A unanimous vote at the Madison Board of Estimates meeting Monday to recommend the establishment of a downtown, daytime homeless shelter will bring the resolution in front of the City Council for approval.
In light of limited daytime accommodations available to homeless individuals downtown, the resolution to turn over a municipal property at 754 East Washington to homeless assistance nonprofit Porchlight Inc. as a daytime shelter was passed.
Under the resolution, the daytime shelter would be open nine hours a day, seven days a week and offer resources such as job counseling to patrons.
With the closing of the Capitol basement to the general public last winter during protests and the relocation of the Madison Central Library to a smaller facility for the duration of the branch’s renovation, downtown’s homeless have been denied access to two sanctuaries where they have traditionally congregated during the year’s most inhospitable months, according to Madison resident David Peters.
“When I see people freezing on the street, to me that’s a grave injustice, and something needs to be done about it,” he said to the BOE Monday.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, views the resolution as a step in the right direction.
“It’s something that, sadly, we need to do. It’s the reality of the situation in terms of the homeless population we have downtown,” Verveer said.
Opening a day shelter will help Madison’s homeless weather the winter, but Verveer acknowledged that the resolution fails to address the larger question of homelessness in downtown Madison.
“I would not say that there are a sufficient number of homeless shelter beds in Madison,” he said. “There are existing homeless shelters in downtown Madison—overnight shelters that operate year-round—but this [resolution] doesn’t deal with the nighttime issue whatsoever.”
The city’s failure to open monitored homeless shelters will only continue to drive downtown’s homeless to find refuge “wherever they can, ”Peter said. “[Homeless people] need a homeless shelter, and they needed it yesterday.”
