Cudahy appears to warming to the idea of caring for area homeless. Finally.
See the Journal Sentinel story here.
The mayor of Cudahy, whose city has come under fire for rejecting a church’s proposal for a homeless shelter, said he will reach out to faith leaders to discuss “the best way and best location to provide a warm place for the homeless” in his city.
Mayor Tony Day issued a statement Wednesday after the Journal Sentinel reported that local churches were hosting all-night prayer services to accommodate the homeless on the coldest nights of the year. St. Mark Lutheran Church in Cudahy took in four guests Monday and Tuesday nights in response to a Journal Sentinel story on the shelter’s rejection in which an alderman made disparaging remarks about the homeless in Cudahy. The service moves to Tippecanoe Presbyterian Church near Bay View on Wednesday.
Day said in the statement that he regretted that comments made during an October Plan Commission meeting, in which an alderman referred to homeless people in his district as “stinky” and “drunk,” had “become the focus of this important issue.”
“This office is committed to the well-being of all Cudahy residents, especially those who have fallen on hard times,” he said.
I am glad Cudahy has finally seen the light on this … although it’s too bad it took a story in the Journal Sentinel exposing the problem to spur things along.
I’d like to think we’d have a different reaction in South Milwaukee, but I am not naive enough to think that the misconceptions and biases espoused by some in Cudahy aren’t felt by some here. I, however, don’t share them.
Homelesseness is a real problem everywhere, urban and suburban, and hiding from that fact does no one any good.
Finding both short- and long-term solutions should be the goal, and the graciousness of area churches to open their doors to the homeless is a great start.
God bless those who are doing this.
South Milwaukee Blog 
The #1 problem is community knowledge. Most people I’ve talked to think that the churches in Cudahy are trying to be magnets and attract the Milwaukee homeless and there aren’t any “locals” for them to serve. While this is not true, it is what is commonly believe since you don’t see shopping carts being pushed down Milwaukee Ave. or people trying to sleep in Bucyrus’s gate house. In fact, even my church (Divine Mercy) sponsors / works at a St. Vincent de Paul meal program in Milwaukee rather than planning one for their new gathering room being built on Marquette. Somebody needs to get the numbers of the suburb homeless and get them out there. (And I have absolutely no idea how that would be done).