Year After Year, Milwaukee Manages to Reduce Homelessness

On the night of the January 2024 count, America’s homeless population was 771,480 — the largest number ever recorded, and almost 20 percent higher than the year before.

The increase was disheartening, if not a surprise, says Adam Ruege, a data strategist for Community Solutions, a homelessness nonprofit. Inflation and stagnant wages have exacerbated the lack of affordable housing, the major driver of homelessness.

Dating back to 2007, the annual report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is the only consistent national survey of the homeless. The increases seen in recent years are a reversal of a decade of progress in reducing this population (see graph).




The HUD assessment is valuable, says Ruege, but the numbers are nearly a year old by the time they are reported. The size and circumstances of the homeless population are fluid. His group approaches homelessness as a public health problem that requires the real-time flow of data and coordinated effort used to manage other public health challenges. Communities that have implemented programs built around these ideas, such as Houston, New Orleansand Hennepin County, Minn., have shown that progress is possible.

Milwaukee County, Wis., is another notable exception. Even as the nation’s homeless population grew dramatically, the county managed a 16 percent reduction by following a blueprint that has served it well for a decade.

Taking a New Approach

In 2014, Chris Abele, then the county executive, decided that Milwaukee’s efforts to help the homeless needed rethinking. He asked Housing Administrator James Mathy for new ideas and better outcomes.

The plan that Mathy’s team put forward and began to implement in 2015 was built on two essential concepts. The first was that local government would take a leadership role and run homeless programs itself, rather than relying on nonprofits. The second was that a Housing First philosophy would guide activities throughout its system.

Housing First aims to get people into housing as the top priority, offering them some stability as a platform for addressing other problems such as drug addiction and unemployment. The concept, which had been pushed strongly by the George W. Bush administration, has come under increasing criticism from conservatives in recent years. The authors of Project 2025, whose recommendations have informed a number of the Donald Trump administration’s policies to date, believe that federal funding for such programs should end.




Mathy is aware that some think it’s a mistake to give people with behavioral or addiction problems housing before these issues are handled. But in his experience, the approach works — if housing is accompanied by services, an integral element of Housing First principles. His confidence is bolstered by an evaluation component put in place at the beginning of the local plan's implementation. “We wanted to be held accountable to reductions in homelessness,” says Mathy.

In its first five years, overall homelessness decreased by 46 percent, with unsheltered homelessness dropping by 92 percent. By the 2021 HUD count, the county had the nation’s lowest per-capita unsheltered homeless population. Savings to behavioral health and criminal justice systems are also tracked; to date Milwaukee County's Housing First program has saved taxpayers more than $30 million.

"The only thing that can end someone’s homelessness is a place to live,” says Luke Rosynek, a program evaluator with the county's Department of Health and Human Services. “Everyone in a shelter is homeless.”

Housing and Opportunity

For County Executive David Crowley, homelessness isn’t an abstract concept. “I was evicted at least three times in my childhood,” he says. “I moved every year of my life for about 15 years straight.”

Housing instability affects education, employment and health, Crowley says. He’s seen the damage it can cause with members of his family. Providing housing, in combination with wraparound services, is a focal point of his administration.

The county does not control zoning in local municipalities, and Crowley has worked with developers and residents to encourage more affordable housing projects. Investments of federal American Rescue Plan funds have helped shift conversations away from NIMBYism.

In the early days of Milwaukee County Housing First, supply was not an issue. Unsheltered homelessness spiked in 2023, when it became more difficult to find apartments. A landlord engagement coordinator was hired to build relationships with landlords old and new, and to track vacancies. A new program was created to incentivize landlords through damage waivers, double security deposits and referral bonuses. Housing navigators walk the city at night, approaching persons sleeping outdoors and working to connect them to shelter and services.


Filmmaker Don Sawyer visited Milwaukee while filming a documentary on solutions to homelessness.

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Investing in Change

Milwaukee’s business community has been an active partner with the county. Mathy met with Beth Weirick, CEO of Milwaukee Downtown, a business improvement district, when he was developing the county plan. Milwaukee Downtown hosted a full-day symposium for shelter staff, police, first responders and others.

Since 2019, Milwaukee Downtown has funded a homeless outreach coordinator position in the county’s housing division. It also funds two public service ambassadors that work in support of the outreach coordinator and often accompany the housing navigators.

It wasn’t easy convincing commercial property owners to get into the business of supporting social services. “There weren’t a lot of models we could point to,” says Weirick. “The first year, we were out pounding the pavements, saying 'let’s give this a try. What have we got to lose?'”

The gamble proved to be worth it, and the business community takes pride in what has been accomplished. But Weirick cautions that success with the approach that has worked for her community can be constrained by housing shortages, or landlords unwilling to accept housing vouchers or tenants transitioning from homelessness.

“I’d call myself fortunate that our leadership and our commercial property owners lead with compassion,” Weirick says. “We genuinely wanted to lead the way with a program that could effect change that wasn’t in word only.”

Shock Waves

Producer and director Don Sawyer has created a documentary focused on solutions to the homelessness problem, Beyond the Bridge, which includes some individuals who have created and benefitted from Milwaukee County Housing First. (A screening for members of Congress and a panel discussion are planned in March.)

Sawyer and his team conducted interviews in 12 cities looking for things that were working. He says Houston and Milwaukee stood out as the only places that intervened in homeless systems in ways that turned the numbers around.

The two systems function differently, Sawyer says. In Milwaukee, the homeless response system primarily comes out of the county government. “In Houston, the government is engaged and driving,” he says, “But they have farmed out the authority through the Coalition for the Homeless.”

The common denominator, he says, was political leadership — along with a mandate that sent shock waves through the homeless response system. “Success is driven by political will,” he says. “Somebody has to lead.”