As rural homelessness grows in Wisconsin, Republicans balk at boosting support

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5 days ago

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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.
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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, 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, 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.'
Resources for people experiencing homelessness in Wisconsin from organizations included in this story:
Find services in your county through Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care's list of local coalitions of housing providers through 69 counties across the state.
Text the word 'safe' and your current location (city/state/ZIP code) to 4HELP (44357) through Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Youth Services' TXT4HELP nationwide, confidential and free service offered to youth in crisis.
Call Home Base's 24-hour support hotline at 920-731-0557 if you're in its northeast Wisconsin service region (Brown, Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago counties).
Wisconsin Watch reporter Margaret Shreiner contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Rural homelessness grows in Wisconsin amid state, federal funding gaps
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