UPDATED: The debate over policing and homelessness in Wausau continues

UPDATE: The City Council approved hiring two new police officers to address problems with homelessness downtown

UPDATE: The City Council on Tuesday evening approved 9-2 (Kilian, Gisselman voted no) the hiring of two new police officers to help patrol downtown and address problems around homeless individuals. The council also amended the proposal so that some of the funding comes from reserve funds and not ARPA dollars (the city is also receiving grants from foundations toward the officers).

Toward the end of a nearly 2-hour Wausau Human Resources Committee meeting the committee members approved 3-2 a plan to hire two more police officers to the Wausau Police Department to help deal with increased crime in the downtown business area.

Those positions would be funded by foundations and would not impact tax dollars. They would continue through 2025, at which point the city could decide whether or not they’re effective or not. If not, the city could eliminate the positions through attrition — in other words, the city would simply not replace two officers who retire until the force is back to 79 officers.

That’s the logistics. But the move is either a trend toward authoritarian control over the homeless or unhoused population and criminalizing homelessness; or it’s an attempt to gain control over what is becoming an alarming increase in criminal behavior downtown.

And that’s largely why the committee meeting took two hours, with plenty of voices weighing in on both sides of the issue.

The problem and the solution

Wausau Police Chief Matt Barnes spoke at length about the problems that some homeless people are causing downtown. First, he laid out what he categorizes as three different groups of homeless people police encounter:

1. Homeless people who are trying to take advantage of resources to get themselves out of homelessness. They’re also generally not causing any kind of problems for law enforcement.

2. Homeless people who aren’t doing much if anything to get out of homelessness, but who are also generally not causing any kind of criminal activity or problems.

3. Homeless people who aren’t trying to get out of homelessness and are engaging in criminal behavior.

It’s the third category Barnes says the new police officers are meant to address. The foundations reached out to ask how they could help, and Barnes says he told them to address the issues he sees going on, the department needs more officers dedicated to the downtown. That would prevent the department from pulling officers from other areas to help, reducing policing in other neighborhoods.

Barnes explained that it is not a solution to homelessness in general. The chief last month brought a proposal to the city to partner with CW Solutions to create a program that provided case management to homeless women. That demographic is the most vulnerable right now, but the plan would be to eventually expand it. Case management is one of the biggest things missing in Wausau, and without ongoing case management, it’s really difficult to keep people in housing. Community Outreach Coordinator Tracy Rieger has expressed that difficulty in numerous public meetings.

The city is currently in discussions with Marathon County leaders in how the city and county can partner on initiatives such as the case management proposal, since homelessness affects communities within the county outside of Wausau.

You can see Barnes’ full statement here, along with an exchange between him and City Council Member Tom Kilian:

The case against more officers

Numerous people spoke out against the hiring. Here are some of the arguments:

• It would be criminalizing homelessness. Hiring more officers to patrol homeless individuals will lead to more arrests, more fines they can’t pay, and worsen their outcomes when the city should be doing what it can to help them instead.

• Instead of spending resources on more officers, money should be spent on needed resources such as more case management that’s sorely needed in Wausau. Mental health and addiction impact a significant number of homeless people, and the city and county need more resources to address those issues. More officers don’t help that. Criminals receive more programs from county and state agencies than the homeless do, one speaker argued.

• Homeless people are already dehumanized, and simply hiring more officers will further dehumanize them.

• It will further erode trust within the homeless community, which will make it harder than it already is for agencies to help connect people with resources.

• The city instead also ought to address the issue of true affordable housing. Even a simple one-bedroom with heat and water included for $800 (this was cited as a real example in Wausau) is not actually affordable for people in challenging situations.

• More officers will just mean homeless people will be kicked out of more public spaces, without a real place to go. Shelters are inadequate to meet current demand, and sometimes when someone is brought into a shelter they need to choose between giving up some of their possessions or having a roof over their head for the night. (Because room for belongings is limited.)

• More officers just mean the criminal justice system will be more overloaded than it already is, and there is already a shortage of defense attorneys to represent clients who can’t afford an attorney.

• The real problem is no one is treating them as humans. A volunteer bus that provides food to the homeless on Wednesdays and Fridays and provides movies on a warm bus in the winter helps make the homeless feel like actual people. The mothers, grandmothers and even great-grandmothers who volunteer are a shining example of how to treat them, advocates say.

The case for more officers

On the counter side, plenty of area leaders say they’ve been seeing more incidents involving crime downtown and that’s diverting officers’ attention from other areas of the city. It’s making downtown unsafe. Police say officers wouldn’t be targeting homeless people; they would only be arresting people for committing crimes. Officers are already doing that - the point is that it’s taking officers away from other areas of the city. (Kilian, to counter, argues that policing those crimes would disproportionately impact people of lower economic status, including the homeless.)

• Homeless people are breaking into the Wausau Chamber of Commerce’s headquarters, and the former WPS building nearby that the Chamber owns. Chamber President/CEO Dave Eckmann says one day he chased a homeless man away from the depot who was smoking crack outside their window.

• An official with Miron Construction said his employees no longer feel safe after homeless individuals harassed their employees at their downtown office.

• Aaron Hersey, the city’s new Metro Ride Director, says Portland faced a similar situation and chose not to add law enforcement. The city saw a 500% spike in assaults and the bus system he worked for lost its contract with the school system because the busses were no longer safe. Because they didn’t tackle the issues around homelessness early on, it now faces immense challenges.

• City Council President Becky McElhaney says the employees of the New Beginnings program were supposed to park in the Jefferson Street ramp, but they are no longer allowed to go to the ramp alone because a homeless person there chased someone with a knife, and others have grabbed women in the ramp.

• Community Development Director Liz Brodek says that’s a problem because the ramp will be crucial to downtown development. Brodek suggested a “yes, and” approach that more law enforcement be paired with an increase in services and case management. It’s becoming a top issue amongst downtown businesses.

• Dawn Herbst, said she watched video from some of the police calls to the homeless, and they involved people urinating and defecating, spreading their waste on buttons on the elevator, for instance. She said she saw sex in the ramps, weapons and other misbehavior. Herbst was jeered by those present when she suggested volunteers were providing alcohol to the homeless.

The city council tonight, in the last session before the new council and new mayor takes office, will decide on accepting the foundation money for the new officers. The council meets at 6:30 pm. The Wausonian will update this post with the outcome of the meeting.

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