Storing dignity

GREEN BAY – In September, Leadership Green Bay Team 5 and St. John’s Ministries opened a new program to aid those experiencing homelessness, Storing Dignity.

Team 5 is one of the 2024 graduating classes from Leadership Green Bay, a program encouraging members of the Green Bay community to become community leaders and make a change in the Green Bay community.

In order to graduate, each team must complete a community service project, and when Team 5 members Alexa Priddy, Micah Parlow, Elizabeth Schwabach, Sarah Conery, Chris Briski, Shana Yule and Mike Renkas met Paul VanHandel from NEWCAP Inc., who mentioned the struggles those who experience homelessness face with storing their personal belongings and important documents, they knew immediately that this was their project.

And so with the collaboration of Team 5, Paul Vanhandel and St. John’s Ministries and Downtown Green Bay, and with special help from their sponsors — Leadership Green Bay, Home Depot, Wisconsin Public Service Foundation, BayCare Clinic Foundation, Northland Electrical Services and Bayland Buildings, Inc. — Storing Dignity was created.

Storing Dignity, located in the basement of the Micah Center on 612 Stuart St., Green Bay, is a program that gives those experiencing homelessness a safe and secure place to store any of their important belongings, including birth certificates, family photos, family heirlooms, etc. so they are not at risk of being lost, damaged or stolen.

“We weren’t the first to think about this. There were teams in the community talking about this need, here at St. John’s Micah Center but also at Downtown Green Bay because they see this need every day, and so we quickly connected with Downtown Green Bay and Jenny VandenLangenberg to learn about the research that they had done to be able to figure out our next steps,” Priddy stated.

“In May of 2023, my coworker Jen Metcalf and I attended the International Downtown Conference in Minneapolis. It was there that we learned about the Community Storage Program from the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District,” Jenny VandenLangenberg, director of First Impressions at Downtown Green Bay stated. “We thought, ‘how can we take this idea and right-size it for our city of Green Bay?’ It was through our involvement with St. John’s that we were able to bring this idea forward as a piece of the puzzle to help improve the lives of the unhoused population of our city.”

Homelessness is not a new issue, and growing
Every year, Wisconsin’s four Continuum of Care (CoC) organizations — Milwaukee County, Dane County, Racine County and Balance of Wisconsin — travel through their communities and count the number of unsheltered individuals or individuals staying in temporary emergency shelters and report those numbers through an annual point-in-time count.

The count saw a decrease in the number of homeless individuals between 2016 and 2021, but from 2022 on, the numbers have been rising once again.
The official numbers for the 2024 year have yet to be released, but in 2023, these organizations reported 4,861 homeless individuals.

This is a 1.8% increase from the 4,775 individuals counted in 2022, and the numbers keep growing.

In an interview with PBS in January, CoC Director Carrie Poser said, “There’s two kind of equal drivers [to increasing homelessness in Wisconsin]. One, the lack of available housing options for people. Because of that, it stalls out the system; people can’t move from shelter to permanent housing, people can’t get access into a spot in the shelter so people remain unsheltered, bouncing around [and] sometimes even staying in dangerous situations.

“At the same time, there’s not enough mental health and substance use treatment options for those who need it, so there are more people suffering, and not enough services to meet those increasingly complex needs.”

Additional resources
If you or someone you know is experiencing homelessness, there are resources available.

Micah Center
Located at 612 Stuart St., Green Bay, the Micah Center is both the administrative location for St. John’s Ministries and a daytime resource center for both men and women experiencing homelessness or who are at risk for homelessness. More information can be found at https://stjohnsgreenbay.org/services/micah-center/, or call (920)617-8700.

St. John’s Ministries Men’s Shelter
Located at 411 St. John St., Green Bay, St. John’s Ministries Men’s Shelter is a seasonal, emergency last resort shelter for adult men only. This program provides warm meals, a place to sleep, support and connects men to resources to try and help them in their situation. Since this is a last-resort shelter, eligibility requirements must be met. These requirements can be found at stjohnsgreenbay.org/services/mens-shelter. Other ways to contact the Men’s Shelter are to call (920)436-9344 or email them at info@stjohnsgreenbay.org.

St. John’s Ministries Women’s Shelter
Located at 700 E. Walnut St., Green Bay, St. John’s Ministries Women’s Shelter is a seasonal, emergency last resort shelter for adult women only. This program provides warm meals, a place to sleep, support and connects men to resources to try and help them in their situation. Since this is a last-resort shelter, eligibility requirements must be met. These requirements can be found at stjohnsgreenbay.org/services/womens-shelter. Other ways to contact the Women’s Shelter are to call (920)857-9587 or email them at info@stjohnsgreenbay.org.

NEW Community Shelter
Located at 301 Mather St., Green Bay, NEW Community Shelter is a 24/7 emergency shelter program. The shelter has a 24-hour staff-supervised transitional living program that provides single-occupancy apartments to allow residents to transition out of homelessness while still having a community around them; an emergency shelter that provides not only a place to sleep, but also hygiene products, laundry services and transportation assistance; and a community meal program available to adults and children, whether homeless or just in need, a warm dinner 365 days a year, and lunches on weekends and holidays. Contact NEW Community Shelter at (920)347-3766 or visit www.newcommunityshelter.org/.

Golden House
Located at 1120 University Ave., Green Bay, Golden House provides safety, support and temporary emergency housing services for those experiencing situations of domestic violence and have nowhere else to go. To find out more, visit www.goldenhousegb.org. If you are looking for assistance, call their main line at (920) 435-0100, or their 24-hour emergency helpline at (920) 432-4244.

Freedom House
Located on 2997 St. Anthony Dr., Green Bay, Freedom House Ministries is a Christian-based non-profit organization that provides services to unsheltered families in Green Bay with dependent children. Those seeking shelter can call their 24-hour phone line at (920) 432-4646. Visit freedomhouseministries.org to learn more about Freedom House.

House of Hope Green Bay
Located at 1660 Christiana St., Green Bay, House of Hope Green Bay provides shelter to young parents and children experiencing homelessness. Visit their website at www.houseofhopegb.org, or contact House of Hope at (920) 884-6740 or info@houseofhopegb.org.