Veterans housing in Green Bay. PC: Fox 11 Online
(WTAQ-WLUK) — Democrats and Republicans in Madison are pointing fingers and placing blame as the deadline approaches for the closure of a Green Bay facility that offers safe housing for veterans.
Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers says he requested $1.9 million in the 2025-27 state budget for the Veteran Housing and Recovery Program. It provides temporary housing for military veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, in addition to employment training, education, health care services and substance abuse recovery.
VHRP has three locations: Green Bay, Chippewa Falls and Union Grove.
According to Evers, as the state legislature was deliberating the 2025-27 budget, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau informed lawmakers “without additional funding, the Department [of Veterans Affairs] would not have sufficient resources to maintain the program’s three sites.”
Evers says in the final budget, the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee approved $0 in new funding for the VHRP. As a result, their locations in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls will close by Sept. 30.
On Wednesday, a group of six Republican legislators — including State Sen. Eric Wimberger, Oconto, and State Rep. Ben Franklin, Green Bay — sent a letter to Evers “calling on him to use funds already at his disposal” to prevent the closures of the two VHRP locations.
The letter outlines how a series of underestimated revenues and overestimated costs by the Evers Administration contributed to the faulty math that guided the Administration to shutter the veterans’ homeless shelters. This includes the Governor annually returning unspent funds from the Administration of Loans and Aids Appropriation, a fund that has previously been used to support the VHRP facilities, to the state treasury. In Fiscal Year 2025, these returned funds amounted to $608,300.
The legislators also remind the Governor he can release a portion of the hundreds of millions in unspent COVID-19 funds that remain under his sole control. An August report shows the Administration has $373 million in unspent COVID-19 relief funds that federal rules allow to be re-obligated for purposes that include the VHRP program. The letter reads. “While the Legislature funded VHRP at 115%, you may also re-obligate some of the $373 million in remaining ARPA funding at your discretion to the VHRP. You used this method two years ago and can do it again.”
The letter closes with the legislators issuing a call to action by the Governor, stating, “Please do right by Wisconsin’s veterans and operate these shelters instead of returning money for this fully-funded program back to the treasury Closing the shelters in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls was your choice, and you can choose to keep them open before it’s too late.”
Evers denied the legislators’ claims while speaking to the media during a visit to Lambeau Field.
“That’s not true. The money is not there, and so if we really want to make that happen, you know, for goodness sakes. Of all people, the veterans,” Evers said.
He continued, “The Joint Finance Committee received a document from the [Legislative] Fiscal Bureau during the budget and it said if you don’t do this — I think it’s $1.6 million or something like that — if you don’t do this, this is what’s going to happen. They didn’t do that and that’s exactly what happened. So if they’re really interested in that, let’s get a bill and put some money behind it.”
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin released this statement, saying the GOP lawmakers are “full of s***.”
The Republicans are providing a case study for stupidity as they try to shift the blame for removing funding for Veterans homes. Gov. Evers and the Democrats did their job in offering funds to keep both homes open, it’s the GOP who decided to send our veterans out into the cold.
In August, two separate bills proposed by state Democratic and Republican lawmakers introduced bills to keep the VHRP locations in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls open.
One of the bills was co-authored by Democratic State Senators Jeff Smith and Wall, while the other was written by Republican State Senator Andre Jacque.
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