$200K approved for homeless shelter
By Kevin O’Brien
With Wausau’s police chief warning that tent encampments could return to the city’s underpasses and parks, the Marathon County Board of Supervisors voted 31-1 last Thursday to spend $200,000 out of the county’s contingency funds for providing emergency shelter.
The funding commitment will partially match one already made by the Wausau City Council, which voted in December to allocate $400,000 over the next two years to pay for around-the-clock shelter services every day of the year. If the county wants to provide another $200,000 next year to fully match the city’s contribution, it will need to be included in the 2026 budget.
A sense of urgency for city and county funding comes amidst uncertainty over the Good Shepherd nighttime shelter currently run by Catholic Charities, which is set to cease operations at the end of April, according to Wausau police chief Matt Barnes.
“I’m really terrified of what things are going to look like when they don’t have a place to go,” he told supervisors, saying he wouldn’t know what to tell his officers if they were asked to remove a homeless encampment without a shelter available.
Gary Veltus, regional director of Catholic Charities, told supervisors at a committee meeting last Wednesday that the organization has not actually announced that it’s closing the shelter in May, but it is currently operating without a contract with the city. Veltus said Catholic Charities had been paying 100 percent for the costs for a day shelter before that closed at the end of 2024, and said the city “completely ignored” a request for nighttime shelter services.
Meanwhile, he said the homelessness problem is not going away. In 2024, the Good Shepherd shelter temporarily housed 316 different individuals for a total of 10,600 overnight stays with warm meals, breakfasts
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and other services provided last year, Veltus said.
“With over 10,500 night stays in 2024, it is my hope that the county as well as the city team up with shelter services to help those unhoused individuals,” he said. “This is a growing problem that we need to address together as a group in a civilized manner.”
Now that the county has agreed to match the county’s funding contribution for this year, Chief Barnes and county officials will be writing a request for proposals (RFP) that will go out the various organizations, including Catholic Charities, interested in providing shelter services. The goal is to get a contract in place within the next two months.
Several conditions were added to the $200,000 funding resolution after county supervisors were first presented with the request at their Feb. 13 meeting.
County administrator Lance Leonhard said he drafted the final resolution based on input from the city-county joint task force on homelessness, which met last Wednesday to answer questions and refine its request for matching funds for shelter services.
Leonhard said several requirements will be included in the RFPs, including provisions for segregating people by gender and separating those with mental illness or other behavioral problems. Also, because the county already provides a lot of services that benefit the homeless population, such as mental health treatment, drug and alcohol counseling and social services, Leonhard said it simply does not have the money available to add shelter services to its budget.
“The county does not see a future in funding a shelter long term,” he said. In order to protect the county’s interests, Leonhard said the RFPs that go out will include three methods for terminating the sheltering contract: “for cause” if performance expectations are not met; for lack of funding in the future; and without cause as long as the county provides sufficient notice ahead of time. He said these are standard for any contract the county enters into.
Leonhard provided these details in response to questioning by board vice-chairman Chris Dickinson, who noted that supervisors were asked to vote on a funding resolution that had been significantly altered since it was first presented to the board a week earlier.
“I’m not against this, but I think the questions need to be asked,” he said.
A countywide issue?
One of the questions that has featured prominently in recent discussions is the extent to which outlying communities in rural parts of the county rely on Wausau to handle homeless individuals.
Supervisor Jason Wilhelm, who represents the Athens area, wondered what happens if someone from as far away from Wausau as Abbotsford or Stratford becomes homeless.
“Are the people who need help going to be funneled to Wausau?” he asked.
“That’s exactly what happens with those individuals,” Chief Barnes replied. “The other municipalities and townships throughout Marathon County, when they experience an individual who is unhoused in those areas, they are brought to where the resources are, which happens to be the city of Wausau.”
Supervisor Dickinson, however, noted that the county board has not been provided with any data on the number of people from outside Wausau who require shelter services, other than anecdotal evidence from Wausau police.
Supervisor Ron Covelli, who represents the village of Marathon City and the town of Stettin and cochairs the homelessness task force, said the county has the opportunity to partner with the city on dealing with the unhoused population, regardless of where they come from.
“I know my constituents care about homeless folks, and making sure they don’t freeze on a park bench when there’s no shelter available,” he said. “I know that other people do as well.”
Covelli also noted that the private sector in Marathon County, both businesses or non-profit organizations, contribute a total of $2.5 million annually towards homeless services, so it’s not just the government that’s being asked to pay for the problem.
Chief Barnes pointed to the partnership between the city and county of La Crosse, with their Pathways Home program, as a model for successfully transitioning people from needing emergency shelter to eventually becoming self-sufficient.
“I don’t support resources for the homeless community that enable them to stay in homelessness,” he said. “I think everything that’s funded in the resources should empower them to leave homelessness.”
Other business
■ The board approved a motion to spend up to $224,919 to clean up human health hazards at the former Northern Mobile Home Park in Schofield. The county is currently pursuing nearly $140,000 in pastdue taxes from the property owner, and if that is not paid by March 1, it will proceed with a tax deed foreclosure to seize the property. If that goes through, the county would sell the property to the highest bidder, and it may also pursue civil litigation against the current owner to recoup its costs.
■ The board approved an amendment to the county ordinance dealing with requests for conduit borrowing, which allow private entities to take advantage of the county’s ability to issue tax-exempt debt for proposed projects. The new wording states that county supervisors will take into account whether the entity asking for conduit bonds is domestically owned, whether it is a non-profit or forprofit venture and whether the development would occur without conduit borrowing.
■ The board approved an increase in medical examiner’s fees for cremation authorizations and disinterment permits, from $275 to $283, effective April 1.
Chris Dickinson
