>> At this time last week we heard from Lieutenant Governor
Rebecca Kleefisch on her new role as the chair of a proposed
interagency council on homelessness.
That council is called for in one of four bills passed in the
Assembly.
Bills designed to help the homeless population in
Wisconsin.
In tonight's "Closer look," another package of bills to aid
the homeless is being introduced by a Democratic state lawmaker.
These bills would increase government vouchers to pay for
housing, fund a program to help prevent evictions in cases of a
temporary financial crisis and increase funding to "Housing
First" programs among other measure.
In all, according to the author her bills would triple spending
in Wisconsin for the homeless to $10 million.
Representative Lisa Subeck is here.
And thanks for being here.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> I know that you worked with the homeless population in your
role at the YWCA.
What is your response to the Republican bills?
>> The Republican package of bills that came before us sadly
just didn't really get at the problem of homelessness.
They create a council, we had a council.
It wrote a plan.
The plan sat on a shelf for the last almost 10 years now.
Now we have another council and my fear is this council will
write another plan that will simply sit on a shelf.
It's easy to do feel-good proposals like this but it's a
lot harder to actually say let's put the resources behind it.
Let's do what we know works.
And at this point, we have the advantage of knowing what works.
Much research has been done.
We know what the evidence-based best practices are.
And those are rooted in what's called "Housing First."
So the package of bills that I've brought forward really
follow that "Housing First" strategy of helping people get
into housing and then once they're in housing,
wrapping the services around them to ensure that they're able
to stay there.
>> Isn't that super expensive, though?
>> You know it's actually a remarkably cost effective
approach because of the amount that we are already spending on
the issue of homelessness when you consider that somebody
who is chronically homeless.
Somebody who is chronically homeless is living on the
streets, often upwards of 12 months,
sometimes over a period of years in various intervals.
The amount we pay in law enforcement and the amount that
we pay in emergency medical care to serve that population is so
much greater than what it would cost to get that individual in
housing, to wrap the services around them and move them toward
self-sufficiency.
>> Now one thing that Lieutenant Governor Kleefisch said was that
"Housing First" in her belief works best for dual diagnosis,
people with mental illness and some kind of an addiction
problem.
Is that true?
>> Certainly "Housing First" is a concept.
But there was a very specific "Housing First" program in
Milwaukee and we've seen similar programs here in Madison.
We have a building on the east side,
in other parts of state and other states.
When you look at that because you need an intense level of
services, the full "Housing First" model really works of
actually providing the housing.
My bills actually take a little bit of an expanded approach on
that.
We include some money for "Housing First" programs.
In fact, a substantial amount currently the state gives
$300,000 in housing grants and we would increase that
by $2 1/2 million in order to invest in "Housing First"
and "Rapid Rehousing."
"Rapid Rehousing" is often for people without quite
as high of needs but to get them out of shelters quickly and into
new housing, you infuse those "Housing First"-like services
during those first couple months after a period of homelessness.
>> It sounds like people like you,
people like the lieutenant governor,
many people really want to work on this issue and I know that of
the four bills that were passed in the Assembly,
you voted in favor of two of them.
So is there an effort or can there be an effort to work in a
bipartisan way on this?
>> Sure, I absolutely think there can be.
I mean I think the sad thing about the Republican bills was
that they didn't take this next step of actually putting
resources into solving the problem of homelessness.
We've spent enough years with pilot programs and councils
and things that certainly address the problem
but they address it out loud.
They address it by talking about it
and we need to start addressing it by doing something.
The bills that I've put forward would start to make that crucial
investment.
The Council To End Homelessness in Wisconsin,
which is the council that helped form -- the group that helped
form this government council, there's a couple council -- has
advised us Wisconsin needs to at a very start,
triple its investment in homelessness.
So that is what we're doing here.
We're saying we have to stop the bleeding.
We can't put Band-Aids on gaping wounds.
>> And yet I understand that even that amount of infusion of
resources pales in comparison to what neighboring states are
spending.
>> Absolutely.
The state of Minnesota spends $45 million on addressing
homelessness.
The state of Minnesota, between 2012 and 2015,
the latest data we have for them has reduced their homeless
population by almost 10%.
Here in Wisconsin, our homeless population increased by double
digits during that time.
>> What do you think the appetite is in the full
legislature and the administration for putting these
kinds of resources toward this issue when we're already dealing
with transportation funding problems and K-12 and the
university, etc.?
>> You know, it's about priorities.
I think that we need to make homelessness a priority.
It is costing us more right now.
It is costing us more to pay for law enforcement to deal with
homeless people on our streets.
It's costing us more to keep homeless children in our schools
and get them taxi cabs or other transportation day-to-day as
they move from night to night.
It is costing us so much more not to address the problem than
it would to actually address the problem so the appetite
certainly should be there.
>> Representative Lisa Subeck.
Thanks very much.
>> Thank you for having me.