Dylan Brogan
Madison's men's homeless shelter at the former Fleet Services building
Madison's men's shelter at the former Fleet Services building, above, will soon move to another temporary site while a permanent shelter is being built on Bartillon Drive.
The plan to build a permanent men’s homeless shelter on Madison’s northeast side has hit some rough spots, but it is moving along.
The City-County Homeless Issues Committee recently recommended Porchlight as the facility’s lead operator (the city council needs to confirm the choice on Oct. 11) and plans are in place to move the temporary men’s shelter to a third, short-term location while the permanent site is being built at 1902 Bartillon Drive.
The permanent shelter is a joint project of the city of Madison and Dane County. With this collaboration, the shelter is poised to offer supportive services in addition to overnight accommodations.
“This was really the city and county getting into the business of homeless sheltering in a way that we just never had previously,” says Jim O’Keefe, director of the city’s Community Development Division. “There’s no going back to the church basements. Those days are over.”
Grace Episcopal Church in downtown Madison, along with two nearby overflow shelters, provided the bulk of shelter to area homeless men for more than 30 years. But once COVID-19 hit, the locations could not accommodate the need for social distancing. Starting in March 2020, a temporary men’s shelter was set up in Warner Park and then moved to the city’s former Fleet Services building on North First Street.
In 2021 city officials wanted to buy the old Savers site at 2002 Zeier Road for a permanent shelter but were met with neighborhood and alder opposition. The city council eventually approved purchase of the site as a temporary shelter, while the Bartillon Drive location is being prepared.
The temporary shelter will move in mid-October to Zeier Road, which will offer higher-quality bathrooms, as well as more storage and leisure space, says O’Keefe. Plans are still in place for the Madison Public Market to take over the Fleet building, he adds.
Porchlight is doing its best to notify active users of the shelter of the move. “We try to cover as many bases as we can because we don’t want people to end up going to the wrong place,” says Kim Sutter, director of services for Porchlight.
Porchlight has been collecting feedback from shelter guests about what services they would like to have at the new permanent facility. Sutter says individuals have recommended such things as separate spaces for people who want to go to bed earlier than others; access to a washer and dryer; more privacy in the bathrooms; and opportunities to work at the shelter by preparing food or cleaning the facility.
“We’ve made a lot of changes in the last few years to move toward the kind of shelter that we think our community wants and deserves,” Sutter says.
Catalyst for Change, Madison Street Medicine and Kabba Recovery Services will be partnering with Porchlight and assisting guests at the new permanent shelter. Michael Moody, CEO and co-founder of Catalyst for Change — a group that helps people experiencing homelessness in Dane County — says Porchlight has “really stepped up.” The collaboration between the city, community and various agencies has been “instrumental” as well, he adds.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the shelter would host about 60-70 men per night, says O’Keefe. Now the nightly average is 150-170 men.
The preliminary budget for the permanent shelter is $21 million. O’Keefe says $10 million is accounted for, with proposals to raise the remaining $11 million from a $2 million federal grant, $3 million of additional city borrowing, and $6 million of additional county funds. The design work for the shelter is expected to be completed by mid-2023, with construction to begin at the end of 2023 or in the first part of 2024.
This partnership between the city and county is ultimately historic, O’Keefe says, because it will create more support and assistance for this large-scale project. “There’s not an organization in this community that has the wherewithal to develop a permanent shelter facility,” O’Keefe says. “And so the city and the county have agreed to take on that role, and we’re working together to get that done.”
