Over the summer, new residents settled down in Milwaukee’s loneliest park. In the shadow of the County Safety Building and the neo-classical County Courthouse, around 20 tents sat under the trees in MacArthur Square. Clothes were hung up on barriers, trash spilled out of overfilled cans and curfew signs were set up at the entrances. The occasional policeman walking through the park with a dog gave the scene a dystopian feeling.

A woman in a hoodie sat among a group of tents, folding clothes. She said that she had been living in the park for three months and planned to move when the temperature drops. It was October and the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn yellow and red. A man walked in from the northwest corner of the park holding a train ticket and talking excitedly. The name on the ticket read Ray Cosby. Cosby said he was grateful for the ticket, which he got from a local ministry.

An Illinois native, Cosby said he had spent four months living in the tent city and a month in the county jail before that for a crime he didn’t commit.

“Look at this. You’d never see this in Chicago,” Cosby said as he pointed to the overflowing trash spilling onto the grass. There weren’t any restrooms for the people of the tent city to use, Cosby explained. The only place was the Public Library – and that was closed at night.

An Old Issue Is New Again

As the seasons changed and the temperature dropped, the cold concrete of downtown offered no protection from sharp winds that cut through tents and froze flesh.

The number of homeless people in Wisconsin has been dropping since 2012, but the tent cities in MacArthur Square and under the highway show that this is still a pressing problem in Milwaukee. According to a study by the Milwaukee Continuum of Care, 871 people live without a permanent home in the city. More than 550 people live in emergency shelters and 161 live unsheltered, sleeping on benches or under bridges.

At a press conference with Milwaukee Aldermen Bob Donovan and Mark Borkowski on November 20, a few protesters showed up to voice concerns. Standing in front of one of the freeway pillars at 6th and Clybourn, retired MPS school teacher Patricia Crerar held a cardboard sign reading, “Homes for the Holidays!” next to the press podium.

Patricia Crerar holds up a sign at Alderman Bob Donovan’s press conference.

The high temperature that day was 35 degrees, with a low of 28. “People are sleeping under bridges and sleeping bags in this kind of weather,” she said. “That is not acceptable.” Breath was visible, exposed skin froze and the wind cut through jackets and pants.

Donovan stepped to the podium and talked about Thanksgiving, two days away.

“I’m certain that celebration will include a lot of great food, will be surrounded by family and friends and we’ll be doing it all in the comfort and security of a home,” Donovan said. “That’s not necessarily the case for the people living behind us.” Behind the alderman sat brightly colored tents, their fabric walls rippling in the wind.

Donovan announced that he had sent a letter to Marquette University asking to use the Ramada Inn across the street as a temporary homeless shelter before it would be demolished. He had distributed the open letter to members of the press and curious bystanders. Later that day, Marquette released an official statement turning down the proposal.

“…Marquette is simply not in a position to use its facilities – vacant or otherwise – to house nonresidents and assume the significant, complex responsibilities that come with operating a shelter,” the statement read.

Milwaukee’s homeless do have options. Organizations like the Salvation Army open lodges for families at risk. If people cannot get to shelters, the Street Angels will come to them with food and provisions. The Milwaukee County DHHS Housing Division releases vouchers for Section 8 Rent Assistance, and said it had released 120 vouchers between the end of October and the beginning of November this year.

Alderman Bob Donovan and Ron Heisel of StreetLife Communities spoke at a November news conference.

Housing First

Luke Rosynek, a Housing Program Evaluator, said that the Milwaukee County Housing Division adopted the Housing First approach three and a half years ago, and that it has been cheaper and more efficient than the previous “treatment first” approach. Housing First aims to house homeless people before assessing any disabilities, mental illnesses or addictions they may suffer from.

“Housing First makes it easier for people to get rehabilitated,” said Rosynek. “Half of the people in the earlier program spent most of their time in shelter.” When someone is brought off of the streets and into housing, they meet with a case worker and the case worker finds out what they need to stay in a home. The members of the Housing Division believe that Housing First can help bring an end to chronic homelessness.

Members of the Housing Division visit homeless encampments every day at every location in the county. They identify and document homeless people at camps and connect them with services like the Salvation Army and Guest House, who are in contract with the Housing Division to assign case workers. 

The Housing Division also takes charge of cleaning up encampments after people who have lived there get rehoused. They throw away trash, confiscate tents and dispose of them after their occupants have been sheltered. Many private organizations bring food, tents and blankets to homeless encampments, but not all of these provisions get used.

A curfew sign in MacArthur Square Plaza.

Rosynek said that the Housing Division’s main challenge is money. Gaining funds from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development is key to keep their outreach programs running and to release vouchers for rent assistance. Rosynek said that the reason the Housing Division was able to release over one hundred Section 8 vouchers this fall was due to extra funding from HUD for their performance.

According to Rosynek, the encampments in MacArthur Square and at 6th and Clybourn represent a social issue. “These encampments are not dangerous,” he said. “These people are extremely vulnerable and need help.”

The Salvation Army 

One shelter that follows the Housing First philosophy is the Emergency Lodge Homeless Shelter provided by the Salvation Army. Converted from a hotel built in the 1970s, the Emergency Lodge is a 120-room homeless shelter on North 7th Street. Those who call 211 can apply to get a room here, though the rooms are usually filled. The shelter offers a 30- to 90-day stay, which gives occupants time to find employment and make enough money to rent an apartment.

As in the Housing Division, case managers work with people who get off of the streets to try and get them treatment or fill any other needs they may have. The Salvation Army documents individuals who come in and monitors people as they try to get back on their feet. Homeless individuals’ income is tracked and so is the amount of money they come in with and leave the Emergency Lodge with.

Tom Flatley has worked at the Emergency Lodge for 10 years. He says that the success rate of getting people back into permanent housing is at 87 percent, and that successful housing has been steady since he started working there. Many of the cases he deals with are diverse and complicated, and he meets a wide array of people who are looking for housing.

“We see a whole bunch of people from other states that come up here,” Flatley said. “Some people seek jobs in Wisconsin or a place to stay with family, but their plans end up falling through.” He even mentions meeting a highly paid pharmacist that ended up living in the Emergency Lodge for some time.

“People have stereotypes of what they think homeless people look like, but we have all types of people who come here,” Flatley said. “All walks of life.”

The Emergency Lodge is a squat, concrete building with two floors and a basement. Rooms line the halls of the building and are usually large enough to hold entire families. The basement has a recreational room, a children’s center and a cafeteria. Though it is a temporary shelter, the Emergency Lodge devotes much of its space to rehabilitating people.

The Salvation Army also holds seasonal programs like Coats For Kids to help ease the burden of those in houses. Loni Fitzgerald is the director of the Child Development Program at the Emergency Lodge. “That helps meet the needs of the community so that families can focus the funds that they do have towards maintaining housing,” Fitzgerald said. “Instead of having to choose, ‘Do I feed my child lunch today, or do I pay the rent?’”

Drugs and alcohol are banned from the Emergency Lodge, and Fitzgerald said that the shelter does its best to connect people to treatment. If a person in the Emergency Lodge is addicted to drugs, a case manager can work with them to get outpatient treatment, inpatient treatment or move them to a neighborhood where they won’t run into trouble.

“It’s not just finding people housing, but finding people housing where people will be successful,” she said.

Street Angels’ Outreach

Street Angels, Inc. is a volunteer outreach group that goes out three nights a week to meet with homeless individuals at encampments and give them supplies like food, socks, gloves and blankets. As a nonprofit group, the Street Angels get their supplies from community donations, or out of their own pockets. The Street Angels also works with the Milwaukee County Housing Division to document homeless individuals and connect them with housing.

Tents are still set up outside of the Milwaukee County Courthouse in December.

Co-founders Eva Welch and Shelly Sarasin take turns driving the bus that hauls their supplies. For the approaching holidays, they decorated the interior with Christmas lights, wreaths and bells. In their black ‘Hope Dealer’ hoodies, Welch and a group of volunteers hand out hot food donated from other volunteers and provided things like underwear and socks to those who asked.

“We have been asked at the courthouse not to give out any more tents,” said Welch. “Because the camp at the courthouse got very big very fast. And if you give out tents at the courthouse, you can see the homeless people.” The more people aware of homelessness in the city makes more people that are contacting the city or the county about it.

Aboard the Street Angels bus, Welch jokes with the other volunteers and the homeless people she serves, but she remains firm with her clientele. The Street Angels also offers Welch a way to connect with the homeless. “It’s like if you have a few kids, you know who got what and who didn’t get what,” Welch said.

Welch agrees that Housing First works to get people off of the streets and in homes again, but believes that chronic homelessness will never go away. “Every time someone gets housed, someone is moving into their tent,” she said.

Shelly Sarasin organizes blankets on the Street Angels’ bus before an outing.
Volunteer Joelle Bishop works with the Street Angels, and Eva Welch is co-founder of the organization.

As winter descends on Milwaukee, most of the tent city outside of MacArthur Square has dispersed, but some settlements still remain around the Safety Building. People still sleep on benches there at night.