Two years ago, we checked in with the mayor of La Crosse, who was painfully confronting
surging numbers of people experiencing homelessness and living in encampments.
In response to the problem, the city, county, and local organizations banded together in
a concerted effort to get people into housing.
The five-year Pathways Home Plan launched in 2024, when 300 people were counted as unhoused
in La Crosse.
Today, that number is under 200, the goal to get to a functional zero homeless population
by 2029.
We're joined now by Jim Dries, the La Crosse County Homeless Response Systems Manager,
and co-lead of Pathways Home.
And thanks very much for being here.
You bet.
So what stands out about how the Pathways Home Plan is moving the needle on homelessness
in La Crosse?
I think we've always had a dozen plus organizations here in nonprofits supporting this community.
What was really critical was just getting alignment.
And so really sharing common information, a by-name list of anyone experiencing homelessness,
easy ways to get into our system, and then weekly coordination, where we have a dozen
plus agencies really working together.
I think just achieving that alignment was really important in terms of making a lot
of progress.
What are the greatest needs and greatest barriers to getting people into housing?
Yeah, one of the things we look at with folks is we want to place them into housing that's
appropriate for their level of need.
So we'll categorize folks that need anywhere from a light need to moderate, which we consider
once a week, intensive, which is daily support.
And really in our system, a lot of our reductions in homelessness count have been with those
light and moderate needs, easier to place, easier to house.
Our biggest challenge right now is folks that have intensive support needs.
So daily support, sometimes overnight monitoring, typically related to mental health trauma,
sometimes substance use, and that's just as shortage in our system.
These tend to be the folks that have been unhoused the longest.
I get categorized as chronically homeless.
And the longer someone's unhoused, the higher their level of need is usually.
And so the Pathways Home Program includes these kind of wraparound services.
Yeah, so really our goal is developing a wide range of housing and a wide range of support
services.
Part of our challenge is a lot of our really good programs helping folks with mental health
substance use, housing stability issues require a level of stability that often the unhoused
population doesn't have.
So we've really extended our outreach into the community.
People don't have to come into our building or into an agency.
We are out almost daily in terms of both general and targeted outreach because it really takes
building trust and connection to help people, you know, get involved in the right programs
that lead them to the appropriate housing.
What does functional zero mean as stated as a goal by 2029?
Yeah, it recognizes that we won't always be able to prevent someone from becoming unhoused.
But when they do, it's critically important that we get them re-housed quickly.
And so there's two measures that we think about with functional zero.
One, that number of unhoused people in our community should be lower than our ability,
our proven ability to house people in a given month.
So right now we're housing about nine people a month.
So we need our count to be under nine.
That would say our system's capable of rehousing them.
And so the target is to rehouse everyone within 30 days.
Well, what kind of success have you had in eliminating people living in winter and camp
months?
Yeah.
So really that's where the city and county collaboration comes in because this is an
issue that affects police, it affects parks, it affects fire department, emergency response,
it affects community services.
So the city of La Crosse created a camping ban, which really became the catalyst for
clearing out encampments.
We are really trying to focus on everyone having a shelter option.
Right now we don't have enough emergency shelter beds on there.
But we do have extra overnight capacity during the winter, recognizing how critical that people
have a place to stay overnight when it's cold.
What are kind of the benchmark goals between now and 2029?
Yeah, it really is reaching functional zero and that's taking our count, which is a little
under 200 right now, down to say under 10 in terms of doing that.
Average duration of homelessness, taking that down to under 30 days up there.
The other thing we had to really adjust in our system was it's not just about getting
folks housed.
Once folks are housed, historically in our system unaddressed issues would lead to evictions
falling behind on rent, other issues there.
And so really we've started this housing stability tracker where when people are moved
in, we're staying connected.
Who's staying connected?
How are we checking in?
And so really that housing stability tracker would say, you know, the best systems in our
country right now are tracking at 70 to 80 percent housing retention after two years.
So it doesn't always work for everyone, but again, we want to place them in places
where they can retain housing, get the support they need.
How fulfilling is it to see this movement toward finding this sustainable or stable housing
for the unhoused?
Yes, it's a mixed bag.
It's hard to celebrate a milestone of going under 200 when you still have people unsheltered
in your community on there.
The team is super dedicated in terms of connecting with people.
So I do think we take success with each move in.
I remind folks all the time that every number we put out there on our dashboard is connected
to a person with a name and a story.
And so we have good days that we celebrate move-ins.
We have tough days where there's a remission or someone lost housing.
And so we try to stay steady.
We see ourselves as the backbone of this system, providing consistent options and resources
for housing and supportive services.
All right, we leave it there.
Jim Dries, La Crosse, thanks so much.
You're welcome.
I do have one other question, and that is, is Pathways Home in La Crosse considered a
model or did you model it off other programs around the country?
Yeah, I think it was a hybrid of that.
So built for zero is a nonprofit that often is looking at best practices on addressing
homelessness.
There were certainly discussions with Milwaukee, Rockford, other places that were further
along in there.
So I would say we looked at evidence-based practices, and probably one thing that stood
out for us, especially for medium-sized community, or let's say La Crosse-sized communities,
is having local government involvement.
I think bigger systems, you see a lot of studies on New York City and Los Angeles, where the
numbers are quite different, and they can host entire departments and nonprofits that
are well-structured for that.
Our collection's a little bit smaller.
So I would say, built for zero and community import, built out the plan.
Great.
So interesting.
And thank you for your time on this.
Oh, thanks for publicizing this.
I think we try to do our best to tell the numbers as they are.
We talk about transparency and accountability on there.
That's the good days and bad days on there.
People maybe sometimes think the number's too high or too low, and it is our best understanding
of a complex dynamic system.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
All right.
All right.
Thank you.
You too.
Bye-bye.
Happy and great.
Bye-bye.