Tackling homelessness one group at a time in La Crosse

After finding homes for veterans, group will move on to help others

The effort to end homelessness in La Crosse has begun with veterans but it won’t end there.

The La Crosse Collaborative to End Homelessness launched an effort last month to find homes for all the homeless veterans in the city by Christmas.

Right now, they’re halfway there, placing six of the original 12 veterans they’ve started with after just a month into the program, and one more moves in Tuesday.

“I know we have an excellent group of people who are working very diligently against this,” Cable said. “We’ll exceed our goal and do it before Christmas,” Kim Cable, the group’s chair, said. 

And once that goal is complete, there’s no stopping.

“When we get done with that, we’re going to come back together and decide who we’re going to target next and have another 100-day sprint,” Cable said. “It is a big chance, but I think we’re showing that if we’re all on the same page and we have the same goals as the community, and we all come together to look at this issue and provide solutions, that it can be done.”

The Collaborative is made up of representatives of several area groups including Coulee Cap, Catholic Charities, the VA and others.

Cable says one of the keys to the programs success so far is simply a change in approach to how the homeless problem is tackled. But also identifying landlords who were willing to take tenants who don’t always have the best rental backgrounds.