The problem of homelessness was not on the agenda for the May 14 Shawano Common Council meeting, but it received a fair amount of attention and ended with a plan to look into the issue.
There is a homeless shelter that is run through Shawano Area Matthew 25, but it’s only open from Nov. 1 through April 30, leaving those who find themselves out on the streets with no local place to sleep the other six months of the year.
Shawano resident Mark Quast finds that to be a problem.
“Right now, if you’re homeless from May now until November, you have to sleep on the street,” Quast said during the public comment segment. “If you’re homeless, and you have no money, where do you go? You can’t sleep in the park, because if you sleep in the park, you get a trespassing charge.”
Quast believes the city should do more to address the homeless situation in Shawano, even though the city has no jurisdiction over SAM25 and when the shelter is open.
“My suggestions would be to open SAM25 year-round or the other thing is, if you could, have a safe zone for people that are homeless where they could sleep at night, because obviously there’s no place to sleep,” Quast said. “You can’t sleep in the park, so where do you go? Do you walk around all night? A person’s got to sleep.”
Matthew Klein knows this firsthand, because he is currently homeless. Klein spoke to the council during public comments about how he has received several tickets for sleeping at night in places where he’s not supposed to. Currently, city parks are closed when the sun goes down.
“During the day, we don’t have nowhere to go or anything, and at night we don’t, either,” Klein said. “We go and try to camp out in the woods, some of these back woods — mostly I try to stay on the trails — but I keep on finding police contacts and getting tickets for trespassing. I’m trying to live. I’m just trying to find a place to stay. I’m not trying to cause any problems or anything with anybody.”
The council doesn’t engage in dialogue during public comments, but Mayor Bruce Milavitz asked Police Chief Mike Musolff his thoughts about the earlier comments when the chief was giving his monthly report. Musolff said there’s not much that officials can do under the current circumstances.
“It’s difficult. If you’re looking at somewhere to stay overnight, it’s hard to allow people to stay in the parks because that’s what the ordinance says,” Musolff said. “Also, the Mountain-Bay Trail seems to be a place, an area where a lot people tend to tuck off the trail. But a lot of times that’s private property, and you don’t have permission to be there, so that’s another issue that occurs.”
Once the council concluded its regular business, Alderman Kevin Barkow recommended that the council revisit the homeless issue when it meets in June.
“This homeless thing is kind of bothering me a little bit,” Barkow said. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do as far as putting a committee together or looking at this a little bit more, but I think we definitely need to work on something to get this thing fixed.”
Alderman Jack Young suggested inviting a SAM25 representative to the next meeting to discuss the situation, and City Administrator Eddie Sheppard said officials could reach out to the organization, pointing out that the city has had a positive relationship with the shelter.
“That way, maybe we can have a more organized conversation,” Sheppard said.
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