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The ‘right to shelter’ resolution applies to anyone experiencing chronic homelessness. (File photo by Edgar Mendez)
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors has declared a “right to shelter” for all Milwaukee residents — but it’s stopped short of fully funding it.
On Nov. 5, the county board unanimously approved a resolution from Supervisor Ryan Clancy that says “any resident experiencing chronic homelessness and without access to safe housing will have accessible shelter.”
However, on Monday, Nov. 9, the board rejected three of four budget amendments aimed at putting the resolution into effect.
The amendments the board shot down would have:
- Provided flexible funds for the county’s Housing Division to help residents in immediate danger of homelessness find or stay in shelter or housing.
- Created an additional position to serve as an advocate for people with obstacles to housing who seek rental accommodations.
- Provided funds to find ways for existing county-owned buildings to provide services to people experiencing homelessness.
A fourth amendment, passed by the board, calls for analyzing the possibility of a “right to counsel” pilot program for individuals and families experiencing evictions and foreclosures.
Supervisor Jason Haas, the chairman of the county board’s finance committee, said his panel recommended rejecting the three amendments because they would have taken money away from the sheriff’s office overtime budget.
“That money is used for things like correctional officers, who are needed and hard to retain,” Haas said. “If staff in that department work overtime, even if it is not in the budget, the county still has to pay them.”
In a 14-4 vote last month, the board adopted a $1.18 billion budget, with Supervisors Clancy, Patti Logsdon, Anthony Staskunas and John F. Weishan Jr. voting in opposition.
Clancy said he will be taking more steps to support the fight against homelessness.
“What we have come to understand from the community is often emergencies like homelessness are better solved by folks trained to provide resources and build up trust than by the dispatch of an armed county sheriff,” Clancy wrote in an article about the resolution in the Bay View Compass.
Clancy said he proposed the “right to shelter” resolution after seeing the work of county employees who do outreach to homeless people and realizing they needed more help.
“Milwaukee County’s commitment to ending homelessness is something we can all be proud of, but we must also reaffirm this commitment with additional resources when necessary,” said Clancy. “The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated housing insecurity, and we have the responsibility to support our neighbors in need.”
But more needs to be done, advocates say.
“Shelter and housing is a basic human right,” a statement from the Outreach Community Health Centers reads. “What is lacking is the funding and physical housing location resources throughout Milwaukee County.”
Sister MacCanon Brown of the MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary said although she is hopeful the resolution will help, she does not see change coming soon.
“It’s a good step, but I don’t think we’ll see the effects of for a long time,” Brown said. “The issue is huge, and it’s growing every month.”
I’ll tell you what the “right to shelter” means in Milwaukee County. It means a tent in King Park, which is what I observed all summer. I was fine with it as long as the group kept their surroundings clean and did not spread arbitarily throughout the park. The usual shelters had their hands full with coronavirus, and using outdoor space was a good idea to keep people distanced and well-ventilated.
For the most part, the park was maintained, but I frequently noted Milwaukee Parks Department employees doing the work. Also, the group tended to spread, with individual tents here-and-there in the southeast part of the park. I don’t know if the culprits were part of the encampment, but a lot of alcohol gets consumed in King Park as can be noted by the bottles left on the ground.
My point in writing this is to point-out that shelter is only part of the solution. Addiction treatment (and the willingness to pursue it) as well as gainful employment is also needed, and this is where our whole city’s set of expectations comes into play.
Milwaukee is very blue-collar compared to its peer cities, and unfortunately, this means we are competing with the labor force of the developing world. Local employers cannot pay $20/hour for $12/hour labor and still be in business. If we want to avoid even more tent cities in the future we need to take advantage of our low cost of living, which means low labor rates, and we need to step-up our skills, which means continuing education in our local schools – vocational, technical and professional.
This is something everyone in Milwaukee will need to do in order for our least skilled to have any chance of employment. It’s a competitive world, and we will need to up our game if we want to improve, or even maintain, our current lifestyle.