A hollow promise: Individuals step up where system fails

This story is the second of the two-part A Hollow Promise series on the lack of resources for the homeless in Madison. Click here to read part 1.

Lynn Green, the director of Dane County Human Services, describes Madison’s homeless problem as something that has gotten progressively worse over the last 45 years. While the need has consistently gone up, the resources needed to meet those needs has diminished.

“Resources are an issue,” Green said. “We have a lot of programs in Dane that are model programs that could certainly help out more people but it’s going to take more federal and state resources and more partnerships with private entities to be able to grow those models.”

One such program is the Homeless Court. Currently in its second year, the Homeless Court is a specialized court that gives homeless individuals an alternative to paying steep fines. Individuals going through the program have to connect with resources to help them get off the streets and on a path to self-sustainability. The court is currently lead by Municipal Judge Daniel Koval.

The Homeless Court, however, only has $10,000 in annual funding. This means that, in its current form, it can only serve about three individuals a year.

“The money is kind of a startup to try it, try it with just a few individuals and see how it works, and if it’s successful gaining more funding in the future, to expand it,” Koval said.

 John Terry's secured his apartment with help from his family and the support of nonprofit Porchlight. (Luke Schaetzel/Madison Commons)

However, with the minimal funding the court currently receives, the program is reliant on volunteer services. 

The jurors are all volunteers and the majority of the court’s funding goes to setup and training. By documenting the court’s successful results, Koval hopes the funding will increase over time. Budgetary concerns are not the only obstacle though.

Trying to attain housing for the individuals coming through the Homeless Court can also prove to be difficult. Koval regularly meets with local landlords after hours, regularly, in hopes of securing housing for the individuals coming through the court.

“I never say it’s gonna be easy, but I still think it’s worth making the effort because the status quo doesn’t work. If you don’t try things like this I think that you’re really kind of giving up on people and I don’t want to do that,” Koval said.

Flicker of Hope

“I saw fights, you know and I saw things,” Terry said as he took a long pause and packed his pipe with tobacco. Even after getting kicked out of his house, he still had some support from his family.

“My dad, back then was still subsidizing me. Every month he’d mail me $27.50 to buy a bus pass, things like that,” Terry said. “He’d come see me and slip me a $20 saying ‘please don’t drink with this,’ even though he knew I was going to.”

Going from shelter to shelter, living meal to meal, drink to drink, forced Terry to examine his life. He began to find the drive to finally take steps in a more positive direction.

Using the bus pass his father gave him money for, Terry took the 72 bus to the Lakeview Library. There, he was able to use their computers and get guidance from those working there on things like resume building, job searching and anything else he needed. 

Lack of resources

During criminal prosecutions Ismael Ozanne, the Dane County District Attorney, tries to account for the mental health and living conditions of defendants. However, he is limited due to a lack of funding, which prevents each case from getting the time and attention it deserves.

Based on Dane County’s population, Ozanne said his office should have between 45 and 50 attorneys, but currently it only receives enough state funding for half that. Galen Strebe, special prosecutor for the mentally ill, works for free. Otherwise the office has no budget for the specialized positions it needs.

“When you talk about what it really takes for the criminal justice system to figure out what is needed in anyone’s particular case, an attorney needs time,” Ozanne said. “That is what we do not have at this point because of the sheer volume of having to move through cases as quickly as possible.”

One of the ways Ozanne and Strebe believe homelessness and mental health can be addressed correctly is by getting to the root of the problem and breaking the cycle of recidivism, rather than letting the problem fester behind bars.

“If you don’t get to the root cause they’re just coming back,” Ozanne said. “It’s sort of like an addict with addiction, it we don’t get to the root cause we’re gonna have relapse again, and again and again”

Koval’s Homeless Court tries to get to the root of the problem. Instead of leaving homeless offenders in a perpetual cycle of homelessness, the court tries to get the offender counseling, therapy, housing and job resources.

According to Koval, the lack of funding for criminal prosecutors in the criminal justice system has started a trend to make criminal offenses just ordinance offenses. This allows police the ability to ease the pressure on the criminal justice system by not bringing people into custody and putting them through the justice system.

These ordinance violations turn things like disorderly conduct and battery, into fines. This helps ease pressure on an underfunded District Attorney’s office, but also puts pressure on those living on the streets. 

With certain homeless individuals having upwards of thousands of dollars in fines, the court attempts to break the cycle. However, if the Dane County’s District Attorney’s office had the budget it needed, the root causes of homelessness could be addressed there and minimize the need for a separate program like the Homeless Court.

Just as the District Attorney’s office is underfunded, the Homeless Court also lacks the funds to deal with the problem. If the pilot program fails to garner the budget it needs to become a full-fledged program, it runs the risk of becoming just another failed attempt.

“If they are gonna make a mental health court or any specialty court, you have to put money behind it so then people can be served,” Strebe said. “You just can’t make it, you know, a hollow promise.”

Success, so often not found 

As Terry looks around his one room apartment at Porchlight, his eyes lock onto a single picture.

“That picture right there is one of my favorite pictures,” Terry said as he pointed to a picture he’d taken of the Educational Sciences building at UW–Madison. “That’s where I saw my first therapist. That was my turning point.”

Not everyone has the turning point Terry had. Not everyone has the support system that Terry has. But through people like Shelly Dutch, Jessica Pastelin, Daniel Koval, Ismael Ozanne and Gaylen Strebe, a support system is developing in Madison.

Without funding to back this up though, it can only be the hollow promise Strebe described for those who truly need help. Without funding, Madison’s most vulnerable population are not likely to end up like Terry, who is now in the unique position to give back to the community that propped him up.

After nearly three decades of struggling with alcoholism, undiagnosed mental illness and homelessness, Terry now volunteers at the local PBS station and helps out at Porchlight during election day.

Terry’s journey to sobriety and stability has given him perspective. He realizes there are many still on the streets without his network of helping hands and that many will never have the opportunity to give back to those networks. 

On the wall of his apartment hangs a photo of Terry eating dinner with his father two years ago. It was the first time that he had been able to have his parents over for a meal.

“My father is no longer losing sleep over me,” Terry said. “That’s my gift to him.”