Wausau’s New Night Shelter for the Homelessness Sheds Light on the Complexity of the Issue

Wednesday, September 10th, 2025 -- 8:01 AM

(Shereen Siewert, Wisconsin Public Radio) Four months after Wausau opened a temporary night shelter for people experiencing homelessness, Police Chief Matt Barnes says the experience has shed light on both the complexity of the crisis and the resilience of the community that stepped in to help.

According to Shereen Siewert with the Wisconsin Public Radio, the shelter, housed at First United Methodist Church in downtown Wausau, opened May 1 as a joint city-county initiative.

The move came after Catholic Charities’ warming center closed for the summer and no agency submitted a qualified bid to operate a longer-term program. Without the stopgap measure, Barnes said, the city risked seeing encampments reappear in parks and beneath bridges.

In a conversation on WPR’s “Morning Edition,” Barnes described the range of people who sought help. He was struck by the number of shelter guests who held steady jobs.

Roughly 1 in 5 residents were employed, he said, often waking before dawn with the help of donated alarm clocks to make it to their shifts. “When you say ‘homeless,’ it’s easy to lump them all into one big bucket,” Barnes said. “But that’s not the whole story.”

Barnes took a hands-on role in organizing the shelter, which provides beds for up to 60 people each night and is staffed by temporary employees trained in trauma-informed care and crisis de-escalation.

Volunteers from across the community prepare food and provide supplies, while the city and county share the program’s roughly $130,000 cost. Barnes acknowledged the initial fears among unhoused residents that the police department would run the shelter.

But he said those concerns quickly faded as guests realized the program aimed to meet their needs rather than enforce laws. Two officers assigned to downtown parks, he added, have built trust by both holding people accountable for violations and connecting them with resources.

Community support, from donated appliances to daily meals, has been critical to the shelter’s success, Barnes said. The program is scheduled to continue through December, giving city and county leaders time to plan next steps for addressing homelessness in the region.

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