WC Wisconsin News

La Crosse Mayor Mitch Reynolds addressed a recent article criticizing the city’s handling of the homeless situation by saying it will take the efforts of the entire community to impact the problem.

“Thanks to Mike Giese for pointing out what we all should be understanding by now: A rapidly growing unsheltered population presents challenges we must confront as a larger community,” Reynolds wrote in a Facebook post.

Reynolds was referring to an article written by LaCrosse resident Mike Giese for the LaCrosse Tribune saying the City of La Crosse will not be able to solve the problem of homelessness alone.

“All municipalities in the area will need to help,” Giese wrote. “Their help is essential in preventing homeless and needed to provide cost-effective temporary housing for the homeless. Currently, we are subsidizing housing for the more affluent in exurban districts at an unfair cost to city property taxpayers.”

Giese pointed out that homeowners in La Crosse pay higher property taxes than those in the nearby Town of Hamilton, leading to what the Tribune called an “unfair cost” to La Crosse taxpayers.

As the city’s homeless problem increased, tents began appearing in La Crosse’s Houska Park. La Crosse leaders estimate about 50 tents are there at any given time. Tent City appeared in Riverside North a few years back, but La Crosse leaders see a difference.

Reynolds calls Houska Park an active approach to homelessness. 

“The difference here is that the city is taking an active role in making sure that our unsheltered population is safe," he said. "Tent City was really the city just saying, ‘OK, you go and do your thing and we’ll just make do.”

Houska Park, Reynolds said, is buying city leaders' time to help and give the homeless a place where they “feel welcome.”

As of January 2020, Wisconsin had an estimated 4,515 experiencing homelessness on any given day, as reported by Continuums of Care to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Of that Total, 558 were family households, 337 were veterans, 193 were unaccompanied young adults (aged 18-24) and 611 were individuals experiencing chronic homelessness.

Public school data reported to the U.S. Department of Education during the 2018-2019 school year shows that an estimated 18,394 public school students experienced homelessness over the course of the year. Of that total, 308 students were unsheltered, 1,971 were in shelters, 1,485 were in hotels/motels and 14,630 were doubled up.