WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Wausau’s City Council will be holding a Committee of the Whole meeting later this month regarding the city’s homeless population.
Mayor Katie Rosenberg says the city wants to know what could be done to help the other groups and non-profits that are already working to help those who need it. “We have more than a dozen partners working on the homelessness task force with the United Way. We have the County, we have North Central Health Care. We are trying to figure out what are those policy questions the Council can wrap its arms around,” said Rosenberg.
Others have brought up the idea of creating a city department devoted to the issue, but Rosenberg says that would be hard to do because it would add ongoing expenses to the city budget for extra staff.
Rosenberg adds that she thinks most people in the city want to find ways to lift others up, but the conversation can become difficult because of the stories of people being harassed in the downtown parking ramps.
“[The problems] aren’t across the board. People want to be good to other humans and make sure they can find their purpose. But there is also an amount of nervousness sometimes when you encounter people and you don’t know how they are going to react,” said Rosenberg. “We have to talk about this as a community.”
The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 23rd at 5:30 in the Council Chambers. A live stream will be available on the city’s YouTube page.
Because the meeting is being held in Committee of the Whole fashion, there will be no action taken and all discussion will be for informational purposes only.
Other topics Mayor Rosenberg discussed with WSAU’s Mike Leischner include an update on the city’s lead service line proposal and PFAS mitigation, which come in the first half of the above video.
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