Inside Bridge Street Mission’s new shelter model
The Wausau nonprofit says its new shelter is designed not just to provide beds, but to move people from crisis toward stability, recovery and housing.
A woman puts together a puzzle at a desk while a group of people chat around a table. Another young man works on something, headphones holding back his full head of hair. Next to them, workers in a bustling kitchen prepare food for the day as noon approaches on Friday.
Just a couple of years ago, the space contained a newspaper office, a rock store specializing in moonstones and a cake shop.
I’m at the new Bridge Street Mission building, which one month ago opened its homeless shelter in what was a strip mall and thrift shop on First Avenue.
Bridge Street Mission won the city contract to handle shelter services, following a round of requests for proposals that no one applied for; and it follows a time period involving the city’s police department running a shelter themselves since at the time no other option was available.
In the interest of full disclosure, this reporter used to work for a newspaper company located in that very same building. One of City Pages’ several locations since the COVID-19 pandemic was in the strip mall, next to Bethesda which later became AbleLight Book Shop.
But since April 20 the building has operated as a shelter on the first floor. On the second floor is a men’s addiction recovery center; a women’s center is in progress.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the newly renovated building is a step up in terms of its space. The building looks in many ways like a newly opened professional office building, with wall decor and hardwood floor-mimicking laminate. While the city’s WMC shelter operated out of a church at the extreme generosity of its members, the new place feels decidedly dignified.
That’s an important quality the shelter’s staff live by, Craig Vincent told The Wausonian in a recent interview.
“The goal is not just to meet people in crisis, but to move them to success,” Vincent says.
The Wausonian wanted to follow up with the shelter to see, after roughly a month in, how it’s going. The shelter has already helped some people find their way out of homelessness.
