Small towns confront an urban problem

On a wintry Thursday afternoon, as the thermometer at the First Banking Center registers a chilling 13 degrees F., 18-year-old Brian Griffeth has no idea where he'll spend the night. Three other families, including a husband and wife with two children and a young couple with a baby, face the same challenge. Within an hour, all four call the only place in town serving homeless people - a community center called Love Inc. Their messages boil down to a single, urgent plea: Find us a place to sleep.

"Usually we get one call like this a day," says Mary Quick, a staff member. "It's just unreal to get four." Such calls reflect a sobering new reality for small-town America. Homelessness, widely regarded as an urban problem, is creeping into rural areas, but without the services available in cities. Small towns typically have no shelters and few social workers. That leaves churches, community groups, and volunteers to fill the void.

Here in southern Wisconsin, where tiny towns carry pastoral names like Pleasant Prairie and Honey Creek, few expect this kind of destitution. Sleeping under bridges or in open farm fields? It can't happen here.

But it does. Small towns become magnets, drawing people from a four- or five- county area. In Burlington (pop. 25,000) and elsewhere in the Midwest, the "hidden homeless" are overwhelmingly white. Among those seeking help from Love Inc., most are single mothers. Five percent are two-parent families. Ten percent are men.

For Mr. Griffeth, a slight, brown-haired teenager, the road to homelessness began years ago. To escape an abusive father, he says, he slept at friends' houses, in his brother's car, even in a tree house. Now, too old for foster care and unable to afford an apartment, he's run out of friends willing to give him a bed. "This whole week I've been wondering what I'm going to do if I can't find anyplace to stay," says Griffeth, who works at McDonald's.

In Illinois, as in Wisconsin, stereotypes about the homeless abound. "The picture people have is of a single man, drug-addicted or mentally ill, living under Wacker Drive [in Chicago]," says Matthew Hanafee, executive director of the Illinois Coalition to End Homelessness. But the average age of homeless adults is 25. Women with children and men with families make up more than half of the 180,000 homeless people in Illinois. One-third of the homeless are children.

Many who lose their homes hold jobs. But obstacles loom - from cars that don't start in the cold to sick children who need parents to stay home. "They lose their jobs very quickly," says Judy Morrow, executive director of Love Inc. "Their résumé shows the job-jumping, and they can't get hired." A weak economy makes jobs still more precarious. Without paychecks, bills pile up; eviction notices arrive. With no health insurance, debts mount.

Stringent welfare policies also take their toll, Ms. Morrow notes. Under Wisconsin's welfare-to-work program, thousands of people have found jobs and moved off the public dole. But many of those who couldn't find work, or were left jobless as the economy contracted, now lack state aid to lean on. Previously, Morrow explains, "families that were trying had a roof over their head and food. Now there's absolutely nothing coming into the home."

And then there are the personal failings. "People don't always understand that the consequences of their decisions are going to leave them cold and in the dark," Morrow says. "We have to be compassionate and caring and tough, all at the same time." She and her staff must also be inventive in finding beds. With no shelter in town, they turn to a local motel or find residents willing to take in strangers.

Twenty-five miles south of Burlington, in McHenry County, Ill., seven churches have banded together to offer another solution: Public Action to Deliver Shelter (PADS). Each church opens its doors to homeless people one night a week, October through April. The McHenry County PADS is one of 18 unaffiliated PADS groups in Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

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