News

Jul 11, 2023

Wausau homeless day shelter abruptly closes

By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review Four months after Wausau committed American Rescue Plan Act Funding for a daytime shelter assisting homeless residents, the organization providing those

By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review

Four months after Wausau committed American Rescue Plan Act Funding for a daytime shelter assisting homeless residents, the organization providing those services abruptly closed, leaving a significant gap in resources and many unanswered questions.

Open Door, 319 Fourth St., is a nonprofit agency that provides “temporary help to current and newly released inmates,” among other services. The organization, which launched more than a decade ago, serves about 1,000 people each year, according to its website.

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Wausau Pilot & Review has learned that Open Door closed Friday. Multiple sources say the man who had been acting as executive program director is no longer with the organization, but the circumstances under which he resigned remained unclear.

Dist. 7 Alder Lisa Rasmussen said her understanding is that the director resigned for medical reasons.

City officials have so far maintained complete silence on the closure and the allegations surrounding the closure. Emails sent Tuesday to Wausau Police Chief Ben Bliven, Wausau Deputy Chief Matt Barnes, Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg, Wausau City Council President Becky McElhaney and the city’s “media email address” have gone unanswered as of early Wednesday.

The closure raises questions about the future for Wausau and how city officials are vetting organizations and the people who run them prior to allocating funding. In March, Wausau officials allocated $50,000 in funding to support Open Door, part of an effort to help the city’s unhoused population find shelter during daytime hours.

Unclear, too, is the path forward as the city struggles to address the increasing problem of homelessness.

The day center at Open Door was meant to relieve some of the pressure around the Marathon County Public Library and other places in the city where homeless residents seek shelter when the overnight shelter is closed.

Jerry Edwards, who provides advocacy services for homeless residents, said he has been out on the street daily since the closure trying to provide food and water to people who no longer have anywhere to go.

“The street situation is obviously worse without the Day Shelter – more arrests, violence, stealing from each other, predation on the street, tickets, not enough shelter day or night, and police as usual chasing people in circles with nowhere to go,” Edwards said.

Edwards said he and his wife, who also performs missionary work, agree with removing the individual staff member at the center of the controversy, but not disabling the entire organization.

“By the way, Open Door had over 7,000 visits this year from over 560 different people,” he said, on July 11.

Edwards said he relies heavily on food and water donations from The Neighbor’s Place and a local grocery store, but the need is outweighing the demand. Water is in especially short supply.

The Wausau City Council previously approved $540,000 to operate a 24-hour warming center and $237,990 for a daytime center for two years. Both efforts were to be run by Catholic Charities, but that changed in March.

In March, Bliven said after Catholic Charities took on the initiative, the organization realized the heavy lift the effort would take and began conversations with Open Door. In the past few years, Open Door has opened their doors during extreme weather days, and had the infrastructure in place to provide those services, he said.

Rasmussen in March praised Open Door’s “knowledge base” and said that the organization’s experience coupled with the administrative resource of Catholic Charities would be helpful. On Wednesday, she told Wausau Pilot & Review she expects Open Door will fill the position and the ARPA allocation for the day center will be unaffected.

…”my understanding is while they are not operating, funds are not being drawn down, but are held to be used for the purpose when it resumes,” Rasmussen said. “Obviously, this was unforeseen and the hope is that this resolves soon and that the day services there continue as they were very impactful.”

Wausau Pilot & Review also reached out to Catholic Charities, which was working in concert with Open Door on the daytime shelter program. The organization’s director did not return a voicemail left on Tuesday.

Last year, the Wausau Police Department said they received numerous complaints about homeless residents from business establishments in the downtown area and the library – that they were aggressively panhandling, loitering, fighting and using public spaces for urination and defecation. Since then, police conducted sweeps to eliminate homeless encampments underneath the Scott Street Bridge, angering homeless advocates and prompting community conversations about how best to solve the issue.

Open Door’s day shelter was a major part of the solution.

A person who answered the phone at Open Door on Tuesday said he was a volunteer who was just at the center performing some cleanup duties, but declined to comment on the status of the organization.

Sources within Open Door’s leadership, speaking on condition of anonymity, will only say that the shelter is allowing guests to gather their belongings and that they believe that services will resume in the future.

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