This story is part of a two-year (2024-26) series prioritizing solutions to housing insecurity through collaborative storytelling. For more information about the series, please see the project overview. For questions or comments, please contact Sue Robinson at robinson4@wisc.edu.
“We don’t want to wait five years – we know the need is now,” Brian Benford, a success coach at UW Odyssey Project, said about the need for affordable housing for nontraditional students and their families.
UW Odyssey Project is a program that offers adult students facing economic barriers to college UW–Madison humanities classes. Many students who participate in the Odyssey Project are parents, supporting both themselves and their children. This can increase the financial and emotional stressors for Odyssey students, especially when it comes to a need for secure and stable housing.
“One of the biggest things we have seen stop our students in their passionate pursuit of education is housing,” said Kevin Mullen, Odyssey’s director of adult education.
In response to this need, there is currently a call to action to develop a residential learning program that would offer free or heavily subsidized housing for low-income, nontraditional students in higher-degree programs in Madison.
On April 3, UW Odyssey Project and Madison Commons co-hosted a meeting to introduce the idea of such a program with participants including community members, UW-Madison students and staff, and UW Odyssey Project staff, alumni and current students.
Such a program would not be tied to any specific institution, according to Benford. It would provide housing to any parents that are students of a Madison higher education institution, as well as their families.
At the meeting, Madison Commons reporters and UW–Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication students Kiesen Williams and Sreejita Patra presented a documentary they filmed about the community impact of the Family Scholar House program that already exists in Indiana and Kentucky.
Having spent two days traveling to Scholar Houses in each state with Odyssey volunteers, Williams and Patra used interviews and footage from their trip in their documentary. Once back in Madison, they also told the stories of UW Odyssey students, alumni and staff who have witnessed or experienced firsthand housing insecurity in Madison.
Following the viewing of the documentary, Odyssey alumni and current participants were invited to share their experiences and reflect on what a family scholar house would mean to them.
“If I was in a scholar-house program, that would have helped me tremendously. That would have helped my family,” said Tiffany, a current Odyssey student. “I hope the program comes to Wisconsin.”
The services and support Odyssey Project provides its students means a lot to the community and those involved.
“I never felt so supported in my entire life like I do with Odyssey,” Jess, an Odyssey alum, said.
However, Odyssey does not have any housing support at this time for its students, and Benford said he would like to see that change
“You need a safe, supportive place to lay your head at night. You can’t think about school - you can’t think of anything - if you don’t have that safe place to lay your head,” Benford said.
When concluding the meeting Benford asked the room, “So what do you say? Are we going to do it?”
His question was met with a resounding “yes.”
The next steps are to figure out how to get such a program up and running in Madison. These steps include building a coalition of people, including developers, realtors and people in higher education. And, there's the issue of money. The Louisville residential program cost more than $9 million, according to a Louisville Business First article.
To learn more about the Family Scholar House program, watch the 10-minute documentary created by Williams and Patra here, or read Patra’s report on the Scholar House here.
To join in the exploration of bringing this program to Madison, please contact Brian Benford at brian.benford@wisc.edu.
