Common Council - Regular Meeting

address homelessness in partnership with many of the community organizations that I see out here, as well as some of the individuals, but also amongst our departments. So first, I'll start by saying every two weeks, we have an unsheltered meeting. This meeting allows for several different departments to come together to talk about things that they are experiencing in their different departments, what are their staff seeing, essentially strategizing and problem solving around this particular issue. So I thought it would be important for council members to hear from staff what we're doing and really kind of have an open discussion amongst council to figure out what are some other things that we can either be looking at doing or how we're going to work together to address the issue that's in our community. So the way that I have this meeting set up Obviously, I'm here to do some opening remarks. We'll have council members, which they'll have two minutes to make remarks. And in their remarks, they're going to talk about what they're seeing and hearing from their constituents, their community, et cetera. Or if you have other questions, just feel free to put those out there as well. Then I have Mike here from the state who's going to just speak from a state perspective around the situation of homelessness. and then we will open it up to city staff and city staff they know who they are i'll call them up and they'll kind of speak to the work that we're doing in the city and then i'll leave it for council members to ask questions and just have an open discussion and then we will adjourn the meeting sounds good all right so we'll start with district one first and just kind of go in order so if you're ready council president

Thank you, Mayor. So I represent the north side, upper north side. And the last time there was an observed collection of unsheltered was almost two years ago. And that was the last time that that was a large collection of individuals was in October of that year. And, uh, The Wisconsin DOT has jurisdiction over the area where they had been residing. And they cleared that area and since that time I've not seen any further activities of that nature. So that is by the welcome sign that is as you enter from the north and that area next to the river has been clear. Additionally, we have had occasions where the O'Connor Lodge and the Quality Inn do have housing options for individuals. And I have not heard any reports in regard to those individuals. The Comfort Inn, I know, is on Moore Street, and they have had occasional concerns about how many non-customers are using their continental breakfast. So I'm assuming that might still be a small issue, but I've not heard anything recently about There was a property that was occupied by a number of individuals and we have successfully over a year ago, empty that home and went up for sale and is now occupied by a single person. And so the same issue is not occurring in that house. We've not had any reported problems at Badger Hickey Park, since sometimes we talk about park situations, and that is one that is in my district. Badger Hickey Park is behind Bridgeview Plaza, in case you aren't familiar. And we have other issues. I don't want to be naive, but they aren't necessarily attributed to the unsheltered or any other activities. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Goddard.

Thank you. I represent District 2 on La Crosse's north side and I'm trying to represent the entire city as well. I'm also the executive director at the Harry G. Olson Senior Center, which sits on the Bud Hendrickson Trail. And we experience different levels of things from people coming in, asking for money, from people badgering the seniors as they're getting in another cars. things like that. So that's very concerning to me where I have to navigate how they can be safe in the building, how they can be safe going in and out of the building. So that's a big concern for us. I also, in my district, there's Copeland Park, and a lot of the people in District 2 and surrounding have contacted me about the activities in Copeland Park. And while it's not attributed directly to the homeless unsheltered, it is attributed to the activities that go around the people that prey on the homeless and unsheltered. Recently, I've come across some activity in Luth Park, which is not my district, but somewhere where I've just spent some time. And I'm just concerned with the... uptick, if you will. I just want the City of La Crosse and the residents of District 2 to know that I am listening and I'm trying to do and mitigate what I can. And we're not, I hope that we're not here to fix the blame, but we're here to fix some solutions and we're not, we're willing to dig deeper into the surface questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Jansen.

I represent district three, which is basically lacrosse street going north to the railroad tracks on the north side, obviously that district has changed over the years, the boundaries, but. it's it's hard to strictly just talk regarding district three because, as a self employed person i'm. all over the city throughout the day. I am in Stoddard, I am in Onalaska. And so I hear many things and I have other hats that I wear in this community. What I have seen is various levels of behavior issues that have gone on throughout the city. Obviously, several years ago, I pushed to have a camping ban in the marsh and in our parks. But how I can summarize things the best would be, many of my residents feel that safety is a significant concern now. The quality of life in District 3 has gone down. I have residents who speak to me about the frequent calls to the fire department to have needles picked up. Just recently, A completely filled syringe was filled with black tar heroin, according to the fire department. Imagine finding that in your traffic circle or the needles that are on the boulevard or maybe in your front yard where you would love to send your kids out to play. But now we don't feel particularly safe doing that anymore. Um, we have parks that have had hours changed, um, as council member Goggin noted, um, Luke park has had a, an increase in problems with people that feel that it's okay to live there. And I obviously keep in touch with, with city staff and know that they're being asked to move along, um, and being provided other options.

So. I'm sorry, excuse me. Point of order for folks in the audience. This is the council meeting. Please let us speak. We cannot allow you all to disrupt us right now. So, excuse me. I don't wanna have to ask you to leave, but I do need you to stop talking. Thank you. Council Member Jensen.

So neighbors are frustrated

I've had many, many calls. I get stopped wherever I am at, grocery store, whatever. We still have people that live in the marsh, which is not humane. In the past, we've had marsh trails blocked. Prior to the camping ban, we had residents who stopped inviting their grandchildren over because they couldn't open their patio doors because there were naked people outside of their patio doors. There were people with drugs. So we have businesses that have businesses entrances being blocked. Just recently, a business actually had to lock their doors while they waited for the police to come. That is not normal behavior. And that is really concerns me as I actually find myself changing what I consider to be normal behavior. Now, we have increased theft in our neighborhoods. It's sad to hear the children that have had bicycles stolen out of their garage. And Just recently, within the last two weeks, I was standing in the library parking lot to watch the sale of drugs that appeared across the street, parked a couple vehicles down from my vehicle. So we definitely have a problem. I believe it's getting worse in certain areas. I believe there are certain parts of the city that really aren't impacted nearly as much as some of those that are near the downtown and on the north side. But it's sad because I think we are getting to the point that tourism is going to be impacted. We've had instances with naked people running in front of buses that are here giving people tours. And we have homeless people walking into businesses or people that are just maybe high on various drugs, but we have behavior issues that need to be addressed. I've heard stories of people that used to drive up from Stoddard that used to live in La Crosse. They consider this still their home, but they won't go to our, use our boat docks anymore because the last time they were there, they were being verbally attacked by individuals. And then when they went to use the restrooms, they were non-usable as I can imagine what our park staff have to deal with. So the problems are numerous. That is just a summary. But I can't imagine any resident wanting to live in a neighborhood that has to deal with these things. I attempted to rent two of my houses. And when my neighbors started telling me they had homeless people just walking in their backyard, in their fenced backyard, where their children were playing, It's just not acceptable behavior. And we need to come up with solutions. We can't keep accepting this to be the norm. And what really saddens me is the number of people that are coming to lacrosse that aren't from here. They're from out of state. They have no connections to lacrosse. If this was just... We were dealing with La Crosse residents, people that had connections to La Crosse. I think Pathways Home would probably be working really well right now, but that's not the case. And we need to admit what's not working before we can fix the real problems.

Thank you. Council Member Slesico, reminder of your two minutes, people.

Thank you, Mayor. I represent District 4. District 4, roughly West Avenue on the west, Cass Street on the south, Campbell Road and State Street on the north, up into the Blufflands. Our district, as far as I can tell, has been relatively fortunate, not overly directly impacted by the unsheltered. The one thing I do hear from constituents is how it's impacted them when they try to take advantage of city services, especially those downtown and nearby. I hear from folks that are no longer feeling that they can use our public library and be safe, especially with children. The parks are definitely a concern. Downtown businesses, Riverside Park and Walking on the Marsh Trails All of those directly impact the constituents that I have. And as Council Member Jansen had mentioned, there are so, so many concerns in so many areas that obviously this is something that we have to take even more seriously and more of a priority than we have in the past. So I appreciate everything so far that has been said by council members and the work that staff and others have done up to this point. It is getting to the point we need to find other opportunities for addressing the concern of the unsheltered and the homeless.

Thank you. Council Member Stein. I'm sorry, again. Hold on, Council Member Stein. For folks that are in the gallery, listen, I hear you. And also, please respect the order of this meeting. You cannot be yelling at council members and yelling out of turn. It is still a council meeting. If you continue, I will ask you to leave. Thank you. Council Member Stein.

Okay, thank you. I represent District 5, which encompasses the entire university campus. I want to echo what Council Member Sesnico said. We have been quite fortunate where we don't see as many issues as our downtown or north side does at the moment. But what I have heard is a concern for safety. I have students who do go to the marsh, who try to run... all of our beautiful trails, and they feel unsafe at times. Though I do want to say there is no, I do not believe it is inherently dangerous with our homeless population. these constituents do feel that their safety is an issue or they do not feel safe. What I also have heard though, is these students find it incredibly important that our city, our county, our local governments is open to having these conversations. They are glad that we have these meetings, that we have Pathways Home and we are having the conversations surrounding the homeless population. And we are recognizing that there is a problem and things need to change. So they thank them or they thank us for having these conversations, but they do feel that there is a lack of safety currently. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Calo.

Thank you, Mayor. I represent District 6. That's Cass Street to the river, La Crosse Street, and then up to West Avenue. So you are sitting in my district right now. Thank you for being here. As a council member for district six, I need to speak plainly about what residents, workers and businesses downtown are experiencing. Crime and disturbances tied to homelessness have escalated to a level that disrupts daily life and many people no longer feel safe in their own neighborhood. Residents do not feel heard. In the past week alone, people have been awakened by late night bonfires, fights throughout the night and early morning, and disturbances that make it impossible for them to sleep. These problems are concentrated in key areas of District 6, Burns Park, around the public library, and throughout the public right-of-way connected to those spaces. These are areas meant to be safe, accessible, and welcoming for families, workers, and visitors. A young professional working in the nonprofit sector shared with me a detailed list of issues she faces simply trying to live and work downtown. Her message was clear. Even those committed to helping vulnerable individuals feel unsafe and overwhelmed by the disorder. These voices from residents and from those serving our community cannot be ignored. Businesses are dealing with theft and aggressive interactions and repeated disruptions. Residents are facing trespassing confrontations, and chronic sleep deprivation and interruption. The vibrancy of our commercial core and the overall livability of District 6 are being seriously threatened. We must confront two hard realities. First, La Crosse has become a destination for individuals from other counties and states. Our city cannot continue absorbing regional challenges on its own. County and state partners must help curb this influx and share responsibility more fairly. Second, more than 60 individuals have declined housing through Pathways Home or were unable to remain successfully housed. The City of La Crosse cannot sustain individuals who repeatedly refuse services when someone consistently declines shelter, treatment, or stabilization programs. We cannot continue enabling circumstances that create danger and disorder for the broader community. These individuals must be connected, whether through county and state systems to care, accountability, and long-term support the city is not equipped to provide. And La Crosse cannot solve this alone. Our police department is stretched thin, responding to mental health crises, addiction emergencies, and ongoing disorder. I want to express my appreciation to our police department and also thank you for being at Burns Park and cleaning up this morning. And I want to say some residents want me to thank you as well. County, state and federal agencies must step up with treatment beds, crisis stabilization services, supportive housing and sustained funding. Within our authority, we must also ensure stronger enforcement of existing codes and laws. Public spaces must be safe. Residents must have quiet enjoyment of their homes. Businesses must operate without constant disruption. We must protect people who live, work and visit our downtown. District 6 is sending a clear message. They need action now. I will continue pushing for stronger regional responsibility and stronger local enforcement to protect our city. Thank you for letting me speak. Council Member Budeski.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of all, I'd like to thank everybody also who's here, whether you're here out of sympathy or anger, at least you're here, you're involved, and that's a good thing. Second thing is we have the media, I represent District 7, by the way. Second of all, the media's here. I would ask that all of you, whether it's radio, television, or newspaper, put something in there and ask our state representatives who are sitting on millions, if I'm what, 2 billion, 3 billion, but overflow budget that could go to building maybe some facilities to help the people in need. I guess thirdly would be what's been talked about. And I would ask then that like when our homeless coordinator is talking, when he talks about the last known address, That sends a false message to council and the public when you say, well, their last address here was La Crosse. It could have been a week that they came and stayed with a relative. It could have been a week at the Salvation Army. And it just... That's hard to explain to people when they call me and say they're not from here. And then we hear that 80% are from La Crosse. People who come to stay as a house guest for a few weeks, they're not from La Crosse. So I would ask that we do a better job of clarifying where the people are from. The fourth thing I want to say is I've been very fortunate. I was involved with Pathways Home on the county side and now the city side. I see all the hard work involved and everything's going into it. But we need help from the state. We need federal money. We need other communities that keep dropping people off here to stop. But we're doing our best to help the people we can. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Mindell.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm Mackenzie Mindell. I represent District 8. I'll speak directly to my experience. We all know boundaries, district boundaries. You know, if we're speaking in terms of like Cass Street, for example, folks living, you know, a number of blocks past, many blocks past Cass Street to the south are still experiencing struggles like those Councilmember Calo experienced. I would say looking at my district, which is from about 8th, 9th Street to 17th Street, from Cass Street about over to Farnham. It used to be square. It's not square anymore. But those are roughly the boundaries. I would say impacts related to homelessness... Although it's hard to sometimes say if it's strictly related to homelessness or just... the drug epidemic that we have. I would say the closer you get to downtown, the higher the impact. Certainly folks who don't have access to transportation are going to be closer to the services. And so that's what I see happening in the district. I support Pathways Home. I support the efforts of our many, many, many, many local service providers. And it's also admittedly very difficult to get photos and complaints and calls and see drug use providers. Um, with my own eyes and also being like five feet away from a six-year-old walking with their grandma, um, on the street, seeing that it's really hard to be getting complaints and, um, to not feel like, I mean, we feel like we completely understand. So the same point where I support all of our services, it's also really difficult to see that folks are, you know, folks are getting housed, but still it doesn't feel to the people necessarily that there has been a big improvement. I have seen over the last few years, maybe two years, more unsheltered folks walking through the neighborhoods. There's less incidences of, you know, problematic behavior. I would say past West Avenue, it is still here, especially with some of the main thoroughfares, but I would say the impacts, the negative impacts are concentrated past on the riverside of West Avenue. Thank you.

Council Member Newberry.

Come and give me a second. Too many windows open. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Give me just a second. So my name is Aaron Newberry. I'm a District 9 council member. That is 8th Street west to the river and from Cass Street to behind Gunderson. I'd say that me, along with downtown, I would guess probably have the most activity on this particular topic in the entire city. I can be really brief. We had our district forum a couple months ago and had a number of folks show up and got a lot of really good, well, not good, but good feedback from those folks. And I just wanted to share what that was. One of the problems that has been pointed out is Our Savior's Lutheran Church was kind of a hub in my mind. It's an oval of the Salvation Army is one pole of it, and the other pole is Our Savior's Lutheran Church and everything in between that. including Burns Park and the library that are just in the middle. That's the activity, the Cass Street, Quick Trip, et cetera. So there's just lots going on in that particular area. Our Savior's Lutheran Church was collecting more and more folks who were congregating at that location than was comfortable. There was a number of, you know, any amount of illegal activity you could possibly think of. The public nudity, urination, defecation, drug dealing, drug use, abuse, honestly, same neighborhood. Gun violence lately, not necessarily related to that population. I think one of the things that people are really worried about is or that people really, really notice is just the excessive litter that's around constantly that I think is related and the fighting and the arguing and just the, there's constant police activity in my neighborhood. There are quality of life issues for sure. One of the things that the folks came and talked about that I was really, that I hadn't heard about was Stokey tower. Apparently there's a number of unsheltered individuals that have gotten into there. It's a key door. You have to have the code to get in, but anybody can get in and they reportedly taken over the public spaces, like the common areas, the rooms, the hallways, et cetera. You know, the theft is always a problem around here, especially the bikes. And yeah, That's also concerning, but I do want to point out one thing and I wasn't on council when it happened, but from a hundred thousand foot view, there's lots of homeless folks in the parks and made it illegal to be in the parks. So they went to the church and then we got the church to kick them out. And then they went to the, then they went to the boulevards and the streets. And I don't know where they're at now. But they're not in that one particular location. But it's the shuffling of people that we know doesn't work. But also, I think my opinion is that a lot of times it's about the total, the concentration. It's about the number. I don't know how you do that legally. But, you know, if there's 100 folks gathered in any location, that can be problematic. So anyway, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Trost. Thank you, Mayor. I represent District 10, which is Farnham on the north, Weston on the south, Losey on the east, and about 9th Street to the west. And about unsheltered folks specifically. I have seen one or two people spending one or two nights in one or two of our parks. That's what I have seen specifically in a park at the end of my street and in a park just on the other side of West Avenue. No constituents have reached out to me regarding the unsheltered either in our district or in the city. They have reached out to me on other issues, but not this one. So I guess, again, like some other council members, District 10 is fortunate in that regard. directly adjacent to my district, I do see regularly I pass by it, the building that tellurian bought rezoned consulted with neighbors over and remodeled for their mental health crisis stabilization program that building has been empty. and for sale for more than a year because the federal funding they had been awarded was not dispersed to them. And I have reached out several times to our congressional representative about that funding and have gotten no responses.

Thank you. Councilmember Bedford.

Hello, my name is Crystal Bedford. I'm representative of District 11, which goes from the first of the three smaller roundabouts down Mormon Cooley to about the Wendy's. We don't have too much of a homeless problem. I know I see some people out in front of some of the businesses along Mormon Cooley. I've heard from some of the residents that the lights staying on later at Train Park have been keeping people out of the park. although they weren't sure if that was homeless people or if that was teenagers that were there. I think most of my conversations about homelessness happened when I was running for office and Well, please wait, sorry. And for that, I think a big question was how do we balance our successes than drawing in more people? Outside of that, outside of that, I have sat with people in grief over people that have been lost on the streets. We've had people that we've kept off of the streets in our house. And, you know, before I lived in District 11, I lived in District 9. And I knew a lot of people that were living in subpar situations and were, because they were afraid of being homeless in houses that should have been honestly deemed unlivable, but they were afraid of being homeless. And I know that the services that we have help people when they are looking at publicist straight in the face. So I wanted to bring that there and say that part as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Weston is unavailable or excused and Council Member Northwood.

I am on the District 13, the far south side of the City of La Crosse, so the other bookmark from District 1. In my area, I see homelessness. I work with local community partners in my day work that address homelessness and deal with trying to come up with solutions and collaborative ways that we can meet the needs of our unsheltered neighbors. I know that everyone will call them neighbors, but I will when I'm talking. So what I wanna talk about is how we as a community choose to respond to our unhoused neighbors and those that are dealing with housing instability. Criminalization of homelessness has not solved homelessness in our community. Ticketing people, moving people along, restricting where they can sleep, or treating homelessness primarily as a public safety issue does not address the reason someone is without a house. It does not create affordable housing. It does not provide treatment or mental health services if they're needed. It does not put food on the table. and it does not give someone the stability they need to rebuild their life. What it does create is fear. Fear of calling for help, fear of being seen, Just because you can't see unhoused people in your neighborhoods does not mean they're there. We criminalize it in our community.

Do you really think they want to be seen?

Some places you can, yes, because they have nowhere to go. We tell them where they can't go, but we don't tell them where they can. The services we have don't meet the need. We know this. And... Fear of losing what little someone has. When you see the raids and they clean out parks and people make all the comments and there's keyboard warriors, that's everything someone owns sometimes. It doesn't look like something to you. It's their everything. It doesn't have to look like something to us. We're missing empathy in this conversation. There are multiple sides to this and we need to be able to talk about all of them. We need to remember something fundamental just because someone is unpalatable to you, it does not strip them of their rights or their inherent dignity. Our discomfort is not a justification for criminalizing another person's existence look at the public library, the library already recognizes that being a public space means serving the entire Community. It budgets for security as part of its annual operations while still providing a safe, welcoming public space to all. We saw this clearly when we discussed cooling centers. That was a hot topic recently, and the mayor shared about public spaces where people can go that are available. The public library is one of them. This is what balancing safety and public access look like. We can have safety expectations, we can have rules, we can have security, and we can still recognize the humanity and rights of the people who use our public spaces. Our unhoused neighbors are people. There are people who work, people who have families, people who may have experienced trauma, people who may be struggling with illness or addiction, and people who have simply experienced circumstances that push them beyond what they could manage or afford to continue their housing.

They are our neighbors. They're in our community.

If we truly want a safer La Crosse, we should stop asking, how do we make these people disappear from view? Instead, we should be asking, what will actually help this person get somewhere better? We need solutions rooted in housing prevention, supportive services, and meaningful community partnership. We need to listen to people with lived experience. Unhoused people don't just look like people on the street. Being unhoused looks many different ways. It's someone in a domestic violence shelter because their home is not safe. It's people doubled up other places because their home is not safe. They had a medical crisis. They cannot afford an apartment on their own. It looks different. It's not just what you see outside. It is broader than that. Because homelessness is not an identity, it's a circumstance, and circumstances can change when people have access to housing, stability, resources, opportunity, and a sense of belonging. I know the one young woman kept speaking out, but she's right. People, if they belong and they have a sense of belonging and their identity is validated, they're going to contribute to your community. Everyone belongs here if they choose to be here. Every person deserves a safe place to call home. And when we address homelessness with compassion, evidence-based practices, respect for the rights and dignity of every person housed and unhoused, we don't just help our unhoused neighbors. We create a safer, stronger, and more humane lacrosse for all of us. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you to all our council members for sharing your perspective and your constituents' perspective. I think that's very important to bring into the conversation. And this does look like a lot of things, and there are a lot of perspectives that need to be brought to the table. So I'm glad that we're able to do that. At this moment, I want to introduce Mike Basford, who is from the Department of Administration at the State and the Interagency Council on Homelessness. And I've asked Mike to come and speak from a state's perspective on around the issue of homelessness because, as I said before, this is not just a lacrosse issue. Lacrosse is set up as the regional hub of this area, and we feel the burden of other municipalities in trying to address our homelessness situation with humanity and dignity and compassion while also recognizing and understanding that there are some other issues within there. And so, Mike, I'm going to turn it over to you to just speak So thank you for being here.

Thank you very much, Mayor Shundell. Can you hear me, first of all? Yes, we can hear you good. Very good. Thank you. And for all of the members of the La Crosse City Council who have shared your perspectives, thank you very much. I really appreciated hearing that. As I always say, greetings from Madison. And I'll start in by just talking about unsheltered homelessness. It's a problem all over Wisconsin and all over America, not just in the La Crosse area. During the 2026 point-in-time count in January, people experiencing unsheltered homelessness were counted in 38 of Wisconsin's 72 counties. At 11 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness being counted, La Crosse County was ninth in the state in the numbers of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness being counted. Wisconsin, compared to most of our neighbors, does better than our neighbors on homelessness numbers. According to HUD's annual homelessness assessment report, Wisconsin counted 5,243 people experiencing homelessness during the 2025 point-in-time count, with 476 being counted as unsheltered. This is compared to Illinois, which counted 14,576 people, 2,074 of them being unsheltered. Michigan, which counted 10,155 people, among them 1,716 being unsheltered. Minnesota, which counted 8,392 people, Among them, 1,821 people were unsheltered. And Iowa, which counted 2,816 people experiencing homelessness. Among them, 611 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness were counted. Among the activities that the Interagency Council on Homelessness does is connect with counties and communities all over Wisconsin to keep track and provide feedback on local efforts to end homelessness. The agencies that make up the council run several programs that assist in ending homelessness in Wisconsin. We spend only about $5 million a year on these programs. This compares to Illinois, which spends around $300 million a year on fighting homelessness, and Minnesota, which spends around $500 million a year The Evers administration has tried to invest more funds in ending homelessness. And over the past four budget cycles, the legislature has all but zeroed out our investment initiatives, including zeroing out all of our funding increase requests over the last two budgets. In fact, I could say that we used to spend more money on homelessness during the 2007 to 2009 biennium than we do today. As far as lacrosse is concerned, I cannot overly stress how much I appreciate the work that Brian Sampson and Isaac Hoffman had done in developing the Pathways Home Plan to end homelessness in lacrosse. I have been in this job since before the pandemic, and I'm familiar with the problems that have happened in your area because of the pandemic. Pathways Home spells out a clear history as to how homelessness grew in La Crosse County during the pandemic and has a clear plan to achieve functional zero in homelessness. Pathways Home is one of the best local plans in effect in Wisconsin. The largest factor in homelessness is the lack of rental homes affordable and available for extremely low income renters. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Wisconsin has almost 118,000 shortage of such homes for households that are extremely low income. That is, households whose income is 30% or below the median income. The NLIHC has solutions for this and other problems around homelessness. They are, first of all, to provide significant resources to build and preserve homes for affordable to renters with the lowest incomes through investments in public housing and the National Housing Trust Fund. Secondly, encourage states and local communities to reform zoning and land use regulations that prevent housing from being built and push up housing costs. The third thing is to bridge the gap between incomes and housing costs by expanding rental assistance so that it is universally available to all eligible households or consider other innovative approaches such as a fully refundable renter's tax credit. The fourth being prevent evictions and homelessness by creating permanent tools such as emergency rental assistance to help stabilize families in crisis. And on that point, I would just say that during the pandemic, one of the greatest things that we were able to do was spend $330 million in federal funding for emergency rental assistance. And we were able to keep 65,000 households in Wisconsin out of eviction court and out of entry into the homelessness system, which I still am just amazed at how well that worked and just what the problem would be should we had not received the funding. And then fifthly, other federal housing resources, including the low-income housing tax credit, should be reformed to better address the shortage of rental housing affordable to the lowest-income households. The Interagency Council on Homelessness agrees with these ideas and will look to support them and support communities that are looking to implement these ideas. And as always, as I always say to your mayor and to Brian, please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you wish to discuss homelessness in your city. And with that, I'd be glad to take some questions.

Thank you very much, Mike. Council members, any of you have questions for Mike? Council Member Kalem.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. So what can we do as a council to advocate for more funding? What could we do?

I would simply say, um, reach out to your, uh, and this is, this I say to everybody, whether they are public sector, private sector, whatever, um, is to reach out to your members of the, of the state legislature, uh, the Senate and the assembly. Um, after the election this year, um, at the beginning of next year, the new governor is going to put together his first budget and to just let your members of the legislature know that we really need this funding. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah, the council members. All right. Thank you, Mike.

Thank you.

So at this time, we're going to move to our city staff. We'll start with our homeless coordinator, Brian. And as Brian coming up, the thing that I would like to say, a large part, not even a large part, but another piece of this is there's this misconception that the city is just doing nothing to address these issues. And I just need people to understand that that is a false narrative, that we are doing a lot to try to address and work with our partners, right, be it our nonprofit organizations, service providers, etc., as well as the county and things of that nature. Now, we won't talk a lot about Pathways Home because this is just a focus on the city's perspective. But I just think that's really important for people to know when you leave here that the city isn't just sitting here and watching things happen. We're actually, they're rolling up their sleeves and they're trying to address this as well. Brian, you got it.

Perfect. Thank you everyone for having me here tonight. I think just before we go any further, I think it's just important to root us in. We're all in this together. Sometimes when we're talking about homelessness, it kind of takes on a tone of us versus them, homelessness versus housed. And so I think it's just important to root in that we all have a shared goal. where nobody is happy with people having to sleep outside or people being in the parks. And so I think it's just important to kind of understand that as we're talking about what our city department's doing in the coming weeks, what does Pathways Home look like? We're all really just rooted in that shared goal as a community where we're trying to improve what our neighborhoods look like. We're trying to improve housing situations for everybody. So I think it's just important that We're all in this together. I'm going to just touch on some of the things. As a homeless services coordinator, I don't carry a caseload of working directly with people experiencing homelessness. A lot of what my role looks like is coordinating with different community partners, different city departments, things like that. And so I just wanted to touch just briefly on the high points of some of the things that that look like what my role looks like. One of the newest things that we are doing is the city is in the process of becoming the lead organization or agency for a state grant that'll continue to allow funding into our community for both shelters and prevention funds. So that's funds that have been coming into the community. There was a different lead agency. The city is taking over that role for the upcoming grant cycle. So that brings in $219,000 from the state for both shelter and prevention funding to various community agencies in our area. Another thing that we are doing that we've really ramped up since the parks reopened is outreach. So outreach has always been an active component in our community. Outreach traditionally has looked like multiple community agencies getting together once or twice a week, going all throughout the city of La Crosse. touching base with folks, checking in on their needs, connecting them with providers. Really great things happen from that. There's at least half a dozen if not more agencies and the fire department and Molly McCormick lead that every Wednesday where they start at the library and then they spread out and they really touch all corners of the city of La Crosse. So they continue to do really great things with that. Since the parks reopened earlier this year, however, um in partnering with the county we've upped our what we're calling targeted outreach to levels that we've never done before in our community so the county now has two social workers who go out five days a week and most times it's twice a day to the downtown area in particular to try to meet with folks who are experiencing homelessness see who they're connected with in the community get them connected with services and really be more engaged. And so that's really been one of the efforts that we've been coordinating and ramping up is that more concentrated and focused outreach. Again, that's five days a week, Monday through Friday, at least once, if not twice every single day. And part of that as well is the county has a social worker who's doing that. But because of Pathways Home, they're also able to get a grant for a deflection social worker. So somebody who works with people who may be experiencing homelessness but are in and out of the jail system so it's another person where we can send out into the community to work directly with people who are experiencing homelessness and part of that is a really close collaboration with the police department so that deflection social worker their referrals come from the nro unit and they co-response. So they can go out into the community together, kind of figure out if it's a policing or safety issue. Obviously then the NRO unit or the police takes that, or if it's a service or housing issue, and then the social worker can take that. So that's that really unparalleled level of collaboration that we've been able to ramp up in the last year or so, and particularly target folks who are spending time in our parks or in our downtown area. Another piece of that is what we're coordinating and calling a coordinated campaign where not only are we going out and touching base with folks who are in the downtown area, but we're also then directly offering them three different options when those are available. So one is spots at the Salvation Army when Salvation Army has openings. So we've been able to coordinate with Salvation Army when they have openings, they can let us know. And then that outreach worker is able to directly then go and offer folks in the parks or in other spaces those openings if they want them. Another spot is trying to get connected, get people connected with mental health or alcohol or other drug treatment. if it's applicable to their current situation or if they're interested in that. And so really trying to ramp up those options that are available to folks who may need that or who may want that as well. And then the last thing is also housing with services. So then also offering folks spots in appropriate housing with that connection to services so we can help people be successful. Because we're not only trying to help people get into housing that they want or that they need, but also how can we help people be successful in that housing with whatever supportive services that they need. And so we've really been able to ramp up all of those processes and we don't yet have the capacity to offer it citywide. So we're starting with a smaller portion of the city and then be able to kind of refine those processes and then build it out and expand it from there.

Thank you, Brian. And for council members, we're going to let all the city staff go. And then if you have questions, we can take them there. We'll go next with the police department. Chief.

Good evening, everyone. From the police department's role or activity levels as it relates to unsheltered, I think you've heard tonight already from many of our council members where the majority of the activity has come from that's required, whether it's a response or some sort of engagement from the police department.

I've been in touch quite a bit this summer with council member Calo regarding district six, as well as the downtown park areas, neighborhoods around our library and library in general.

The police department works very closely as you've heard from Brian with other city departments, with Brian and his efforts and the people that he works with. We have abilities to have direct contact with some of our service organizations, but we tried to streamline that also through Brian, as well as some of the other workers that have come forward and have been helping with this issue. CONCERNING THE PARKS AND THE AREAS AROUND THE LIBRARY, AGAIN, THAT'S WHERE THIS YEAR MOST OF THE CONCENTRATED ACTIVITY HAS COME FROM. YOU ALSO HEARD FROM COUNCIL MEMBER NEWBERRY AROUND THE CHURCH NEAR DIVISION STREET WHERE THERE'S BEEN A HIGH LEVEL OF ACTIVITY EARLIER IN THE SUMMER AS WELL. When we approach these situations, what we have found in the past is what you've heard already, that there oftentimes are mental health challenges and crisis. There are oftentimes substance abuse that is a part of the congregational nature of some of this population, not all of them, but some of them. We've also dealt with people who realize the vulnerabilities of this population. and also interject themselves into these situations. And we spoke at length at the district six forum over open air drug dealing use and that sort of thing. So we know that that happens as well. We are focusing on safety. We understand that our local municipal court and our state circuit court is not going to be the answer to all of the issues around homelessness. We also realize that many of my colleagues, other city staff are responding to simply the symptoms of this larger problem that Mayor, you've discussed already tonight. In specific, specifically, I guess, speaking to our parks, we did have to... move in a direction to discuss with our parks director and with you mayor last year of closing parks, fencing off parks due to behavior, violent behavior, excessive drug use and overdose activity. Going into this year, our key goal specifically myself, the parks director was not to have to do that. I personally believe that the fabric of a community is not benefited by having to put a fence around the park. So our efforts, our tiered efforts this year has been first to, as the parks are opening back up, whether it was getting warmer was to essentially assess what we were dealing with, but also engage with those individuals who are in the parks, monitor congregational behavior that oftentimes has led to issues. We stepped that up more with kind of more directed patrols, but also directed engagement. So it went from more of just an assessment to more of boots on the ground and our NROs are there every day. They know nearly everybody communicating with Brian on who we have in the parks, what the issues are. We also saw an increase of but we felt we were mitigating with hopefully our presence and engagement that we weren't having the same types of concerning activity as we did last year. That was our hope. I don't have enough officers to go around and to be in all of the different concerning areas, but that's why we're continuing to work with our partners when it comes to this. At times, there are issues that cross that threshold that we do utilize enforcement, look for responsibility to be held, and to try to conform some of those behaviors so that they don't happen again. But we know that there's challenges with neighbors and business owners in the area. We also know that there are Also is, you know, we talked about this at the district six forum, as well as many of the people who call in complaints to us that optically for people who live in the area, they don't like what they're seeing. And so for the police department, it's simply a balancing act of what we're dealing with, what we have in front of us, what this activity is, as well as preserving the rights of the people who want to be in the parks and utilize the parks. So that is what essentially this year or in the last, really the last calendar year, what we have seen for activity. As you know from the past, encampments have not been the major issue that we have dealt with in the past year. from the concerns that that have brought forward. We looked at that as something positive as we've been moving through. There's been a long history of the different things that have happened in the city over time as it relates to our unsheltered population. And now we're dealing with the evolution of what we have now and it's more in our city center area. And also, as I said before, problematic behavior oftentimes comes out of congregational issues and a lot of times stemming again from substance abuse and mental health challenges.

Thank you.

Parks, and then we'll do our municipal court.

All right, good evening. I'm Dan Tresoni with the Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department. Prepared a statement here to kind of just share with you what we deal with on a daily basis and some examples that we've seen out there. So again, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight about our issue in parks, recreation, forestry is dealing with more frequently. The impact of homelessness related activity in our parks and facilities. It is difficult for us to stand up here and tell positive stories around this topic because we are often tasked with being reactionary and responding to situations that require cleanup or repairs. I want to be clear from the beginning here that while we manage these situations to the best of our ability, there are many times we simply do not have the resources, staffing to give you situational level of attention it deserves. We recognize that homelessness is a complicated issue and we treat everyone who uses our parks with dignity and respect. At the same time, we do have responsibility to maintain safe, clean, and accessible parks for everyone. Our employees are increasingly spending time addressing the impacts of these issues on a daily basis. We've taken steps to mitigate the problems where we can. At Burns Park, for example, we've added a dumpster to provide additional waste capacity. But with 47 other parks, miles of trails to maintain, we simply cannot reasonably empty Burns Park garbage receptacles three times a day as it requires right now. We simply just do not have the staffing to provide that level of service throughout our entire system. We regularly clean abandoned encampments, often in difficult locations where equipment cannot access, such as marshland, riverbanks, under bridges, and alleyways. Employees sometimes have to carry debris out by hand and work in areas that present additional safety concerns. We've had to refund park shelter reservations because customers are unable to use the space they reserved due to intoxicated or belligerent individuals loitering around the reservation. Our public restrooms have become another significant concern. At Riverside Park alone, we've had more than 75 instances just this year where the bathrooms are being clogged with paper towels, lighters, needles, and other materials. We ultimately had to remove paper towels from Riverside restrooms and rewire and install hand dryers because of this. We're also dealing with daily theft of bathroom supplies at multiple locations. We've tried to make operational changes and physical improvements to address some of these concerns. We've adjusted closing times of some parks from 11 p.m. to 9 p.m. in an effort to reduce late night activity and limit overnight issues. At Cameron Park, we installed a split rail fence around the playground area to create a clear separation between the playground and surrounding activity and provide a more defined space for children and families. These are examples of adjustments we're making within our authority and resource to try and better manage these situations while keeping our parks open and accessible to the public. But here's an issue we often face while attempting to make such changes in such circumstances. Parks is frequently placed in situations where there is no easy or universally accepted solution. One example, just this year at Black River Beach, we received complaints while people doing laundry, urinating and staying all day near the outdoor showers. We were asked to turn the showers off because they were no longer being used for the intended purpose. We did that. Then we received complaints that the shower should be available for beach users and how is it not fair for those following the rules? So what's the right answer there? If we leave them on, we receive complaints about how they're being used. If we turn them off, we often receive complaints that we're restricting access to a public amenity. This is one example of difficult decisions our staff are being asked to make every single day. Our employees are responsible for maintaining parks, athletic fields, playgrounds, trees, restrooms, shelters, trails, and public spaces. Increasingly, they're also being asked to respond to situations that require resources and expertise beyond the traditional parks operations. Despite these challenges, our staff continue to do everything they can to keep our parks safe, clean, welcoming, and accessible. We've adjusted park hours, added infrastructure, modified facilities, cleaned encampments, and responded to complaints as they arise. We are willing to adapt and be part of the solution, but there are limits to what the Parks Department can accomplish within the resources we have. Every additional responsibility has an impact on the work and our staff are already responsible for completing. We will continue to manage these situations as best we can. Parks cannot solve homelessness through park operations alone. We are expected to take on more responsibility. We need the resources and support to do so without compromising the services our community depends on. Thank you. Thank you. Judge.

Thank you. Good evening. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jessica Skemp. I'm the new municipal judge for the city of La Crosse. My jurisdiction is ordinance violations and traffic violations that occur within the city of La Crosse. I have been the judge now for about four months. And as we address ordinance violations, My calendar every week, it clearly involves violations involving homeless folks. Now, nothing I'm going to say is as earth shattering or heartbreaking as some of the stories you have heard or will hear. I have a very small department. I am a part-time employee here and I have two full-time staff, one part-time staff person. So we are very small picture. Also as Chief Kudron mentioned, we really don't have a huge part in the solution. Courts are here for mostly the quick way to say it is that we call balls and strikes, right? We're here to ensure due process and fairness and respect, and I believe very strongly in all of that for everyone who comes in front of me, including our homeless neighbors. I did notice that a significant portion of the violations in front of me were from homeless people. I am not great with Excel. or I'm not trained in statistics. So I just tried to keep some loose track of what it looks like on a weekly basis. I'll run my calendar and then just sort it based on who has no permanent address listed. So that's really the only metric I can look at, right? That's probably not the most accurate picture of unshoused or homeless, unsheltered or homeless that appear in front of me, but that's what I've got. roughly 20 to 30% of individuals, and I'm not talking about violations, I'm talking about individuals who are ordered to come to court on any particular week have a no permanent address listed. The vast majority of those people do not come to court. So I don't even have, and my department doesn't even have the opportunity really to engage with these folks. Just so you can see what a snapshot of a calendar would look like, this week I have 177 citations that are set to be heard. 26 of those 177 citations involve people folks with no permanent address listed. That's 15% of the citations. It's 19 people out of 103 total people. So about 19% of the people. The violations, when I looked to see what these violations were, 10 of those 26, I guess that's 38%, is for trespassing. There were two for theft, one for retail theft, one for having intoxicants in the park, one for public urination, three for being in park after hours, three for disorderly conduct, one for camping, And the rest were things like possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana. By and large, I would say that the majority of things that I see, and it's because I'm not a criminal court, right? Not really, not dangerous or serious, but certainly problematic for quality of life. Um, as I said before, most people who are homeless are not appearing in front of me and I don't have that opportunity for engagement. Um, what happens when they don't appear is that, um, they are found guilty in default. Uh, the only, well, I shouldn't say the only, the, the biggest part of a penalty in municipal court is, uh, a fine. and a default judgment will result in the fine that's on the ticket. This accumulates week after week, or they build up. What I believe is that the accumulated judgments and fines build up both a financial and a psychological barrier that can make it more difficult for people to achieve success or stabilize their lives. For homeless people who do come to court, and I'm always amazed by homeless folks who come to court because there are a lot of barriers in coming to court when you maybe don't have transportation or you're carrying all of your things with you, whatever it is. We do, for those folks who do appear in court, and by the way, are found guilty, right? That's just because they appear, they're not guilty. We try to structure judgments that promote accountability, encourage lawful conduct in the future, and try to also connect those people with needed services. I know my court staff make those referrals to local resources whenever possible because we get a lot of phone calls. We do collaborate with other departments and to try and work towards a solution in whatever small way we can. For example, the La Crosse Court participates in what the La Crosse Police Department developed called the Aberration Clean Slate Program. That's not just directed at homeless individuals. It's also directed at people who have alcohol and other drug issues or mental health issues. But it basically tries to create an incentive for people who have been working and succeeding in turning things around and maybe quashing warrants or getting rid of some fines when they've really demonstrated that they're working on turning their life around to get rid of those financial and psychological barriers that dark cloud can have when it follows you around. Um, I have, I have met with, uh, this city of La Crosse neighborhood, uh, resource officer program, at least some members of that. Um, I've met with, um, Mr. Samson, the city homeless, uh, homeless services coordinator and, other concerned individuals who, you know, I want to learn about what the concerns are, what, uh, and what available supports there are for people that I come into contact with as a municipal court judge and tend to keep working on making those additional connections so I can understand the impact and contribute appropriately to solutions. I want to, in whatever way I can, be a part of a solution, although I know that I am a very, very small part of the issue. or the solution for this complicated problem. Thank you.

Thank you. Director Trey.

Thank you, Mayor. So as we're talking about some of the solutions and what the city's done in the past couple of years, not only in partnership with Pathways Home, but recognizing that housing being one of the main key factors of something that we can do to support our unsheltered population is by creating and helping them with shelter in our community. I appreciated one of the things that Mr. Bassford said, that the city can do is update its zoning regulations. And as the council members already know, that is something that we've been actively working on for the past year and a half. And we really hope that updates to our zoning code will provide more housing and more affordable housing in our community by doing things such as being able to build on smaller lot sizes on undeveloped property in our community. So I just wanna recognize that and thank him for pointing that out. Some of the other projects that we have been heavily involved in around our community is, as we know, we need housing in general. We need all kinds of housing at all income levels, at all density levels. So I'm just going to point out some of the highlights of the housing developments that we've worked on in the planning department that are likely more targeted towards people that are currently unhoused to provide affordable housing for them. The first one being the collective on 4th, which is the 62 unit development on the corner of 4th and Jackson. And the city acquired several of the properties that were there, sent out an RFP and chose a developer. And part of the reason that the developer was chosen because they agreed to set aside units that could house the unsheltered population. So they set aside 12 units in that development. It is, I think, it's exciting to note that we're at that year that that 12 month lease renewal period. And of those 12 units, 11 people are renewing their leases. So that's been seen as a really great success. With our ARPA dollars, we did have some flexibility in being able to allocate and support from the council to support the unsheltered population by creating additional units. So funding was allocated to Cooley CAP to create about 12 units and also to Karuna. We know that some of, What's happening with Karuna is not going to meet those goals that we're looking for for additional housing, but we hope that we can still meet those housing demands in other ways. Also working with the Pathways Held Leases program. So through a grant through Mayo Clinic, we've allocated $100,000 of the full amount of their grant for the city to hold leases, and we're hopefully going to sign four of them yet this month. So that's getting working with partners in our community that are property owners to be able to house four people and fill four of those units through that program. Also, as Mr. Basford mentioned, the low-income housing tax credit program, which is a federal program, but it is run by the state, by the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. And we are very excited that there were two projects that were awarded in La Crosse this year for developments that'll begin next year and hopefully then have occupancy in 2028, and that includes the redevelopment of Lincoln Middle School, which will be 51 new housing units. At least eight of those will be at 30% AMI, which would likely be fits for, again, for helping this population. And then the scenario development, which is a brand new development down behind Gundersen and council member Newberry's district, that will be 45 units. 20 of those will be locations from around the Gundersen campus and a new development. And then 25 of those will be new units and that will have rental assistance available through HUD vouchers. We've also been talking with developers as they come to the city for other financing needs, specifically with TIF, to find ways if they would be willing to also partner with the Pathways Health Leases Program. So that's something new that we're exploring because we recognize there's now a bit of this backlog of new development that could be affordable housing, even though we're seeing a lot of development throughout the city. Again, that would be specifically for providing more of those affordable units. And I recognize this is specific to what the city's doing, but I think it does, we do need to mention also the partnership with the county, the eight units that they have developed for those with more high intense needs at Park Lane Studios on their Hillview campus. Staff also meets regularly with them to talk about ways that we can do what we've done in La Crosse and other communities, working with developers who are requesting TIF, using the affordable housing extension loan program in other communities as they're closing their tax increment financing, districts and having the community, having the county partner with us to be the messenger to those other communities. As we all know, not everyone on these lists are residents of the city of La Crosse. When we take that data, we look at countywide, but also recognizing many of those community members are also from on Alaska, from West Salem, from Holman. And so we want to be able to place those people back closer to their support systems and those regular communities and And we just simply don't have the capacity to build the housing. We don't have the land to build the housing alone. So we do need to continue that partnership with other municipalities.

Thank you. I believe that's all the city staff that we have speaking, correct? All right. Council members, any questions for city staff? And it can be anyone. Council member Janssen.

I'm really curious as to what we can do differently, what resources our staff need to make changes. You know, I heard the, the gentlemen from the state say we need to reach out to our elected officials, but that has gone in vain for the last eight years based on my experience. So yeah, So whoever wants to tell me what do we need to do differently to change the current projection?

You want Director Odegaard?

Thank you. I appreciate the question, Council Member Jansen, and I kind of jumped up to answer this, because this is something I've spoken with this mayor and past mayors about, is something I want to urge the council is we talk about looking to the state, you know, We talk about housing and pathways home and those are all different plans and those are all different paths that we can take to ultimately look for this end game solution. But one of the things that I think the city really needs to take a look at for the residents, for the unsheltered, but most importantly for the staff that are working. And some departments spoke tonight, but this goes into library staff. This goes into our MTU bus drivers. I mean, this is going on across all of our levels. And So if we go back to like the Connell Lodge that the city, well, first the county rented, then the city rented, Hooska Park, when we tried the campground there, we've had resources. The resources haven't worked. So when you ask what resources we need, for me, the answer isn't a financial resource. What I think we really need to work on is not whether or not we're criminalizing homelessness, not whether or not we should allow them in this park or that park. What we have to really nail down is the problems that we currently have on a daily basis are real, and they get lost in this argument of what's right and what's wrong, which the people that are working on the ground, the people that are living next to a Burns Park, the people that don't have a place to live, that's not their argument. The argument comes from all the rest of us. Their argument is they need something changed. Our staff needs something changed because like Chief Kudron had said, we don't want to shut down parks. but what are we supposed to do when the bathrooms get the locks cut and we're shoveling human feces out of those bathrooms? We can't ask somebody that we hire to do a job to come and do another job and which is now three, four days a week. They're doing a job that they were not hired for. And when we go to resources, Brian Sampson and myself had coordinated to do an RFP to run Hooska Park. We didn't have one single response. When we rented the Econolodge, we had to literally beg Julie McDermott to come and run it. People don't want to talk about these things, but this is what we're facing. And until we talk about them, we're never going to find this solution. So when we had to move tent city, Yeah, we get a lot of negative kickback from the public depending on which side we're on here. But the reality is we had federal officers from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We have state officers from the Department of Natural Resources meeting with me and my staff in some of these locations, writing us fines because we cannot let 27 dump truck loads of stuff, whether it's somebody's personal belongings or not, go into the river when it floods. We can't let people go into the river when it floods. 33% propane tanks, we took out a 10 city that were currently going underwater, the fire department did. Like these are the realities that don't often make it into council chambers, but these are the things that are going on every day. And until we can talk plainly about them without the accusations of what's right and what's wrong, I think that's where the staff are getting frustrated. And so that's something that I want to share. I don't necessarily think it's the resource. One other point to that is when we were doing tent city, we called every contractor that had equipment in the whole region. We got one contractor to come in and help. So again, it's the money is yes for pathways home for housing, but resources funding wise, isn't going to help us on the boots on the ground. Thank you.

Any other staff want to respond to that question? All right. Is there another question? I mean, what I would respond, and thank you, Director Odegaard, to that is, you know, we talk about Hooska a lot. That always comes up. And one of the things that I stand behind is I just feel like it needed to have more structure. There has to be a location for people to go, but there also has to be a management of influx, right? Like if we're talking about building something to handle the homeless population here in the city of La Crosse, that's one thing. But if we're building something and then expecting folks from Florida and Nebraska and all these other places to come into the city of La Crosse, I think that's where we find some issues within our population. And I think that has to be a transparent and honest conversation. If we build a day center, right? The reality is we need people to run that day center. We need structure. We need rules. And one thing that I would say, and I've said this publicly before, is homelessness is one thing. For me, it's the public safety issue that comes with it. It's the drug dealing. the nudity, the drug use, et cetera, that causes all these other issues that spiral out in these communities that we're trying to figure out the best ways to address. Because the reality too is we could build a day center and maybe people will use it, but as soon as you heavily regulate it, right, and you don't allow drug use and all these other things, the question will be, will people go to it? And yeah, Phil, go ahead. Council Member Johnson, sorry.

I just want to respond. Yeah. I've been living this nine and a half years and day center sounds great. And, but again, we're just creating a congregation of people all in one place and it, and I keep hearing the same thing. It's what's the city of La Crosse going to do. And right there's the number one problem we haven't addressed. And, and I guess I'm curious about, And I just love the fact that Director Odegaard was honest. It's speechless to hear someone be honest about what's been going on in our city and what our staff have had to deal with. It's unreal. But is it the solution? Is it a sit down with department heads and the mayor? Do council members need to be a part of this? How are we going to make change? I'm tired of just talking about it. You know, we can talk about how people need to get into housing, but if we provide them housing without the case management, which we continue to do apparently, then we're not part of the solution.

Thank you. And the other thing you mentioned too, and then I'll let you go here, was I wanted to say, because I've asked other municipal leaders, because we hear the constant thing, and Gary alluded to it earlier, of When I first got elected and I talked to outside municipal leaders and I said, what do you do to address homelessness? And their response was, we send them to the county. We send them to La Crosse. And since being in office, there was a meeting a couple months ago and I said, hey, get ready because what I'm asking you all to do is to now help us. We can't continue to do this by ourselves. Yes, we have the county. The county has been a great partner. And the reality also is that other municipalities have to step up and provide services as well. Council Member Goggin.

I'm going to give some anecdotal feedback. It's not scientific and I'm not trying to have a gotcha moment, but out of several. So when I sit in council meetings, when I sit in. council planning meetings, when I sit in informational meetings, I hear, and I'm gonna refer back to something that council member Bradeschi said about the 80%. The people that are here are from La Crosse or La Crosse County. I have gone to Burns Park, I've gone to Cameron, Luth, Copeland Park, several visits. I've talked to 83 unique folks. I've not changed, you know, I've not separated out and counted the same people twice. Out of 83 people, if 80% are supposed to be from La Crosse or La Crosse County, I'm not great at ciphering, but that should be about 68, 69 of those people. That is not my experience. Out of the 83 people I've talked to, I've talked to one person that's from around here, and that was from Trempealeau. I'm telling you right now, and you can put me on a lie detector test. The 83 people that I have talked to, I have their names, and I have where they came from, and I'll list them. St. Louis, New Orleans, Chicago, Milwaukee, Mendota Mental Health, Tomah, Barrington, Illinois, Minneapolis, Madison, Maine, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and I can go on. But my point being is that we care about the souls that are out there. We do, whether they're from Maine or whether they're from the north side of La Crosse. We care about that. But again, what we have to figure out is when something's not working and we need to come up with what will at least move this needle forward. We're not going to solve this, but we're trying to mitigate it. And now just for the people that are dismissing me, I was in Louth Park on August 7th, 2026. I was going there to pick up trash and I met two people that just got off the train from Chicago. And I just asked, how did you find La Crosse? Well, they were told to come here because I quote, because I asked them to tell me twice, so I got it for sure. We've been told that you can't get arrested for breaking the law in La Crosse if you're homeless. And I'm like, what? And they said, you can't arrest us for breaking the law if we're homeless. They didn't plan on breaking the law, but that was one of the things. So my point being, I too asked for no camping in the marsh because it's inhumane. And we talk about providing services and resources. We have to figure out how to help the actual souls that are outside. Another meeting I attended recently was about lowering or shortening the hours at Burns Park. But again, I'm told something. So I spent a couple of nights hanging around Birds Park last weekend between 9 and 11 o'clock. I'm older. I get it. But I was... speechless about what I saw. I couldn't quite figure it out. I talked to a couple of the people that were down there and they said it happens all the time. They weren't part of it, but they see it all the time. They want it to be fixed as well. There are people in Burns Park that want Burns Park fixed. The people that don't have shelter, they want Burns Park fixed. So again, it becomes incumbent upon us to figure out what's going on here. And Do we want to arrest people? No, we do not. Do we want to make being homeless, unsheltered illegal? No, we do not. But the people that are preying on these folks need to be held accountable. And we need to fix that. Then we hear about all the mental health issues. I get it. There but for the grace of God. I've not had that in my family. But when I sit and talk to Yoshi, Mindy, Gussie, breaks my heart that they're out there, so I I don't want you to think that I don't care about the homeless, but what I do care about is lacrosse and I care about her residents and I care about her future, thank you.

Thank you. Brian. Also, Councilmember Gagan, I just got to say, as we're having this open conversation, it's not because you're older. I looked at Burns Park a couple days ago, and I was like, we got to change this, especially at night. It was like 930.

I've told you the anecdote about being called a fat old white woman, so I'll just leave it at that.

Right.

Yeah, just speaking to council member Jansen's questions about solution and openness and frankness. And as I sit over here receiving jabs from council members as a council employee is kind of wild. But all I can say is that when you're asking about solutions, We reached out to Book Pathways Home Together. We reached out to the entire community. It took us six months. We didn't only ask all community members from businesses to health cares, to landlords, to people experiencing homelessness, to every... every single aspect of our corner. What did they want to see in a plan? But we also scoured and continue to scour the entire country and the world for best practices. Homelessness is not a lacrosse issue. We don't have to figure out the solutions on our own. We can copy and repeat what other communities have done and have shown to be successful. And that's exactly what we're doing. I think we also want to put people who are experts at ending homelessness in the front, and that would be people with lived experiences. We have a lot of great agencies and organizations. You have a homeless services coordinator. You have a county that can help put together some of these solutions. I heard Dan say in his statements that parks department is being asked to provide solutions beyond parks expertise. And I think ending homelessness would probably fall within that statement as well. And so I think it's important to utilize the solutions that you have. We have a game plan. In all honesty, we can't end homelessness overnight. There is no immediate solution. We found that out the hard way in La Crosse. Other communities across the country have found that out the hard way. At some point, we need to stop repeating our mistakes and the mistakes that other organizations have done and center what works. And what works just, it takes a little bit of time. It sucks for everybody, but that's housing, that's services, that's treatment, that's wraparound support. It's not perfect. People fall through the cracks. People don't succeed. It does not bat a thousand, but that is far and away the best model that anybody's been able to figure out across the country. And I think if we want to say, what should we do? Let's go all in as a community on what has been proven to work, not only in our community where we have housed or keeping housed 88% of people, Since 2024, 88% of those folks are still in housing. We know it works in La Crosse. We know it works in other communities. I would say solutions, let's veer away from rash solutions that are temporary band-aid that we know don't work from experience and what works across the country and recenter ourselves and commit our entire community to housing, to services, to treatment, to empathy, and to support. So that would be my answer to the question, Council Member Janssen.

On that point, can you speak to when housing and services, like how does that, how have you all been working with that? I know that's kind of getting a little bit into pathways, but just touch on.

Yeah. So when we're talking about that, anytime as a community, we're working with somebody, we have high expectations, right? This model doesn't work if you just let people go and do whatever they want. That doesn't work for anybody. So you have to have high expectations. But in order to meet those high expectations, you provide folks with tools and a high level of support as well. So you're walking alongside them. And so they're still being asked to follow the same rules that any other community member is being asked to follow. And you're also providing them somebody who can help them relearn or gain those tools. And that looks different for everybody, right? When we're talking about folks who are in the park who are the most visible, that really is an outlier to the larger homeless population. That's people who have the highest needs, who are more likely to have mental illness, who are more likely to have addiction. But that is not the entire homeless population. So sometimes that's where it gets confused. If we're talking about everybody experiencing homelessness, that looks a lot different for every single person. But just generally, high expectations, high level of support can go a long way.

Council Member Jensen.

I guess I'm still looking for an answer to how do we address all of these people that have come from out of state, out of the city, out of the county, and those that aren't interested in at this time getting assistance or making changes.

Yeah, and my answer hasn't changed on that. We track the police department, the NRO, Officer Rollins was sending me every single week, every single person he was seeing in the park so we could help connect with them and help get them into housing. He was sending when they come from different communities, we would put that into the pathways to housing list. So that's not a number that I just make up. I stand by that number where it's, I think it's at 83% of folks on our pathways to housing list. last set of housing in La Crosse County. When folks come from out of town, we've ramped up our efforts to try to reconnect them with their informal support systems. If they have family or friends elsewhere, that they have a landing spot, how can we help reconnect them? And if that's where they want to be, they're going to be more successful there. And so that's what we're trying to do is when those occasions arise, because undoubtedly they do happen. People do come here from other communities. It just doesn't happen in droves. but it does happen. And so we address that situation on an individual basis. And when we're seeing trends, we have the ability to reach out to those community. I know the police department has had conversations with other local police departments when people have been dropped off here and figuring out how to stop that and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Thank you. Any other council members? So Brian, um, One of the things that I've made very clear in partnership with Parks and the Chief is we do not want to have to close parks. But there is a piece, dang, this is going to lead into Pathways. I'm sorry. I tried not to do it. But there is a piece of high expectations, even when we talk about public spaces in Pathways program. Can you speak to that?

You're asking specifically about high expectations in public spaces or just... Public spaces.

Yeah, that's an absolutely crucial component of Pathways Home. We laid out from the beginning that you have to enforce the rules and the laws that are on the books, right? If people are... hurting others, if they're using drugs, alcohol, anything like that, you have to hold people to the laws and the rules that are on the books. What's different is simply penalizing folks who are just trying to exist in public spaces. Those are two completely separate components, but you absolutely, and that's where that partnership, I was talking about the deflection social worker before, where it's a partnership between of a police officer, of a social worker. So then they can go and they each have important relationships, right? And our NRO unit does a tremendous job building relationships and working with folks. And so they can go each having a level of trust with people and they can go and hold them to expectations in different aspects. So one might be the rules and the laws, and then one might be engaging in services and And that's a process that looks different, right? It's not just smooth sailing. It looks different for every single human being that we're talking about. So that process doesn't always just happen like that. It might take months. It might take weeks. It might not go as quickly as we hope, but it's never ending. It's always a process where they can go and hold everybody together, including partnering, right, with the person who is experiencing homelessness as well, because they're the most critical aspect to any of this.

Thank you. Council Member Bedford?

Hi, I just wanted to talk for a minute about there's this idea that I've heard from constituents and also sort of here where it's almost as if If we do too good of a job, we are worried that that will make our problem worse because people will come to us for help because it's not available elsewhere. Is that something that you feel like you're seeing? How does that measure against the outreach that you have from other communities that are trying to copy our model and whether that is something that's happening? Are we creating... you know, a system close around us with communities reaching out? Or are these communities that are far away and aren't necessarily working hand in hand with us? That's just kind of my question.

Yeah, so I would say two parts to that answer. Number one, I think every community strives to be a community that people want to go to, to improve and better their lives. And so I don't know why this would be any different. If people are experiencing homelessness and they want to come to La Crosse so they can get housing and they can better their lives. I think that's why you build good schools. That's why you want a thriving neighborhood, want a thriving community so people can come to your community and better their lives. So I say that's kind of one part of that answer. Obviously it's different if people want to come here and not follow the laws, break the rules, things like that. I think that's a different scenario. The other part to that answer that I would say is that, When we've reached out to communities who are the most notorious and have done this the best, I'm thinking Milwaukee, I'm thinking Rockford, Illinois, they have shared zero concerns. And we've asked this question directly. They have said, no, they do not see people coming to their communities to receive the supports that their program has to offer. And those would be two local examples. Everyone that we've talked to, Denver, Houston, Texas, places like that, when we've asked that same question, the answer has always been consistent. And so it's Even the communities that are doing it the best have shared that they don't see people coming to their communities for their housing programs.

Councilmember Northwood.

I have a question, Brian. Is there any data that we collect that shows how many people leave our area to go somewhere else for services?

That is data that we can pull. It's more complicated because when somebody leaves, sometimes we may know where they're going or we may not know where they're going. We may have contact with them, we may not. And so it gets a little bit more dicey when you're talking about people moving out of the community. I will say historically, the Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care has tracked that information. And what they've always shared from La Crosse's perspective is twice as many people move out of La Crosse who are experiencing homelessness than people come in. So that's been the data that they've gathered historically on that topic.

I have a follow-up to that. One of the examples of domestic or of homelessness I shared was related to domestic violence, interpersonal violence. And a lot of times people have to leave their community to go somewhere else for safety reasons. But when they, when they leave their unhoused and when they go somewhere else, they're temporarily unhoused as well. And hopefully they can get into a DV shelter, but that's pretty common as well as I, I would, I don't know. Do you think that there's people that might have a criminal history or have been in the parks and they want to go somewhere else that they can have an opportunity and kind of like a clean slate and be somewhere and not have people hold that stigma over them so that they could try to get housing and could get a job? That's why we have the traffic, right? People need to go where the resources are and where they feel that they can thrive. Do you agree?

Yeah.

Any other questions from Council members. One thing I do want to state publicly just everybody is where our library director had a prior obligation, but. She did provide a paper for Council and for. Well, for me, but to kind of explain what they're doing at the library to address being a supporting or the title of the crosswalk library supporting a safe and accessible library and participate in. and the coordinated community response to homelessness. And for council members that are not present, I'll make sure this get emailed out to you. Apologies for not doing that sooner. Any other thoughts from council members? I guess one of my questions is what would you like to see based on the things that we've been talking about? Council Member Jansen.

I would like to see some different action taken. I would love to have department heads be able to offer solutions if they all need to get in a big room and, you know, something needs to change. Because from my perspective and what I'm hearing, Whether I'm working in Alaska at the post office doing the lawn or I'm down in Stoddard and people that come from Stoddard to visit here or I'm talking to tourists, there's issues that need to be addressed. And we need to address them. And something needs to change. So I don't have the answer necessarily what that is, but if it's me getting together with department heads and them saying we need this resolution or whatever, or it's bringing in the state reps, but I need to hear something besides nobody wants to talk about it at the state level. I'm tired of hearing about that.

Okay.

But we can't keep doing this.

Council Member Podeski.

Thank you, Your Honor. I guess my thing would be, Council Member Weston had a couple of questions, and I agree with her on the one, and I don't think staff's trying to hide anything, but as far as, we know we have our shared costs with Pathways Home, but her question and my question would be, When Mr. Odegaard talked about some of these other things our staff is doing, if we could get the cost of some of those other things, especially this time of year at budget time, I think it would be helpful to know going into next year if he's going to need more money or Mr. Sampson is going to need more money or what. I guess just a better clarification of cost, please. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Northwood.

I just want to remind everyone, December 21 is National Homeless Persons Memorial Day. Every year in our community, that is something that we choose to come together and we read the names of every person who died in our community as a result of homelessness. There are names on that list every year. So this is a discussion that we're having and we want to see change and we need to do something. People don't just die because it gets cold, but that does increase the safety risks of being unhoused in our community. And so, I mean, people are depending on us to come together to figure this out. And I just want people to be mindful of that. There are people on that list every year. So, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Goggin.

As I sit here and listen to the different things, and again, I'm not trying to start a fight or a debate, but when we simply are asking questions or maybe disagreeing with what we hear, we're not taking a jab at somebody. We got to remember that city council is held to a very high standard and we're held to high expectations. The community is looking at us to fix this. So when we're asking questions, we're being told that we're not being civil or part of the civil discourse or we're being divisive. That's not true. We're trying to get to the root of this. And when people say, don't get in the weeds, maybe that's what's the problem is we didn't get into the weeds fast enough. We hear that homelessness is not a La Crosse issue, but you know what? It's an issue that's important to La Crosse and her residents. I'm gonna say it again. This is something that's affecting La Crosse and her residents. We need to hold ourselves accountable to fixing, not fixing it, because I'm putting out too big of an expectation, but we need to come up with some solutions that start making this issue smaller so that the residents can see our determination and our grit when it comes to this. There are hard decisions that are going to have to be made. And council member Podesky brought it up, but we don't know how much this costs. There's no budget that tells us how much this costs. So when you're asking us to do something, I get it. And if we want to be an all in as a community, I get that too, but we can only spend a dollar one way. So what are we willing to give up to do it? And I'm willing to go there with you, but I need to know that you're all in it with us. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other council members? All right. Seeing none.

Excuse me. I have one more thing.

I am seeing that hand, sorry.

No worries. I think we need to continue the conversation. It was refreshing to hear Director Odegaard be very blunt. And I think Mr. Trusoni also did a great job. But I think the public needs to hear what's really happening so they get a better grasp of what is actually being dealt with. Because they only see bits and pieces and they hear the sunshiny responses, but there's way more to it. So let's continue. Let's have another conversation and continue sharing those stories.

Yes. Thank you. And that's really what this was about. It was like, it was time for us as a council to come together with the mayor and say, okay, what is the city doing? What has been our response? We've sat down with different council members individually and had these conversations, but I was like, but the council as a whole has not heard from city staff of the things that they're dealing with or the things that they are doing to address the situation around homelessness, as well as the work that they're doing to be a part of the solution. And it's not pretty, right? There is a lot of things that are happening in our community. And honestly, both sides are right in this particular moment. There are folks who feel unsafe. There are folks that are experiencing things daily in their neighborhood that they should not be feeling. And at the same time, there's a way to still be able to solve this issue and still intact humanity and compassion to individuals. And I look forward to working with the council as well as our department heads to continue this work. This does not stop here. And in fact, September 8th, there will be a update on the Pathways Home with the county and the city. And so I just encourage all of our community members to stay involved and engage, ask questions, reach out to your council members. And again, since the media is here, I'm going to ask other municipalities to join in and help us in this particular situation. We're not trying to be callous. We're not trying to be heartless in this situation. It's just, it's been a lot going on in the last year and a half around, well, nine years or then some around this particular issue and with this particular population. And we just want to make sure we do what's best for all of our residents. So with that, I will say meeting is adjourned. Thank you.