PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Progress is being made on the state of homelessness in Brown County. Dozens of partners, working together to combat the problem, held a summit Wednesday to raise awareness and keep focus on solutions.
Homeless Initiative Project Director Josh Benti said, “We’re seeing a decrease of overall people experiencing homelessness through our homeless service providers.” He added, “That’s the lens of that data a little bit. We’re seeing that decrease, but what we are seeing is an increase in unsheltered homelessness. So people who are sleeping on the street overnight, things like that.”
The county is also seeing an increase in the number of people who are homeless with disabilities.
In 2025, Brown County reported nearly 650 people were homeless.
While housing is obviously the simple solution to combating homelessness, the problem is more complex. There are any number of reasons why people end up homeless.
“Myself, I’m not going to build a thousand homes and change that, but we can put together better collaborative spaces and communicate better, right,” said Benti.
Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition created a blueprint — steps specifics to Brown County that can be taken to help those experiencing homelessness.
Ryan Graham is Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care Homeless Systems Manager. He said, “Brown County is really leading the way in our continued care, as far as organization, structure, developing this group, organizing our community on collaboratively addressing homelessness.”
That collaborative approach requires working with multiple entities from landlords to healthcare providers. The purpose is to not only get people into housing, but to set them up for continued success.
“So increasing our housing stock with what we have, developing new housing stock, working with landlords to better utilize the stock that exists, making sure we’re not having people evicted. Increasing communication between service providers and institutions that are discharging, so how people flow from foster care and like a prison system and our medical system into homelessness,” added Benti.
When we talk about eliminating homelessness, it’s not that there won’t be anybody that’s ever going to be homeless again. Instead it’s about having plan to react when someone is in crisis.
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