What are the details?

The First Step is an organization that hosts an open building for homeless people to take shelter from the outside. But unlike the Shalom Center, they were not an official homeless shelter. They were called a “refuge” shelter.

• This describes the organization in question, First Step. They aren’t really a homeless shelter, but they serve the community by offering an open building for people to stay in.

The Kenosha Committee  was questioning whether The First Step could continue doing what they were doing. It was losing money and workers/board directors. Kenosha was worried if it could continue serving its role.

• It is important to understand that to stay open and do their job, shelters need money and workers. They need to keep the place clean, they might need to keep it warm - there’s a lot that goes into hosting a shelter for people, even if it’s a small place.

People and neighbors near The First Step building were complaining. There was littering, loitering, break ins, and other worrying behavior. This is because unlike many homeless shelters, the First Step accepted people with mental problems into their establishment. But this was one of the only places to accept those people, so shelters and police would bring them all to the First Step. Getting rid of the place would cause an issue for those people with no place to bring them and nowhere for them to take shelter.

• Even if homeless shelters or refugee centers help people, they still can become a big problem. Most shelters don’t want to take the chance of endangering anyone by bringing in people with mental problems. But of course, they need a place to go too. But what the First Step did, allowing them inside, didn’t work out too well for their neighbors it would seem.

Due to all of these issues, the Kenosha Committee was going to revoke the First Step’s license. But since many people relied on the First Step, they didn’t want to close until there was something else to take its place. They stayed open, but a few years later, the First Step still hadn’t changed, so they were forced to close.

• "Everyone's hearts reaches out to these individuals but First Step Services were not helping these people."-Alderman Jan Michalski

• Even though the shelter wasn’t of the highest quality, it was still heavily relied on.  This made for a situation where it should close but can’t because there is nothing to take it’s place. But eventually, there was nothing to be done about it, and it was forced to close.

The First Step closed, but they handed out tents and sleeping bags to those that had nowhere to go. They may be closed, but they refuse to stop helping people.

• "That's my option a tent or prison. I don't think the community completely understands the ones who wanted to shut this place down what it means to the people who stay here," said Dawn Missler, a released prisoner.

• The closing of The First Step hit homeless people hard. People may not think about it, but when people are homeless, they seriously have almost no options of places to stay. First Step closed, so the only source of shelter they could get was a tent and sleeping bag. People out of prison don’t have any money with them, so tents are also their only option.