or unable to respond to surveys. And some people don’t want to be found.

At  4:31 a.m. the first slivers of light peeked through dark clouds over Green Bay’s waters. 

Along the edge of Point Comfort in the town of Scott, a pair of volunteers surveyed the landscape for people experiencing homelessness as the summer “point-in-time” (PIT) count wound down in Brown County. 

One was Cody Oberhuber, a county economic support specialist. He has missed just one count since January 2022, initially working as part of his former job at the anti-poverty agency Newcap, Inc. His passion for talking to the people behind the numbers prompted him to return this year as a volunteer after switching jobs. 

“It gives you a fresh perspective of being boots on the ground talking to these individuals, you’re kind of looking at the humanity side of things,” Oberhuber said. “That’s what drives me, that’s my mission.”

Oberhuber joined 66 other volunteers between 11:30 p.m. to nearly 6 a.m. beginning on July 23, hitting spots where the group previously encountered people experiencing homelessness. 

The PIT count serves as a one-night snapshot of the number of people experiencing homelessness in communities across the United States, including Wisconsin. Wisconsin Watch in January followed the annual winter count in Jefferson County — examining why the data recorded in the process underestimate the true levels of homelessness in communities, especially rural ones. The  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development mandates such winter counts. 

Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care, which covers all 69 counties in Wisconsin besides Milwaukee, Dane and Racine, requires each county to also count during the summer, when the tally is typically far higher than winter, when freezing weather pushes more people to shelters.

The majority of Brown County volunteers most years work with direct housing providers or other housing-related programs, according to Meaghan Gleason, Newcap’s funder expert and the Brown County PIT count lead. 

But this year, almost half of volunteers had no association with housing providers, a record number of unaffiliated folks. Thirteen volunteers shared that they previously experienced homelessness in their life. That’s a point of pride for Gleason.

To address the problem of homelessness, she said, “we need to include the people who know what that experience is.”

The Brown County volunteers broke into groups to cover more ground. In the county’s northwest corner, a group searched for people sleeping in cars in the rural village of Pulaski. In the county’s urban center, volunteers counted people camping in Green Bay’s downtown parks. 

PIT counts often happen at night, when people settle into the places they sleep, Oberhuber said. This approach, he explained, prevents volunteers from simply assuming where someone stays. 

Volunteers usually see the most unsheltered people on downtown Green Bay’s east side, and that was the case this year. Several people sheltered in open spaces and under hooded structures, often surrounded by their belongings: bikes, coolers, wheelchairs, bags and blankets. Some slept on church steps or on park benches. Bugs swarmed in the humidity following recent rain.

A volunteer asked a man where he had gone earlier to stay dry. 

“Nowhere,” he replied. “I’m wet. I’m still wet.”

Others asked volunteers for food or dry tarps. Volunteers handed out gift cards and asked people to take a brief survey to shed light on what resources might help.

The surveys included questions such as: Have you served in the active duty or other armed forces of the U.S.? Are you fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, dating violence or stalking? Have you ever been in the foster care system? Is this the first time you’ve been homeless?

Some people answered questions they were comfortable with. Others thanked the volunteers and declined to participate.

“I’m going through enough as it is,” one person told the volunteers.

When people are found sleeping, decline to participate in the survey or are in locations volunteers can’t safely access, their presence is documented through observation forms. Although the official count tally excludes those observations, they paint a broader picture of the unhoused landscape. Outreach workers sometimes later follow up to verify their status and connect them with services. 

Brown County’s official tally this year: 179 people experiencing homelessness. That included 100 single individuals and 25 households with children. The official unsheltered count has increased each year since at least 2022, when 89 people were counted in July.

Northwest of Brown County, Newcap’s Northeast Coalition counts unsheltered people in mostly rural Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto and Shawano counties. The summer count recorded 36 people. 

“That may not sound like much,” Gleason later wrote in an email. “But it is the highest count I have seen out of the last eight counts.”

In Brown County, volunteers tallied zero people in the rural areas Wisconsin Watch observed. But Oberhuber knows people are experiencing homelessness in communities like Pulaski, based on previous counts and conversations with police. Those people might not want to be found, Oberhuber said. They might intentionally set up camp outside of town or in the woods, where PIT count volunteers won’t look.

“That’s the difficulty with the rural count,” Oberhuber said. “There’s people out there, we just struggle to find them.”

Gleason said a “happy accident” prompted her to work in housing services after having volunteered at a shelter in college. She wouldn’t give up her position as the PIT count lead for Brown County even if someone told her to. 

She knows it’s impossible to count every person. But that’s what drives her to improve each count. Yes, homelessness is increasing, she said. 

“But if we can also increase our efficiency and our ability to capture that data and connect with those people, then that’s the best we can do in that moment.”

Homelessness is increasing in Brown County. These volunteers traded a night’s sleep to document the challenge is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• A special prosecutor was appointed in March 2024 to look into Judge Mark McGinnis’ decision to jail a concrete contractor in December 2021 over a money dispute during a probation hearing for an unrelated crime. The money dispute was with a courthouse employee.

• The special prosecutor, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, said he plans to make a decision on the case around Labor Day.

• Criminal charges against a judge for a decision made from the bench are possible, but unlikely and without recent precedent. Judicial misconduct cases have been reviewed by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission since 1978, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court has the final say on any penalty.

A special prosecutor expects to decide in early September whether to take the extraordinary step of filing criminal charges against an Appleton-area judge over his actions from the bench.

The special prosecutor, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, declined further comment to Wisconsin Watch on his investigation of Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis.

Wisconsin Watch reported in January 2024 that McGinnis’ actions were the focus of a Wisconsin Department of Justice criminal investigation that had been ongoing for more than a year. The March 2024 appointment of the special prosecutor has not previously been reported.

McGinnis had jailed cement contractor Tyler Barth in December 2021 over a private dispute that was not a matter before the court. 

When Barth appeared before McGinnis for a probation review hearing, on a felony conviction for fleeing an officer, McGinnis accused him of stealing several thousand dollars from a cement contracting customer.

The customer worked in the same courthouse for another Outagamie County judge. 

Even though Barth had not been arrested or charged with theft, McGinnis ordered him jailed for 90 days, saying he would release Barth as soon as he repaid the customer.

“I think it’s definitely crazy, just lock a guy up with no charge, no pending charge, no nothing and then get away with it,” Barth told Wisconsin Watch in a recent interview.

The 32-year-old Fremont resident said he spent three days in jail before Fond du Lac attorney Kirk Evenson intervened and persuaded McGinnis to release him.

“I just don’t think the guy should be able to do this to anyone else,” Barth said.

Barth later settled the money dispute with his customer. An attorney advised him it would be difficult to win civil damages against McGinnis because of judicial immunity, but Barth is waiting to see what happens with the criminal case before deciding whether to pursue a federal civil rights lawsuit.

McGinnis did not reply to requests seeking comment.

McGinnis was first elected in 2005, at age 34, and has been re-elected each time, without opposition. Most recently he was re-elected in April 2023 for a term that runs through July 2029.

Wisconsin judgeships are nonpartisan.

Gruenke, a Democrat, is a 30-year prosecutor, including the past 18 years as the La Crosse County district attorney. 

Gruenke was appointed as special prosecutor by the Outagamie County Circuit Court in March 2024 after Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis determined it would be a conflict of interest for her office to handle the case.

Legal experts agree judges have unparalleled latitude for taking away someone’s liberty, especially if the person is on probation. But invoking criminal penalties to compel action in an unrelated dispute arguably goes beyond a judge’s lawful authority.

Judicial historian Joseph Ranney, an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School, said he is not aware of any instance in which a sitting Wisconsin judge was charged with a crime for actions taken as a judge.

Jeremiah Van Hecke, executive director of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, also said he was not aware of such a case.

Since 1978, the Judicial Commission has been the body responsible for investigating complaints against judges, which are then referred to the state Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has published 31 decisions that carried some form of punishment, often a reprimand, including several for actions taken from the bench.

In 1980, Milwaukee County Judge Christ Seraphim was suspended for three years without pay for a number of violations, including “retaliatory use of bail.” In 1985, retaliatory use of bail was one of the charges brought against Rusk County Judge Donald Sterlinske, who was ordered removed from office even though he had resigned.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman has agreed to a three-year suspension of his law license, but is awaiting formal action in that case. It centers on his work as a special counsel investigating the 2020 presidential election, not his work as a judge.

Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather said, though it’s unlikely, McGinnis could be charged with misconduct in public office. That state law prohibits, among other things, officials from knowingly exceeding their lawful authority. 

But a referral to the Judicial Commission seems much more likely than a criminal charge, Oldfather said.

The commission could also initiate an investigation on its own.

A special prosecutor, Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett, decided not to file criminal charges following a 2011 incident in which state Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Justice David Prosser of choking her during an argument in a justice’s office.  

The Judicial Commission recommended that the Supreme Court discipline Prosser for misconduct, but the court took no action for lack of a quorum of four of the seven justices. Three justices recused themselves because they were witnesses to the incident. 

Any matters before the Judicial Commission are generally confidential. They become public only if the commission files a complaint against a judge or if the judge being investigated waives confidentiality.

There have been criminal charges filed in connection with a judge’s role as a judge, though they were not in response to official actions taken by a judge. 

In April, federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan with two crimes for allegedly obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting a criminal defendant in her courtroom. Her case is pending.

In 2019, a Winnebago County jury found Leonard Kachinsky, a municipal court judge, guilty of misdemeanor violation of a harassment restraining order involving his court manager.

Special prosecutor weighing whether to criminally charge Outagamie County judge 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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Change is hard, and exciting. 

That’s what I tell myself as my family and I prepare to move across the state. 

We currently live in Superior, but we’ll soon lay roots in Door County, where I grew up. I’m a little over a week into my role as Wisconsin Watch’s regional editor for northeast Wisconsin. 

The journey so far

I grew up in Egg Harbor and graduated from Sevastopol High School before attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, I earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English. 

I’ve spent the majority of my career in Wisconsin: first as an education reporter in Watertown, then reporting and editing in the Fox Cities and Superior. 

My most recent role was managing editor for Project Optimist, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on greater Minnesota (everything outside of the Twin Cities metro area). 

When I saw Wisconsin Watch post this job, I knew I had to apply. Several friends and former colleagues worked as Wisconsin Watch interns. They spoke highly of their experiences, and they’re some of the most talented, hardworking journalists I know. 

Furthermore, I published Wisconsin Watch stories as an editor for the Superior Telegram. I know firsthand how vital the organization’s coverage is to news outlets throughout the state. 

What we’re up to

The NEW News Lab launched in 2022. Wisconsin Watch joined the collaboration along with five media organizations, Microsoft, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Greater Green Bay Area Community Foundation, and the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region. 

The effort puts in-depth local journalism front and center, and it gained traction. We’ve collaborated to explore solutions to a range of challenges that affect northeast Wisconsin families — from unaffordable housing and child care to dangerous conditions at nursing homes and the region’s labor crunch.  However, Wisconsin Watch hasn’t had staff in northeast Wisconsin until now. 

The northeast Wisconsin newsroom is our way of crystallizing our commitment to the region. We want to build on the partnerships forged through the NEW News Lab and strengthen them. I believe journalists serve communities best when we set competition aside and put readers first. 

Fellow Door County native Jessica Adams is our director of partnerships for the northeast region and has been helping us learn about what people want and need from local news. Over the past several months, she held listening sessions at public libraries and met with stakeholders. If you want to let Jessica know your thoughts, you can take her online survey here. 

Miranda Dunlap is our first reporter in Green Bay. She’s focused on pathways to success – a beat I’m thrilled to lead. Learn more about it from Miranda here. 

I’m excited to meet new faces, connect and see where Wisconsin Watch fits into the local media landscape.

Have a story idea? Email it to jzvandenhouten@wisconsinwatch.org.

Meet Jen Zettel-Vandenhouten, our new northeast Wisconsin regional editor 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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• Northeast Wisconsin Technical College is part of a growing trend of technical colleges moving to shorter courses, and it’s among few to offer classes almost exclusively in an eight-week semester model.

• Administrators and instructors say the intensive pace helps students perform better and prevents them from dropping out when they face hardships outside of school.

• NWTC’s retention and graduation rates have improved since the college began offering shorter courses.

Halfway through his Monday morning class at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College’s Green Bay campus last month, Patrick Parise instructed his Introduction to Ethics students to hold up their fingers: one if they’re confused about the lesson, 10 if they’ve mastered it. When met with a sea of “jazz hands,” he moves on to review the next chapter.  

The students will take their final exam several days later, after absorbing major ethical theories and key philosophers’ views in just eight weeks — half the length of the traditional 16-week college course. 

That’s because NWTC leaders have overhauled nearly every course in recent years, accelerating them to move twice as quickly. Administrators and instructors say the intensive pace helps students perform better and prevents them from dropping out when they face hardships outside of school.

NWTC is part of a growing national trend of colleges moving to shorter courses, but it’s one of fewer to offer eight-week classes almost exclusively. Many others have recently flirted with the idea by piloting a smaller share of shortened course options. 

“Everybody wants shortened learning. Nobody wants to be in a class for 16 weeks anymore. That’s not the pace of learning,” said Kathryn Rogalski, the college’s vice president of academic affairs and workforce development. “That faster pace, that more intensive time together, I think, is making the difference.”

The schedule at NWTC splits the traditional semester in half — for example, rather than taking four classes over the course of 16 weeks, a student would complete two speedier classes in the first eight weeks, then complete two more in the latter half of the semester. 

Proponents of the approach say juggling fewer classes allows students to focus better while some worry the brisk pace makes it easier to fall behind. 

The transition required a heavy lift, which came with challenges. Some students say the swift pace required a learning curve, and administrators acknowledge that starting a new slate of courses every eight weeks can be intense. 

But data suggests the switch has brought positive change to the 23,000-student college. Retention rates are up, meaning fewer students are dropping out. Students are earning higher grades on average. More are graduating on time. 

Parise, who has taught at NWTC since 2007, says his students engage more in shorter courses. In the 16-week model, he would have taught the ethics students once a week. Now he sees them twice weekly, which reduces the material students forget between classes and strengthens relationships, he said. 

“I find classes develop a far better sense of a learning community,” Parise said. “That’s huge … in the classes that I teach, creating an environment where students feel safe and comfortable and share ideas and ask questions — I don’t know that you can teach somebody ethics without having an environment like that.”

Shortening courses to limit ‘stopping out’

In 2018, NWTC leaders contemplated how they could reduce the number of students who were “stopping out,” or withdrawing from their studies with the intention of returning later, at the six-week mark. 

At least one in three NWTC students rely on federal financial assistance to afford college costs, and many have jobs and families — meaning nonacademic challenges can easily derail the semester.

College leaders wanted these students to be able to “take a break when they needed to, but then not have to be gone a whole semester or a whole year before they could start back,” Rogalski said.

Breaking the semester up into smaller pieces could help, they realized. National research and data from a few short courses they already offered suggested students persist better in accelerated courses. Meanwhile, the eight-week course model was beginning to gain momentum at community colleges in Texas, showing promising results. 

“If (students) are in week six of eight, they can figure out those last two weeks of, ‘How do I figure out that child care? How do I find some transportation?’ And they can finish the courses that they started,” Rogalski said. “If they’re in week six of 16 weeks, it’s really hard for 10 more weeks to figure out how to make it through.”

So NWTC leaders went all in. By 2020, they shifted roughly half of classes to the model. By 2021, 93%. The college exempted select courses, such as clinical rotations in hospitals for nursing students, but otherwise asked all instructors to get on board. 

That sweeping overhaul across nearly every program is vital to seeing results, but it’s a feat few colleges have accomplished, said Josh Wyner, vice president of education nonprofit The Aspen Institute.

“That’s really one of the things that we’ve appreciated about Northeast Wisconsin for years, is that they went to scale when they found something that worked,” Wyner said. “If the data show that students will benefit, they ask themselves the question … ‘Why would we continue to offer things in other formats?’”

Overhauling courses isn’t easy

Accelerating college courses comes with speed bumps. 

A sick student absent for a week misses double the instruction. Financial aid payment schedules must be retooled. Some high schoolers taking dual enrollment classes must manage the condensed schedule. Instructors must revamp their courses. 

Many colleges make the mistake of “simply trying to take 16 weeks of coursework and squeeze it into eight weeks,” Wyner said. 

“It can’t be the same class when it was in 16 weeks as it is in eight weeks. It has to look different,” Rogalski said. “I don’t think any college could be successful at this if they just shrunk their curriculum and just did exactly what they were doing, but did it twice as fast.”

When Nick Bengry transferred to NWTC from Lawrence University in Appleton to save money on tuition, it came with a learning curve. The university used a lengthier semester schedule, so he worried about the transition to more rigorous courses at the technical college. In the last year he’s found “some (classes) that are a little bit rougher” than others in the eight-week format, but feels like the workload ultimately “ends up being similar.” 

“Some classes like, the medical terminology class, were really fast-paced because of the way they were designed,” said Bengry, who plans to transfer to the University of Wisconsin-Madison next year and eventually become an emergency room doctor like his father.

He also finds it easier to schedule the requirements he needs for his biomedical engineering major while juggling a job at Bellin Health. 

“It makes it easier to fit the courses you need into your semester,” Bengry said. “Each course being only half the length means that if I need to fit a course into this semester, there’s more spots — it could be the first half or the second half.”

When students do struggle with their coursework, college staff has half the time to get them back on track before their class ends.

For example, in Kristin Sericati’s developmental reading and writing class, which helps students with lower literacy skills, “resource navigators” visit the classroom during the first week to meet one-on-one with every student and advertise services like tutoring or financial assistance. The college also has an “early alert” system that enables staff to intervene with helpful resources immediately if a student isn’t showing up to class or scores poorly on an assignment.

“A student is not waiting two weeks to have some sort of support that they need, which is now a quarter of their learning experience in that class,” Matt Petersen, NWTC’s associate vice president for ​​institutional research and strategic analytics, said. “We just can’t afford that. Our students can’t afford that.”

As they’ve worked out the kinks, NWTC leaders have returned some classes to 16 weeks. One microbiology class changed back when eight weeks wasn’t enough time to grow the bacteria needed for the students’ research. Now, about 86% of courses are accelerated, fewer than the share in 2022, and administrators say they’ll continue evaluating what works best. 

Boosting retention and graduation 

Seven years after leaders conceived the overhaul, data shows it’s paying off. 

Retention for full-time students, or the share of students who stay enrolled or finish their program from one year to the next, has shot up by 19 percentage points since 2018, when the college introduced eight-week courses. Now, 77% of full-time NWTC students continue in their studies, federal data shows. Nationwide, full-time community college students had an average retention rate of 63% in 2023, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. 

Retention rates for part-time students have shown smaller growth, rising from 56% to 59%. Part-time students regularly have lower retention rates than full-time.

In addition, the share of NWTC students who graduate within three years of enrolling has risen 3% to 46% since 2018. That’s well above the national average of 35% — and a tough data point to budge, according to The Aspen Institute.

Petersen said the change also correlates with an improvement in students’ grades, with hundreds more students now receiving a “C” or above in their courses. 

Plus, students who do have to temporarily withdraw are having an easier time getting back to their studies, said Sericati, the developmental writing instructor. 

“Before, if a student is in five classes and they come up against a life issue in week six and drop out of all of their classes, they now are on (academic) warning. They failed all of these credits,” Sericati said. “Now, if a student comes up against a life issue, they likely can complete those two courses that they’re in and not have that issue when they rejoin us again in another eight-week session.” 

As colleges like NWTC share their success with shorter classes, the model is building momentum, said Karen Stout, CEO of Achieving the Dream, a nonprofit focused on community college success. For example, Western Technical College in La Crosse began transitioning to seven-week courses in the summer of 2024. 

“It is such a relief, actually, to see that this made a positive difference,” Rogalski said. “Students who probably never imagined that they could be successful in college …  They haven’t aspired to complete a degree or go on to a university, and now we’re seeing that these students have this hope that they didn’t have before. And within eight weeks, they’re seeing that they have been successful.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

This college’s strategy for preventing dropouts? Classes half as long is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Wisconsin’s state budget doesn’t include $24 million that Gov. Tony Evers proposed to address homelessness in the state.

• At the same time, the Trump administration is looking to pull back on resources that address housing, including consolidating a grant for permanent housing solutions into one that can only be used to provide up to two years of temporary housing.

• Rural service providers are looking to philanthropic sources and others across the state to address the growing homeless population in their local communities.

At a recent gathering of social service organizations in Brown County, participants contended with a double gut punch to their efforts to reverse Wisconsin’s recent rise in rural homelessness: almost no new support in the state budget and federal funding cuts.

The Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition, which focuses its efforts not only on the urban growth around Green Bay but also on the rural towns along the outskirts of the county, consists of at least 45 partner and supporting member organizations — representing the vast complexity of the issue they’re attempting to fix.

Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal gave them reason for hope. It included over $24 million of new funding to address homelessness.

The funding would have increased support for programs, including the Housing Assistance Program that provides support services for those experiencing homelessness and the State Shelter Subsidy Grant Program that funds shelter operations. 

But after the Republican-controlled budget committee cut Evers’ proposal, organizations were left with the same state resources they had last year, despite increasing homelessness across the state and looming cuts in federal support.

Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, who both represent mostly rural districts in Wisconsin, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

Sen. Romaine Robert Quinn, R-Birchwood, a JFC member who represents the rural northwestern corner of Wisconsin, including the city of Shell Lake where Wisconsin Watch reported on a father and daughter experiencing homelessness, declined an interview request. Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, who represents the western part of Brown County, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

Federal cuts coming for homeless services

President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget reductions would cut funding for key programs administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), including grants that many local organizations depend on to provide housing and supportive services. 

The Trump administration’s efforts to reduce federal funding began with a Jan. 27 executive order that temporarily paused many federal grants and financial assistance programs — including those supporting homelessness services — causing immediate disruptions for organizations like RAYS Youth Services in Green Bay.

Josh Benti, program coordinator for RAYS and homeless initiative project director for the Brown County coalition, recalled how his organization’s basic services were abruptly halted, leaving it unable to support a child in need.

Benti’s organization provides services designed to promote stability and independence for youth up to age 24. They include placement in licensed foster homes, similar to emergency shelter stays.

Shortly after Trump signed the order in January, Benti received a text from his boss saying the organization could no longer move forward with placing a child in a host home. He had to inform the child it was uncertain whether the program would be funded. 

Even after federal funds were reinstated weeks later, disbursement delays further affected how employees were paid. Benti’s role, originally salaried, was switched to hourly so that he and his colleagues could maintain their positions.

Benti explained that because RAYS’ federal funds are matched by private grants, the organization’s development staff has begun applying for grants across the state. The organization seeks to expand its services and collaborate with statewide partners to become “too big to fail.” 

“We can’t do it all by ourselves,” Benti said. “We need those funds to take care of those pieces we do every day.”  

Trump’s big bill brought new limitations to RAYS through changes to social safety net programs, such as provisions introducing new work requirements for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which limited eligibility and access of certain recipients. 

These policy shifts have raised additional concerns about the potential losses to critical areas of the organization, especially Medicaid. Reductions to the federal health care program for low-income people threaten a large portion of Foundations Health and Wholeness, a nonprofit that provides mental health care to uninsured and underinsured individuals, many of whom rely on Medicaid as a source of health coverage.

Carrie Poser, executive director of Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care — a nonprofit committed to ending homelessness — pointed out that Medicaid cuts, along with restrictions on food stamps, won’t only affect people experiencing homelessness directly. 

“It will impact those living in poverty who are maybe just … a paycheck away from becoming homeless, and now you’ve just hit them with the potential of losing their health insurance, or losing access to food,” Poser said.

The organization manages a variety of federal grants, including funding for Coordinated Entry Systems that prioritize housing resources based on need, as well as a large federal Rapid Re-housing project of more than $5 million focused on domestic violence survivors.

Trump calls for shift from permanent to temporary housing

Trump’s budget proposal could eliminate federal funding for the Continuum of Care program, funneling those resources into state grants for up to two years of housing assistance. The shift would eliminate Permanent Supportive Housing, which is geared toward homeless individuals with disabilities. Under current law, those temporary housing grants can’t be used for permanent housing.

Trump’s budget also would zero out the funding for the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program.

“The top-line takeaway is that rural and suburban communities are going to suffer the most loss,” said Mary Frances Kenion, chief equity officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

About 48% of Wisconsin’s permanent supportive housing is currently funded through Continuum of Care dollars. Areas served by the outstate organization rely on federal funding for roughly 41% of their homelessness services budget.

The outstate organization also receives Housing Assistance Program grants, which it subgrants to organizations aiming to address specific gaps in their communities and offers them support that may not be available through federal funding.

Without added state support, the organization can’t expand its efforts to end homelessness, though it can maintain current levels. Currently, Housing Assistance Program funds support half a dozen projects outside Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties, a limited reach that additional funding would have broadened for the organization.

Additionally, more state funding for shelter operations could have helped shelters pay more staff and reopen after many closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Poser said.

Now, as the demand for shelter continues to rise, other service providers also face limited resources to expand their services.

The shelter funds provide support to the Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency for operating its shelters. However, CEO Millie Rounsville said the funding has remained flat for years, despite growing demand for services.

“As you’re trying to create additional projects … there’s no additional resources to be able to support those and actually would take away resources from other communities because the pot is the same size and the programs are expanding, which means that there’s less money to go around, and no new money to address any of the increase in the unsheltered,” Rounsville said.

With no increases in funding, expanding programs or launching new initiatives to meet rising homelessness has become increasingly difficult.

As several housing assistance organizations face limitations to state and federal funding to maintain many of their day-to-day programs and services, Kenion urges them to take stock of existing resources and make contingency plans.

Kenion advised communities to map out what services they currently offer, whether that’s through permanent supportive housing or homelessness programs, and to clearly understand where their funding may come from. She added that rural communities, in particular, should begin having difficult conversations about their funding landscape and work to broaden partnerships such as those with faith-based groups, clinics, small businesses, victim service providers and philanthropies.

Rural areas face challenges accessing support

Don Cramer, a researcher for the Wisconsin Policy Forum, points to some of the difficulty rural areas might face in obtaining funding to address homelessness. 

In rural parts of the state, limited staff capacity could mean that local agencies miss out on some of the state and federal funding opportunities that their urban counterparts are able to obtain. Cramer suggested that larger cities with high homeless populations, like Milwaukee, typically have more staff and time to dedicate to pursuing grants, while smaller counties, even those with higher homeless populations, often don’t have the employees who focus their time exclusively on applying for these funds.

Cramer also pointed out that rural communities often struggle not only to secure funding, but to capture the scope of homelessness in their areas, making it even harder to recognize and address the issue.

As Wisconsin Watch previously reported following the winter “point in time” count, one of two annual nights in the year that portray the number of people experiencing homelessness across the country, the state’s mostly rural homeless population reached 3,201 last year, its highest number since 2017.

The reported number of homeless students in Wisconsin last year reached its highest number since 2019, with 20,195 students experiencing homelessness, according to a report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. Last year was the third consecutive year the number of reported homeless students has increased after hitting its lowest level in 2021 during the pandemic. 

The sheer difference in the number of students experiencing homelessness and individuals experiencing homelessness further highlights how the methodology for quantifying homelessness across the state, which is used to determine a community’s level of need, “doesn’t make sense for those who don’t know the differences in the methodologies,” Cramer said. 

The standards of counting between Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which would count a student who may be sleeping on a relative’s couch in its homeless count, and HUD, which wouldn’t, illustrate the strict guidelines that likely don’t come close to representing the full picture of homelessness in the state. 

“When you think of the (homeless counts), many assume those are undercounts,” Cramer said. “But I think the students would be pretty accurate — because schools are working with a majority of the state’s student population, and kindergartners aren’t hiding that information.”

‘We need to take into account our increasing need’

Katie Van Groll sees this issue firsthand through her work as the director of Home Base, an arm of the Boys and Girls Club of the Fox Valley that specifically works with youth up to age 21 who are experiencing challenges related to housing insecurity. 

Van Groll added that the difference between the HUD and DPI counts contributes to a systemic misunderstanding of what homelessness looks like for young people. For example, couch surfing is much more common in young people experiencing homelessness than it is for adults, but because the HUD count doesn’t include that frequent circumstance, the difference between being sheltered and being homeless “almost gets forgotten,” Van Groll said. 

“What that does is it makes them ineligible for other funding and other resources because they don’t meet the HUD definition until they are literally on the street, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Van Groll said. “The sooner that we can intervene, the quicker we can disrupt that cycle and change those generational experiences of homelessness.”

While the number of youth experiencing homelessness in the state continues to rise, Evers’ budget proposal to increase funding for the Runaway and Homeless Youth program, which already operates on a difficult-to-obtain regional lottery system that Home Base competes for each year alongside other youth-oriented programs, was denied an increase in funding. 

Only one program serving runaway and homeless youth per region receives funding by the state, which in itself “is a disservice,” Van Groll said. “Right now, we’re lucky in that we are in a current federal grant so we are not looking at reapplying to the (state) funding that was just released, but we expect that other programs may not be in the same situation.” 

“Many people are going to be like, ‘well, what are you complaining about? You’re not losing any money,’” Van Groll said. “But you kind of are because we need to take into account the state of our economy, we need to take into account our increasing need, we need to take into account the fact that losing those decreases likely impacts those programs just like it does ours, which means it continues to be largely competitive across the state, inhibiting some programs from accessing those fundings.”

Meaghan Gleason, who leads the Brown County count, announced during the Brown County coalition meeting on July 9 that the current number of volunteers signed up for the summer homeless count is lower than the last two counts. She asked attendees to contribute in any way they can. 

“I would encourage you to contact your friends, family, community members, board members, funders — anyone who may be interested in going out and helping and seeing the work that we do in action,” Gleason said. 

In a phone interview on July 16, Gleason said that after reaching out to the coalition for more volunteers, involvement for the July 23-24 overnight summer count in Brown County will now see the highest number of volunteers she’s directed since taking on the role two years ago.

Homeless advocates added that there’s been an increase in encampments, with people experiencing homelessness moving deeper into the woods as the summer goes on. 

Amid the wet and hot season lately, Peter Silski, Green Bay homeless outreach case coordinator, explained that many of the people he encounters have no other choice than to build simple tents and shelters. 

Through conversations with people experiencing homelessness and connecting them with local, grassroots programs, Silski said the goal is “to empower individuals to become self-sufficient, but we want to make sure we’re there for them for as long as they need us.”

Wisconsin Watch reporter Margaret Shreiner contributed to this report.

‘We can’t do it all by ourselves’: As rural homelessness grows in Wisconsin, Republicans balk at boosting support 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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Snowflakes fell last February as bundled-up women walked into a downtown Green Bay coffee shop. Inside, Third Space Green Bay was celebrating its one-year anniversary as a group that creates a gathering space for local queer, Black and Indigenous residents and other people of color.  

Soft rhythm and blues — from SZA to Solange — filled the room as the group’s three co-founders led a Sunday morning clothes-mending and craft event that promised “healing through creativity.” 

In launching Third Space, Jasmine Gordon, Ivy McGee and Sarah Titus aim to help people with a range of backgrounds feel at home in a city that’s 70% white and in a state where less than 4% of people identify as LGBTQ+.

The women met at St. Norbert College, a Catholic liberal arts institution in De Pere, just outside of Green Bay. McGee grew up in De Pere, and Titus, a native Minnesotan, moved to Green Bay in 2008. They had worked together for years as librarians at the college when Gordon, a St. Norbert alum, became the library’s community engagement coordinator in 2021. Seeing a gap to fill on campus, the women rolled out library programming that engaged LGBTQ+ students and people of color. 

Events like “The Transperience,” an art installation in partnership with the Bay Area Council on Gender Diversity and the Trans Artist Collaborative, and a farmers market featuring more than  40 Black-owned businesses prompted feedback from residents who said they had never felt so seen, loved or cared for. 

“We would have people come up to us afterwards expressing, ‘Oh my gosh, I never knew I needed this,’” Titus said. 

But St. Norbert’s climate of inclusion changed over the years, the women said. In fall 2024, for instance, the college changed its gender policy, aligning with Catholic church guidelines recognizing only two genders: male and female. While leaders said the college remained committed to supporting people of diverse backgrounds, many students and staff said the change sent a different message. 

At the same time, Gordon, McGee and Titus envisioned a larger, independent project to promote inclusion across Green Bay — beyond the confines of campus.

Leaving their jobs at a college that faced financial turmoil, they launched Third Space to realize that vision.  

“We saw an opportunity and a responsibility to separate ourselves from the institution and develop something that felt more aligned with our core values, and that was including folks from all different walks of life regardless of who they love or what color their skin is or how they identify,” McGee said. 

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third space” in 1989, with home being someone’s “first place” and work as a “second place.” Third spaces are where people publicly gather informally, such as coffee shops, restaurants, coworking spaces and libraries. Third Space Green Bay seeks to create places for people to “just be,” its founders said.  

Its programs are free and “open and welcoming to folks that are on the margins,” McGee said. 

Third Space isn’t the only local group serving LGBTQ+ populations. The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Pride Center provides resources and holds events. But Third Space is rare in that it also intentionally serves Black and Indigenous residents, alongside other people of color. 

“When we were thinking of how we wanted this organization to exist, we were really thinking about it as a coalition,” Titus said, adding that the group is “building and intertwining” multiple communities that are often marginalized locally. 

Third Space, which filed to become a nonprofit in April 2024, has hosted more than 10 hours of community programming and raised more than $11,000 in grants and $6,700 in donations. 

Earlier this year, Third Space hosted an International Women’s Day pop-up shop that included a poetry writing workshop and a live performance from a local poet.

McGee said joining other women in that space made her feel her organization was “absolutely on the right track” and helped her imagine what it could do with a permanent location.  

The trio of founders said they are building the scaffolding for Third Space’s future. Until they secure a permanent location in downtown Green Bay, they’ll continue borrowing spaces from like-minded people in the community. 

At the February anniversary event, Essence Wilks, a Milwaukee native who recently moved to Green Bay, and Taiyana Plummer, a Green Bay native, learned about Third Space after walking into the coffee shop in search of matcha tea. Plummer said she and Wilks had just been discussing a shortage of inclusive gathering spaces in Green Bay. 

“Growing up here, especially when I was younger, it was harder to find people similar to me or spaces where I felt welcomed or heard and seen,” Plummer said. “So seeing this was very nice and made me feel very comfortable and just really excited for what’s moving forward with Third Space.”

Three women build a ‘third space’ for Green Bay residents who have felt left out is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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For the people of Green Bay, the long-awaited deal to move century-old coal piles from the riverfront near downtown is a big deal.

How big?

“This is our Louisiana Purchase. This is our purchasing of Alaska,” said state Rep. Dave Steffen, R-Howard. “It doesn’t get any bigger than this. We are not only just witnessing history, we’re part of it today.”

Steffen was one of the Green Bay-area lawmakers of both parties who were on hand Thursday before the Brown County Board of Supervisors approved a deal that will pave the way toward moving the hulking black piles that local officials and residents have hoped to oust for decades.

Thursday’s deal, approved unanimously after a closed session of the county board, sets the general framework for a lease agreement that will allow the coal to be relocated.

The coal sits on land along the Fox River that community leaders see as ripe for redevelopment. A very visible and not-so-pretty symbol of the city’s industrial heritage, it is also a nuisance for some residents who say dust from the piles blows into nearby neighborhoods.

But they are also a landmark, one that was immortalized by pranksters who decades ago made a “Ski Green Bay” poster of a man skiing down a coal pile with the skyline of the city behind him. That image was more recently included in a mural downtown.

A desire to move the coal piles to someplace less visible has been on the wish list of generations of city leaders.

“It’s literally something that mayors of the city of Green Bay and other community leaders have been working on for upwards of 75 years,” said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich.

Thursday’s vote means the county will not lose a $15 million federally-funded state grant that was in jeopardy after the county board altered a previous deal in December and negotiations stalled. The county had until Tuesday to come to an agreement and until Friday for the board to approve it, or risk losing the grant.

C. Reiss Co. owns the coal piles. The company has operated the bulk commodities storage facility on Mason Street, located along the the Fox River, since 1900.

Under the deal, C. Reiss and the county will work to finalize a lease agreement for a 16-acre parcel of land at a former power plant site the county is redeveloping for the Port of Green Bay. The company would also lease up to 1.5 acres for a stormwater pond that it would maintain. 

But the agreement stipulates that C. Reiss, or other users, may not store coal at the power plant site.

Rather, CEO Keith Hasselhoff said coal would be stored at a site near the power plant, known as the Fox River Terminal. C. Reiss’ parent company currently stores salt and other bulk commodities at the Fox River Terminal.

When the 16-acre parcel is ready, Hasselhoff said C. Reiss plans to move salt from the terminal site to the power plant. 

“As that salt at Fox River depletes and opens up more space at Fox River, we’ll be able to land new vessels of coal at Fox River, which then will allow us to deplete the inventories that we have at Mason Street,” Hasselhoff said.

At a press conference before the meeting, Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach said moving the coal from downtown “is not going to happen overnight” and could take “a number of years.”

County Board chair Patrick Buckley said the final negotiations came down to the eleventh hour. He said talks were ongoing up through Tuesday night, when all parties came to a consensus. He said the county’s corporation counsel spent Wednesday and Thursday getting the agreement in writing for the board’s approval.

“It’s really a group effort here to get this done,” he said. “A lot of people did not think this was going to get done. … But a lot of hard work went into it.”

The lease for the power plant site still needs to be fully ironed out, but the agreement requires the lease be fully executed by Sept. 15 or the parties could be required to go to arbitration.

According to the conditions approved Thursday, it would run for 60 years with the annual rent set at $350,000 with inflationary increases every five years.

The length of a lease had been one of the biggest sticking points in past agreements. Back in December, C. Reiss had wanted a lease that ran up to 75 years, while the county board wanted a 30-year lease with a 10-year extension option.

Streckenbach acknowledged that the board previously had reservations about a long-term lease. But he said all sides had to make concessions in the negotiation.

“Ultimately, because of what we came to an agreement with and everybody making concessions, the county board felt comfortable going forward with the length that was proposed,” he said.

The agreement also stated that the city of Green Bay would provide up to $2.2 million if the county faces funding shortfalls related to the coal relocation effort. 

Genrich said the addition of the city’s financial commitment was “one of the latter changes” that was made to the agreement and was something that he and Council President Brian Johnson had committed to in their discussions with county officials.

“Our priority is Mason Street and (doing) whatever was necessary within reason to make that redevelopment project possible,” he said. “The commitment that we all made to each other in the room was like, ‘We’re going to get this done regardless.’”

Genrich said the full Green Bay City Council will discuss the up to $2.2 million in funding at its meeting on Tuesday.

This story was originally published by WPR.

‘Our Louisiana Purchase’: Deal reached to move Green Bay’s century-old coal piles 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.