EAU CLAIRE — In understanding and addressing the downtown homelessness crisis in Eau Claire, a panel of speakers talked about what measures were being considered moving forward.
The discussion was held at the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce’s monthly breakfast advocacy program, where local employees, business leaders and community leaders are invited to hear from a guest panel on topical issues.
While the discussion on Friday eventually led to the topic of what initiatives are being done to help these people in our community, the first question asked was: Who are the individuals that are experiencing homelessness in our community?
As a former reporter for Leader-Telegram and advocate, Julian Emerson recalled the historically cold winter of 2013-2014 when he went out into the community and spoke directly with people who were in this crisis.
“The majority of people who are homeless that we see in Eau Claire, they’re either from Eau Claire or from the nearby surrounding community,” he said. “A lot of people think that these are mostly people from far away, and that is not true.”
Presenting data from the city’s low income bus voucher program, Billie Hufford, Project Management Coordinator for the City of Eau Claire, showed their data which noted that 57.9% of vouchers were distributed to Eau Claire citizens and 27.9% were from other places in Wisconsin. Speaking more on the data, Chris Hedlund, program and education director of Hope Gospel Mission, said those other places in Wisconsin may still be from places in Eau Claire County like Altoona or Lake Hallie, meaning that this certainly is something that is likely impacting local populations.
“When you get to know their personal stories like I have, you learn that there is a wide variety of people who find their way into homelessness for all kinds of different reasons. But none of them planned to become homeless,” said Emerson.
Speaking as an advocate, Emerson said being educated and aware of the issue and crisis that these people are ways that the community should address it.
“And destigmatizing it, even though, depending on the level of homelessness and dysfunction, it can be a really difficult population to engage with at times,” he said. “It is not comfortable, but they’re people. We have to recognize that these are people in our community, our neighbors, our friends; just people who live here, and then we have to ask ourselves: ‘Is it okay that a growing number of people have nowhere to live?’ And then, what is the impact of that on our community?”
Emerson said the follow-up to that is what can we do better. For that answer, the Day Resource Center is one of the city’s next steps.
“The Day Resource Center would be twofold,” said Katie Hulbert, housing and family services director on the Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council. “We currently have our cooling and warming shelter right now, and it is going to continue to act as a cooling and warming shelter, but it is also going to be bringing in the resources into that. So, a lot of the resources that folks are missing: transportation resources, the ability to go to the bathroom, to be able to wash clothes, to take a shower, to work with somebody to be able to apply for jobs and also to get them into our housing programs.”
Creating this one space with trained staff that are able to assist people, connect with and act as a resource for those in the community experiencing homelessness is what will make their efforts greater, she said. It may also bring other agencies into the community that will add to the accessibility of resources.
“I think it is really important that we address this issue,” said Hulbert. “As we’ve explained today, this issue isn’t getting better; it’s getting worse and it is not going away. Since COVID, we’ve seen these numbers double…So, if we don’t do something about this, it is only going to get worse.”
As to why community conversations about this are important, Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council Chief Executive Officer Anna Cardarella said it is because we are all in this together.
“They have to be community conversations, because it is not just about the agencies or people experiencing homelessness. It is about residents that live in our community or own businesses downtown, people who work downtown, folks that are out with their families, library people — it is all of us.”
“I grew up being taught to care about each other,” said Hufford. “Not everybody comes from the same places or has the same opportunities, so as a community we need to work to lift everybody up because we are all better when everybody is doing well.”
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