Homeless in Eau Claire
The Second Annual Homeless Awareness Day was held last week on November 16 to draw attention to the ongoing – and growing – issue of homelessness in our community. Sponsored by a coalition of local non-profit and faith based community organizations, the event culminated in a panel discussion at the Community Table on homelessness in Eau Claire. Most of the panel participants were former or current homeless persons in Eau Claire.
Poverty and homelessness are nothing new in Eau Claire. No doubt both occurred in our early days in the 1870’s when life was hard for many, and often short. But that was homelessness in the history books.
The speakers at the Community Table discussion were not talking about our past. They were talking about our present, about today. US Census data for 2009 reported that a little over 1 in 8 persons in Eau Claire County – 11,730 persons in all – were living below the poverty level. In 2008 the Eau Claire County Poverty Work Group reported that in 2006 the Eau Claire County Continuum of Care Consortium had counted 1,740 non-duplicated homeless individuals turned away from being able to receive services at some point during the year. According to the Continuum of Care Consortium, the Eau Claire Area School District has identified 90 of its students as being homeless. Panelists at the Community Table forum said that on any given night there are over one hundred homeless persons in the City of Eau Claire alone.
With winter setting in, an immediate concern of the homeless in Eau Claire is where to find a warm place for the night. Valleybrook Church is once again stepping forward to provide a Warming Center, and plans to be staffing an expanded facility at the remodeled B-Side Community building at Farwell and Madison by early December.
The panelists last week talked about the need to do more for the homeless in our community. I wondered how in the world they –we– could be talking about the need to do more when most agencies working with the poor and the homeless will be working with substantially lessin 2011 as a result of state cutbacks. But as always whenever I pose the big “how” question to the Magic Eight Ball, the same answer appears. We will do what we can, where we are, with what we have.