Once again, this seems like a more fun and sharable format for updates than just another social media post :) ! Another update from this week’s budget workshops (a handful of videos here https://www.youtube.com/@OshkoshMedia/videos ) if you’d like to look and listen. Recap on this portion below:

For the last 8 or so months, I proudly served on a committee at the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation convened to discuss different ways to help the homeless in Oshkosh. There were 2 committees, one focused on short-term and another on long-term ideas (I served on short) that got together for the last 2 meetings to offer an idea of what we should do. These committees were made up of lots of folks from different facets of the community, business owners, city department heads, police, non-profits, the county and more. Great folks with many thoughts and opinions and ideas on what Oshkosh can and should do to proactively help the folks who might need our help the most. What always makes this a tough conversation to have is that this issue also brings with it the need to talk about caring for our neighborhoods, business and property owners as well and the ways in which they interact with folks who have no place else to be.

The idea that came out of the hours of work of those committees was, in a nutshell, this:

An office (or group) that can provide outreach to those that are homeless or require mental health services, to point them in the right direction to services available. What we discovered in this committee was that Oshkosh and Winnebago Co. already have some pretty great resources available for folks (not everything, more on that in a bit…but a good start), and that sometimes what is helpful, is folks who can literally go out and meet folks where they are, ask what they need, and be armed with the resources available to provide aid. That does not ‘solve’ everything, of course, but that little lift-up, as we saw from other examples in other cities, can be what folks need to at least get started in the right direction.

After the committee decided that the above idea was a good one to get started, we began hunting for a place to be ‘home’ to it. Chief Smith of your Oshkosh Police Dept. offered to do so, and the committee agreed that was a good fit. As mentioned above, this project will be jointly funded by the City of Oshkosh, The Oshkosh Community Foundation, and the United Way, will include an additional social worker, sergeant, the existing social workers and officers, and best of all not be housed in the Police Dept. building or City Hall, but rather in a remote Downtown Oshkosh location that is easily accessible to all.

An important note, and one that was discussed in this workshop and elsewhere:
I am certain you have noticed some of our surrounding cities, and your County, proposing some ordinances that make camping or sleeping in cars illegal, or new ‘loitering’ laws. Generally, things that are referred to as ‘criminalizing homelessness’. This is definitely not that. Your City Council has no appetite for that sort of thing, nor does your police dept. This type of program, I believe, is what should exist INSTEAD of those types of things, as at least this proposes some sort of proactive solution, rather than just arbitrary fines that can’t be paid anyway, or arbitrary ‘move alongs’ to folks who have nowhere to move along to. That makes no sense at all and truly offers no help. This does.

You may not immediately think of a police department as the group that provides outreach to the homeless (I had to give it some thought). You also may not know that your police dept. already operates a very successful behavioral health officer team. When I heard folks from day-by-day and other aid organizations speak about how great a job these BHOs are already doing, I was sold. I have also had the luxury of having hours of conversations with Chief Smith on this subject, and was pleased to discover that he and I agree on the topic of homelessness in general as well.

All cities and counties in the US have seen a dramatic rise recently in homelessness (last national average I heard was about 30%, and Winnebago Co. estimates as high as 50% increase). In Winnebago Co., roughly 450 people qualify as homeless. Many of those receive vouchers and assistance for housing through HUD/sec. 8 and more. At most times, in Winnebago Co. there are about 40 folks who are literally without a home or a place to be at all. The aim of this initiative is to, again, meet those 40 folks where they are, and provide them with resources to get them on a path toward having a place of their own. Again, as mentioned above, we do have some pretty good resources available: H.E.l.P, Advocap, United Way, Day-by-Day, C.O.T.S, and many that I am forgetting. Social workers, on the street, asking what help folks need, I hope is a good way to connect them to the right resources and help as many folks that want it as possible.

Another benefit of this particular team is they can and will provide data on this subject. This will not, of course, ‘end homelessness’, but can and will provide better direction on next steps (speaking with folks who have needs, about what they need, will be beneficial). My personal belief on this subject is that truly adopting a model of ‘housing first’ is the best way to help (if you are not familiar with this subject ,and have 11 minutes and 30 seconds to spare, that’s all it takes typically to understand… this video of Sam Tsemberis describing his theory will help). I am 100% certain that what we will learn from this outreach program is that we still need more and more affordable housing (and perhaps a harder look at how we allocate housing vouchers currently).

This is a good first step. I am pleased and confident to have made a recommendation to fund it. I am very grateful for the Foundation and United Way for the help in funding, and to the Police Dept. and Chief Smith for administration and more. I look forward to seeing what can be done now and next.

As always, thanks for reading. Any questions/comments/etc just holler.

-kris