Homeless: A national problem
Regionally, churches have been increasingly responding to problems of homelessness, with congregations hosting weekly shelters at night on a rotating basis in Rock and Walworth counties for several years.
Janesville churches have taken turns hosting homeless shelter services for men for 2 years.
A separate program helps homeless families and women.
USA Today recently estimated 1.6 million people used transitional housing or emergency shelters. Of these people, approximately a third are members of households with children, a nine percent increase since 2007.
In the U.S. Conference of Mayor's 2008 Report, 12 of 25 cities surveyed reported increased homelessness due to foreclosures.
Another six in that survey indicated they didn't have enough data to be sure.
Thirteen of these cities had adopted policies to deal with the recent increase in victims of the housing crisis, but 10 cities had not implemented new policies.
These and other statistics and discussions about homelessness as a national problem can be found at the National Coalition for the Homeless web site, www.nationalhomeless.org.
They are homeless families and single women most of us have never seen or noticed around Green County. Yet their numbers in a harsh national economy are rising.
"I never thought I'd see what we've seen here in terms of homelessness the past 21⁄2 years," said Jeannie Blumer, who's worked for Green County Human Services for 30 years. "Without volunteers helping to address this problem, it's a daunting challenge for government agencies.
"Rising homelessness started really becoming apparent in 2008 with the economic downturn. The next year was the first we actually collected data here," Blumer said. "There were a total of 112 households that were near-homeless or homeless in 2009. There were 175 in 2010."
Now, local church members and congregations are coming together to take action on homelessness in Green County. Staff from a national program based in New Jersey will meet with them at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 3, in the United Methodist Church, 2227 4th St., Monroe.
The national group is called Family Promise, and it has spawned more than 160 Interfaith Hospitality Network shelters in more than 40 states. Seventeen churches locally have expressed interest in establishing such a program to help the homeless here.
"Anyone interested in learning more about this project is welcome to come to the meeting on March 3," said Bob Beck, who's working with the local group to increase emergency shelter space for Green County's homeless.
"We need 12 to 13 churches willing to provide shelter a week at a time on a rotating basis," Beck said. "Volunteers in each church will greet the families as they arrive at their church, provide an evening meal for them, make up cots for each person and fix them breakfast the next day.
"The homeless families will then be off during the day to look for work or to a base center where they can address the problems that have caused them to become homeless," he said "Hopefully, each church will take a turn helping host them for a week, every two to three months."
A lot of things can trigger homelessness, Blumer said. Domestic violence, health issues like cancer, money problems - often from health problems, a car accident. Waves of joblessness and foreclosures sweeping the nation since 2007 have had an impact here, too.
"We had 55 households come to us in 2009 who had nowhere to go, no housing at all because of such problems as foreclosure or eviction," said Blumer who heads Green County's economic assistance unit. "That number rose to 80 in 2010.
"And of the total number of near-homeless (including for instance, people who'd received a 5-day eviction notice from a landlord, or who knew they were about to be foreclosed), there were 212 children in 2010. That's as many children as are enrolled in the Monroe Public School District's 6th grade classes."
People and organizations in Green County have actually been meeting as a Homeless Prevention Coalition since October 2009. Bridget Mouchon and Kris Wisnefske co-chair their efforts.
The coalition first raised money to pay for a mentoring coordinator. That person works with homeless families to connect them with community resources and gathers more mentors and volunteers together to work with the homeless.
If efforts to organize an Interfaith Hospitality Network are successful here March 3, the group will need to raise more money to provide cots and other supplies to the revolving homeless shelter.
"I'm quite pleased from the responses of churches about this effort, " Beck said. "A number of people said they'd been looking for a mission like this to take part in.
"We have a great place to live," said Beck, who attends the Methodist church and has lived and worked in Monroe since 1987. "We've got to take care of all our citizens to keep it that way."