Happy Birthday, HALO! Two years of hope and shelter

Bedrooms in the women's shelter have
uplifting names, not numbers.

An important Racine anniversary passed this week, but if you missed it consider yourself blessed. And not homeless.

Two years ago, on Nov 4, 2005, HALO opened the city's first full-time homeless shelter, in a former Massey-Ferguson factory on DeKoven Avenue. To say it's been a success, and fills a great need, would be two large understatements.

In a single year, it provided 38,314 nights of safe, warm and dry sleep to 944 homeless adults and 200 homeless children.

We should have held a citywide party to celebrate HALO's birthday. And then, of course, redoubled our efforts to make it redundant.

Cheryl Buckley looks over the shelter's busy schedule

You don't have to be one of the hundreds of homeless people who used to traipse back and forth throughout the city -- from one church to another, a different one each night, carrying all your belongings -- to understand the difference a guaranteed and stable bedroom makes, along with regular meals. REST, the old Racine Emergency Shelter Taskforce, performed a necessary service on the backs of church volunteers, and deserves much credit for its years of work; but there simply is no comparison.

When REST provided beds and meals for the homeless, approximately 60 people could be accommodated each night. (Homeward Bound also provided emergency housing for 35 women and children.)

By HALO's definition, homelessness is "a temporary circumstance." Some people only stay one night. But for others ...

According to Cheryl Buckley, HALO's director, about 1,200 people are homeless in Racine County, and 150 to 200 need emergency shelter on a daily basis. Many of those are children.

HALO has beds for 120 people, 60 men and 60 women in two separate areas. But there are many nights when more show up; HALO has stacks of portable mattresses it pulls out for the overflow, setting up for men in their dining room, and for women in a family room. Last Friday, for example, 64 men were sheltered.

More pictures HERE.

As it gets colder, more men will seek beds, Buckley says. "There are more seasonal jobs in the summer, and when it's warm men are more willing to sleep outside in cars, parks, streets or cars. Men are more likely homeless in fall and winter."

For women, it's the opposite; the shelter hosts more women and children occupants in June and July. "The hidden number in homelessness is people living with others," Buckley says. "People live doubled up, with an aunt or grandmother; you get into an argument and are thrown out. But it's real hard to kick them out in winter."

The crunch for women and children comes in May, "when the hammer comes down from the utilities." Under Wisconsin law, utilities are prevented from shutting off service for non-payment between October and April.

Despite all that, Buckley says she feels "a sense of hope here." And well she might: much of HALO's effort is aimed not so much at running a homeless shelter as at trying to fix the underlying problem, one resident at a time.

"All we guarantee people who come here is 24 hours. Then they meet with a case manager and create an Individual Success Plan" that helps them work toward independence and self-sufficiency. "If it takes one year, or two years ... as long as you make progress you can stay here. We're really about connecting people with the services they need. But everybody is surprised at how long it takes." Social Security disability claim appeals, for example, routinely take at least a year and a half to be resolved.

"Ninety-eight percent of the people who come in here want to work, want to be productive. But even when working, they're on the edge; get sick for a couple of weeks and lose a job, and they have to start over."

That was one of REST's frustrations, Buckley says; they saw the same people coming back year after year. "It's like an onion; you peel the layers back. A man is a tool and die maker; try to find a job doing that these days. First the job goes, then the marriage, the kids, the psyche. People are road-weary." HALO aims to end that cycle; help the homeless get diplomas, training, free of addictions.

Buckley was hired just before construction started in the summer of 2005. Her touches are everywhere: for example, rooms are not numbered, but instead named: "Caring," "Peace," "Love," "Kindness," and so on. On the women's side, the names are gaily painted on signs hung on each door, project of a Girl Scout troop. Four bedrooms were recently painted and their floors re-waxed by a group of Johnson-Diversey executives, who spent a day working their muscles and hearts.

Bedrooms are tidy (It must be said: Buckley is a neat- and cleanliness micro-manager). Besides the bedrooms -- there's a subtly tiered system for men: if you have a job, you live in a room without bunk beds -- there is a tutoring room with computers (project of a Leadership Racine class), family room on both the men's and women's sides with comfortable couches and TV, and a colorful children's playroom. And two separate kitchens.

But this is not summer camp. All residents are required to be up and dressed by 8 a.m. and active. There are classes and chores, with big whiteboards listing the schedule, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 9 to 2, everybody is required to be out of the building, to give the staff time to catch up. Baby-sitters are provided, so mothers don't have to bring kids to appointments in town. The YMCA provides free memberships to all who want it, the DeKoven center offers classes, the Racine Public Library is available.

Besides the shelter, HALO also manages 22 transitional apartments rented for those who are nearly independent; last year they housed 32 adults and 26 children. The cost comes from a HUD grant that used to be managed by the now-defunct Homeward Bound women's and children's shelter. When Homeward Bound was operating, Racine provided (along with REST) beds for about 135 people. Now, with the larger HALO facility there are beds for about 165.

And still they are sometimes turned away. No matter how full, the shelter will find room for anyone from Racine County, but when at capacity it will turn away people from out of town, giving them bus tokens to Kenosha or Milwaukee.. Kenosha still operates its homeless shelters as Racine used to, moving from church to church each night.

By the numbers, in one year:

944 people sheltered
672 adults created Individual Success Plans
301 moved to a permanent address
95% of parents attended parent education classes
Of 200 children: 98% had wellness check-ups and immunizations
98% attended school regularly
75% maintained passing grades

Things you didn't know:

-- HALO is one of those hard-wrought acronyms, more trouble than they are worth: Homeless Assistance Leadership Organization.

--REST, the old Racine Emergency Shelter Taskforce which HALO replaces, performed a necessary charitable service thanks to myriad church volunteers, and deserves much credit for all it accomplished. Cleaning out church basements, setting up and taking down 60 beds a night, cooking meals for all who needed food, taxed a lot of resources.

-- Many people helped bring HALO to fruition, but the one without whom nothing would have happened is David Maurer, executive director of the United Way of Racine County, who, starting in 2002, formed the committees, populated the task forces, knocked on corporate doors seeking capital and put his organization's money where its mouth was. United Way put up $150,000 in transitional funds to make the leap from REST to HALO, and currently supports the organization's $1 million annual budget with $280,000.

-- The capital campaign seeking $2.1 million to build HALO in 2005 was one of the more successful here in recent memory, actually raising $2.4 million. Maurer and Willard Walker (chairman of Walker Forge, whose wife, Mary, was United Way board president in 2005) managed to obtain pledges like the following:

$600,000 from SC Johnson
$243,000 from the city
$180,000 from the county
$150,000 from Modine
$100,000 from Twin Disc

-- Executive director Buckley spent 11 years as associate director of the Racine YMCA, leaving here in the mid-90s to direct Y's in Chicago and Des Plaines, before "retiring" in 2002, being recruited to restore the Women's Resource Center to health, and then to direct construction and operation of HALO in 2005.

-- The building is owned by the Neubauer family (Kranz Inc.). HALO and the Food Bank, which each occupy about a third of it, pay only interest payments toward eventual condo ownership.