Family & Home
Homelessness in La Crosse and Karuna’s big gala with Julie McDermid
A Taste of Home gala and a great conversation about homelessness in La Crosse with Julie McDermid, the executive director at Karuna, who was in the WIZM studio recently.
La Crosse Talk airs weekdays at 6-8 a.m. Listen on the WIZM app, online here, or on 92.3 FM / 1410 AM / 106.7 FM (north of Onalaska). Find all the podcasts here or subscribe to La Crosse Talk wherever you get your podcasts.
McDermid talks about how Karuna takes a different approach to helping those experiencing homelessness, mental health crises and struggling with substance use. The Karuna house in La Crosse is home to multiple people, where they can get 24-7 help they need to get back on their own.
That can be costly and that’s part of the reason for Saturday’s Taste of Home gala, beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the English Lutheran Church on King Street. Tickets are $100 for the fundraiser, which will feature local cuisine and featured drinks.
Along with how Karuna helps, McDermid discusses the recent history of homelessness in La Crosse — from the Houska Park situation to getting hotel rooms in the frigid winter during COVID.
Right now, Karuna has one site, where it’s helping multiple people, but McDermid hopes it can expand with a few more housing models — another reason for their second-annual Taste of Home gala.
Who you’ll see at the fundraiser will be cuisines from Mary Cody’s, Pato Azul, Le Chateu and Mia’s Kitchen. Also involved is TimeOut Tavern, the Beer By Bike Brigade and H+G grazing boards.
walden
June 18, 2025 at 11:56 pm
Interesting that the Karuna House residents are required to put in 20 hours of work per month.
That is the type of thing the “No Kings” protesters have their undies in a bundle over in the Big Beautiful Bill Medicaid provisions, which propose to require able bodied recipients perform work toward self improvement.
Bob N.
June 19, 2025 at 7:20 am
We’ve been around this golf course before. In the 80’s, one thing that got Tommy Thompson elected Governor and re-elected repeatedly, was his insistence that welfare recipients perform work duties, if able, for their welfare checks. “Workfare”, it was called.
Prior to Thompson’s efforts, loafers by the thousands were emigrating from Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison because Wisconsin’s welfare monies were so easy to come by.
Oh, to have a Governor like Tommy again.
KW
June 20, 2025 at 12:37 pm
As of May 2025, there are approximately 1,278,000 children and adults enrolled in Wisconsin Medicaid. Of the adults enrolled, a majority are working. Specifically:
73% of Medicaid adults are working.
Of those working, 45% are working full-time and 28% are working part-time.
If anyone is interested in learning more there is a League of Women Voters sponsored community
forum:
Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 6:30 PM until 8:00 PM
Cleary Alumni & Friends Center
Jan G.
June 19, 2025 at 8:49 am
Walden,
What is wrong with working only 20 hours a month?
I agree with Bob, if able; people should work for what they get and not loaf around and expect everything handed to them.
Jan
LG
June 19, 2025 at 2:56 pm
Jan,
I believe you misunderstood Walton’s comment. He is pointing out the discrepancy between Karuna’s policy of requiring work vs. liberal Democrats freaking out over efforts on the part of the Trump administration to require able-bodied persons to work. In other words, if it’s good for Karuna To require employment, why are liberal protesters objecting to requiring work for other benefits?