Walking down State Street has its many perks: a beautiful view of the Capitol, truly diverse restaurants and some chic boutiques. But, it’s not often one can walk a block without hearing from a panhandler.
While homelessness in the downtown area is clearly visible to students on a daily basis, how the university community is getting involved with them may not be as evident.
Co-coordinator for Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group’s Hunger and Homelessness Campaign Rashi Mangalick said she thinks homelessness downtown is definitely a problem and is often ignored.
“It’s been around for so long, and sometimes it’s hard to see what we can actually work on so it can become less of a problem,” Mangalick said.
However, according to University of Wisconsin Police Department Assistant Police Chief Dale Burke,
“Homelessness is certainly a problem that is not isolated to any particular part of the country,” Burke said. “I think most communities have a homeless problem; it’s just a matter of how large it is and maybe how out in the open it is. In
Burke added most of the UWPD’s interactions are with those suffering from drug or alcohol abuse issues as well as those dealing with mental health issues.
According to Burke, the UWPD does not receive many complaints concerning the homeless, but from time to time get complaints from UW faculty and staff.
“Students are a lot more mobile,” Burke said. “You’re moving from class to class, so if you come into contact with someone who is not behaving appropriately, you can move on.”
Mangalick added she has heard some complaints of the homeless being disruptive or weird, alluding to an example of those selling newspapers on
However, she said having them around campus and downtown is acting as a reminder that it is a widespread problem.
“What it comes down to is: ‘When do you give them a coin?’ You don’t know what they’re going to spend it on,” Mangalick said. “It’s easy to push them aside in your mind, but that’s also one of the ways to get your attention because it is there, and it’s obvious that it’s a problem that we need to solve.”
Student involvement with the homeless population
While homeless facilities or student activism might not be evident at first glance around campus, there are, in fact, many ways to help out the homeless community.
Porchlight Inc., a facility located on Brooks Street across from the Grainger School of Business, is a not-for-profit volunteer agency providing counseling and employment services as well as transitional, permanent and emergency housing.
According to Steven Schooler, executive director of Porchlight Inc., the Brooks Street facility is the greatest point of student impact.
Schooler said students volunteer in the kitchen as part of class assignments, work as interns from the UW Social Work department and run a medical clinic every few weeks.
Jennifer Hall, Porchlight Inc. kitchen projects manager, said her advice to volunteers is to look at it as an opportunity to get to know the homeless population on an individual level.
“It’s very easy to talk about the homeless as a collective population,” Hall said. “It’s like looking at any population in this country: there are a lot of commonalities between them, but they are also individual people. It’s a population of people that are capable of doing things, they’re capable of contributing.”
Mangalick said she thinks it’s good to have a facility like Porchlight Inc. on campus because it makes more students aware of the problem.
Another group involved in helping the homeless population, WISPIRG’s Hunger and Homelessness Campaign, is focusing a major part of their efforts this semester to push for changes in legislation with minimum wages and housing to help those struggling in the current economic recession as a way to avoid homelessness.
“I don’t know if anything will get passed right away, but we want to push it to our legislators and hopefully get some more long-term solutions,” Mangalick said. “Especially with the economy being so bad, sure we’re having some trouble as poor college students, but the people that may not have a job or a place to go at night — they’ll be the ones that are actually suffering.”
Burke said he thinks it’s great if students want to contribute to helping with the homeless population.
“I think that it’s an education — the more students involved in these efforts, the smarter they become about the issue,” Burke said. “[Students] certainly have a lot to offer in terms of creativity and helping to identify solutions to the problem — both short-term and long-term.”
Dealing with the homeless downtown
UW Associate Dean of Students Argyle Wade said the dean’s office has been working to get the word out to students about Downtown Madison Inc.’s ReachOut project.
The project works to reduce disruptive behavior in the downtown area sometimes seen from the homeless population, connect homeless and mentally ill to treatment and counseling, and educate the public about issues surrounding homelessness.
Wade said oftentimes, students and downtown residents can feel pressured to give money to panhandlers not only on State Street, but throughout the city. He added the program tries to dissuade those encountering panhandlers from directly donating.
“We need to help somebody in a way that has a lasting impact versus just giving one or two dollars,” Wade said. “Sometimes people feel helpless. They don’t know what to do, they want to do something (for the homeless), but just an hour or two a week of volunteering or a donation to a charity can go a long way.”
According to Wade, the Dean of Students Office also has safety concerns about students simply doling out cash on the street to panhandlers.
“It puts you in a vulnerable situation, and we don’t want our students to be put in that situation. Our students have big hearts, so we know it’s hard for someone to look them in the face,” Wade said. “We know that’s hard, but we have to look at our student safety.”
While the Offices of the Dean of Students distributed information about the program using e-mail last semester, Wade said they will be meeting in February and looking for more creative ways to let students know about it this semester.
Burke also addressed safety concerns with Porchlight Inc. because it is in such close proximity to campus, adding UWPD seldom sees serious issues with the facility and its residents.
“We’ve always had a good relationship with those folks, and they are very, very cooperative,” Burke said. “They want to help, and they don’t want their folks getting into trouble either.”
Burke said Porchlight Inc.’s residents will occasionally make use of Grainger’s resources more than they should, but the situation rarely escalates to a citation or arrest.
And although the location houses a variety of recovering drug and alcohol abusers as well as about 10 sex offenders, Burke said he does not see its location as a safety issue for university community members.
“The clientele of Porchlight, I think, are people who tend to be more committed to changing their status, wanting to not be homeless and to turn their lives around,” he added. “Whatever we can do to help them help themselves is in everyone’s best interest.”
