Wausau could transfer homeless day center funding to Catholic Charities

Damakant Jayshi

City officials are one step closer to funding a year-round day center for Wausau’s homeless population, months after services ended at a downtown nonprofit.

The Wausau Finance Committee on Tuesday approved transferring $51,129 in unspent to Catholic Charities to operate a day center year round. The money, part of American Rescue Plan Act funding, had already been allocated to provide oversight to The Open Door of Marathon County, the entity that was to run the day center as part of an agreement with the city. But The Open Door temporarily ceased its operation amid a staff shakeup, prompting the city to terminate its agreement with the facility in August.

Then, Wausau asked Catholic Charities to step in and provide service in addition to the year-round nighttime shelter it operates. The Open Door has since resumed operation on a limited scale.

Community Development Manager Tammy Stratz said the additional funds will help Catholic Charities provide an extended period of operation. Finance Committee Chair Lisa Rasmussen said the day shelter had been set to run for two years as per the initial agreement, and many months have already been lost.

Before the vote was taken, the group discussed several options, one of which was to send the money back it to the ARPA pool and use it for other projects that qualified to receive the funds.

Wausau’s Community Development Department staff suggested a third option: to reimburse community development for their additional oversight services since, they said, they still provide those services and have to examine whether the expenditure is in compliance with ARPA requirements.

Stratz told Finance Committee members that they have to put in a lot of work examining payment requests. Right now, they are paid for such work through community block grants. She said about $8,000 of the amount would compensate their hours spent. Wausau Pilot & Review has reached out to Stratz to clarify if the scope of the work falls outside the normal scope for city staff.

Rasmussen, while saying she was open to allocating some fees, like $4,000, to staff for their oversight work, added the committee could not make a decision on the request because this option was not agendized. Alder Sarah Watson said they could evaluate the entire matter later and see if other sources of funding are available for oversight work.

Alders Martens agreed with that approach, suggesting to wait to see how the work was done before making a decision. Martens said he believed Catholic Charities will be able to spend the $50,000 plus amount by 2026, the cut-off year by which the ARPA dollars have to be expended. As for Community Development staff, he suggested revisiting the topic later when they have a better handle on the actual expenses or a better estimation of the time it takes to do the oversight.

“Then we can do an ARPA score for it or find an alternative funding source to reimburse for oversight,” he said.

 Members agreed with that approach. The measure now heads to the City Council’s meeting on Jan. 23 for final approval.

The total money allocated to Catholic Charities now stands at $778,436. This money includes the unspent amount of $51,000 and the remainder of the amount – $187,308 – originally allocated to The Open Door, $237,991. Stratz said The Open Door spent around $50,000 of the amount allocated to it before temporarily closing.