Wisconsin's Homelessness on the Rise Again

Thursday, March 28th, 2024 -- 11:01 AM

(Natalie Eilbert, Green Bay Press-Gazette) Wisconsin's homelessness population is on the rise for the first time in a decade, a trend that will likely grow as federal pandemic-relief programs end and living costs continue to surge.

According to Natalie Eilbert for the Green Bay Press-Gazette, the trend, in a report by Wisconsin Policy Forum released Wednesday, appears to be driven by the economic hardships and layoffs that have become synonymous with the pandemic, and consequently, the jump in housing costs in the pandemic's aftermath.

While the passage of the 2009 federal program Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act decreased homelessness rates in the 2010s, the pandemic upended its downward progress, the report suggested.

COVID-19 relief dollars managed to head off the pandemic's impact on Wisconsin's homeless rate, but that quickly changed when relief dollars expired and eviction moratoriums lifted, said Don Cramer, the Wisconsin Policy Forum researcher who authored Wednesday's report.

That translated to a 13% increase in Wisconsin's homelessness rate between 2021 and 2022, and another 2% increase between 2022 and 2023. To put this into perspective, 6,055 Wisconsinites were registered as homeless in 2014, but by 2021, that number had fallen to 4,237, a 30% drop.

As of 2023, Wisconsin reported 4,861 homeless individuals. These data come from annual point-in-time counts submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by planning bodies that coordinate and oversee HUD services.

These counts track unsheltered individuals and those in temporary housing programs, such as emergency shelters, on the night of the count at the end of January each year. They don't include the number of people doubling up, or staying with friends or relatives, or those participating in permanent housing programs.

Although point-in-time counts historically underestimate the true number of people experiencing homelessness, its consistent methodologies offer insights for year-to-year comparisons of the issue.

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