Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee's last socialist mayor, once remarked that community activism had flourished in the city since he left office in 1960.
"I find a lot more of it today," Zeidler said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal in 1990. "And it's come up in a different way: community groups, individuals committed to social justice and peace, mainline religious organizations."
Despite the efforts of such groups and the millions of taxpayers' dollars feeding government welfare programs, many citizens still lack a most basic necessity — shelter.
Rust belt blues
A Jan. 26 survey by the Milwaukee Continuum of Care, a coalition of more than 50 homeless service providers in the city, found that there are over 1,000 unsheltered homeless in the city on any given night. The number rises to nearly 2,600 when those staying in shelters are included.
The city's homeless population has swelled in recent years due to a weak economy, diminished program funding and a shortage of affordable housing and family-sustaining jobs, according to George Martin, program director of Peace Action Wisconsin and a local homeless service provider volunteer for 15 years.
"It's not just Milwaukee's economy, it's across the nation," Martin said. But jobs with living wages haven't been readily replaced in Rust Belt states — where formerly abundant, well-paying factory jobs have become scarce.
"Back when jobs were plentiful, you really didn't see homelessness," Martin said.
W-2 dysfunction
The Rev. Debra Trakel, rector of St. James' Episcopal Church, 833 W. Wisconsin Ave., has witnessed a spike in the number of homeless attending the church's meal program — mostly women and children — in her six years there.
"When I first came here, we were feeding about 220 a day, and now it's up to 300," Trakel said.
Many poverty-stricken mothers have been wedged into homelessness since the implementation of Wisconsin Works, also known as W-2, a welfare replacement program implemented in 1997. W-2 requires individuals to work in order to receive welfare benefits.
But many welfare recipients were not able to make the transition to W-2.
"If you ask someone to work and you don't provide childcare services, that's a problem," Trakel said of single mothers.
The work requirement is often not practical in the city's job market, said Rose Daitsman, the community at large representative for the W-2 Monitoring Task Force, created by the Milwaukee County board of supervisors in 1998.
Also, educational barriers often hinder employment under W-2.
"Many of the people who were expected to find jobs on their own had had no previous success in getting and keeping a job," she said.
But the biggest problem with W-2 has been its administration, according to 18th District County Supervisor Roger Quindel, a member of the task force.
"With W-2, it's been an explosion of cost and not a lot of people being serviced," he said. "All the money went to private agencies — there was no incentive to minimize costs."
Despite W-2's dysfunctions, progress has been made.
"They've taken out a lot of the excesses from the Thompson administration," Quindel said, referring to former governor, "but there's still a lot to do."
Housing first
More and more non-profit groups and local leaders now emphasize low-income housing development as the first step to addressing homelessness in Milwaukee.
In May 2004, a coalition of city homeless shelter providers, housing and community development organizations and faith-based groups drafted the proposal for a Milwaukee Housing Trust Fund, which would set aside specific revenues to support low-income housing development.
More than 350 housing trust funds have already been established in cities across the nation, according to Mike Soika, executive director of the YMCA Community Development Center.
Soika hopes the legislation will be passed by the end of June.
This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Mar. 10 2005.