City of Wausau. MWC file graphic
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Wausau Human Resources Committee has voted to approve the creation of a Community Outreach Specialist position within the city’s Police Department.
Police Chief Ben Bliven spent much of the meeting going over the need for the position, saying many downtown businesses and other establishments such as the Library have expressed concerns about problems created by homeless or unhoused people. “I talked with Mark Craig and his staff at Washington Square, they are having daily issues with people at their facility. People that are aggressively panhandling, loitering, being disorderly, and having fights,” said Bliven.
When it comes to the library, Bliven said the staff will often times handle incidents involving homeless people themselves without calling police but there are still multiple incidents where staff have had to call officers or ban patrons from using the services.
Bliven adds that employees of Wipfli Accounting have complained about the smell of urine or feces in their parking ramps as they are walking to work. Others have been aggressively pursued by panhandlers, or have seen people having sex in the stairwells. Additionally, he says at least one downtown business has lost regular customers because they were repeatedly bothered by someone panhandling outside the business.
Bliven says all that shows the need for the position, as that person would work with those that are homeless to try to get them back on their feet. He adds that it can be done, as the previous Housing Task Force officer helped dozens of homeless people get into permanent housing.
“In the summer of 2020 [we identified] 22 chronically homeless people. By September 2021 12 of those 22 had been housed. In total, 42 people had contact with the Housing Task Force officer saying they were homeless or at risk of being homeless. At the time of that report, 29 of the 42 had housing,” said Bliven.
Monday’s meeting also featured an interruption by former Wausau Alder Deb Ryan, who was in the audience and made an attempt to give input at one point even though public comment was not part of the agenda.
The vote did come with one amendment which would allow the position to be transferred out of the Police Department and into another appropriate city department, should one be created in the future. The proposal will now go to a future meeting of the city’s Finance Committee and Common Council for consideration.
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