Green Bay Locks Park Restrooms as Brown County Counts 206 People Sleeping Outside

Brown County volunteers counted 206 people sleeping outside on the night of July 22, and Green Bay's seasonal low-barrier emergency shelter won't open until November.^1,2 Until then, the city's own outreach staff say they have no immediate shelter to offer many of the people they meet.¹

The gap is showing up in Green Bay's parks. The city locked the restrooms at St. John's Park, Whitney Park and St. James Park on the east side in recent weeks and hasn't set a date to reopen them, and police have increased patrols at those parks after community partners reported disturbances and drug use, WBAY reported.³ People living outside told NBC26 this week that they spend about two hours each evening hunting for a place to sleep, in bushes, under trees or beneath bridges.¹

Anthony Powerton, who was staying in a Green Bay park Wednesday, told the station there's really nowhere for him to go. His friend Boston Viano, who has been homeless before, said someone threw eggs at them while they slept under a bridge.¹ David Walker Morency keeps everything he owns packed so he can leave in a hurry. "We just want to be left alone," he said.¹

What the Count Found

The July count, run by Freedom House Ministries with other local organizations and volunteers and released Aug. 13, found 556 people experiencing homelessness in Brown County. Of those, 350 were in shelters and 206 were outside.² The count included at least a dozen people over 65, 33 people between 55 and 65, and 11 families.² Jennifer Schmohe, Freedom House's executive director, said older adults weren't using services that exist for them, and that the count showed more people arriving from communities with fewer services than Brown County has.²

Whether 556 is up or down from last year isn't clear. Newcap, the anti-poverty agency that ran the count for the previous five years, used a different method, Schmohe said, which makes a direct comparison unreliable.^2,4 Before this year, the outdoor count was rising. Wisconsin Watch reported in 2025 that the official summer tally of people sleeping outside in Brown County had risen every year since at least 2022, when volunteers counted 89.⁵ At an April summit, Josh Benti, who directs the Greater Green Bay Blueprint homelessness initiative, said overall homelessness among people served by local providers was falling while unsheltered homelessness and homelessness among people with disabilities were rising.⁶

The counts happen twice a year statewide, and results go to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where they can affect how much federal homelessness funding reaches the area.⁷ They also miss people. Volunteers don't include people they find asleep or who decline the survey in the official tally, and some people avoid being found, so the summer count is generally considered an undercount.⁵

Where People Can Sleep, and When

St. John's Ministries runs Green Bay's emergency shelters for men and women from Nov. 1 through April 30.⁸ Its men's shelter accepts people with criminal records unless they have an open warrant or are on the sex offender registry, and guests must be able to care for themselves.⁹ From May through October, St. John's offers a narrower Men's Safe Sleep program for men who are chronically homeless or moving into stable housing, and only after a case manager at the Micah Center on Stuart Street determines they're eligible.⁹ The Micah Center and Wellspring, St. John's daytime resource centers, stay open year-round.⁸

New Community Shelter on Mather Street describes itself as the only emergency shelter in Brown County open all year. Its emergency program serves 98 adults in dorm-style rooms that hold up to eight people each.¹⁰ In 2025, WBAY reported that many local shelters were full or had waitlists, some as long as 200 people.¹¹

Jeremy Pingel, one of the city's homeless outreach case coordinators, told NBC26 the city has no immediate emergency shelter option for many of the people it encounters during warmer months.¹ Pingel and fellow coordinator Peter Silski have visited parks and other spots on weekdays since the program started in August 2024, connecting people with health care and helping them work toward housing. By May 2025, the program had fully rehoused 10 people.¹¹

Parks, Restrooms and Police

City ordinance closes every Green Bay park at 10 p.m., and Police Chief Chris Davis directed officers last year to enforce park hours.¹¹ Davis told NBC26 the city can't allow people to sleep overnight in parks because it damages them. "We can't just eliminate any kind of accountability," he said.¹

Davis has also pushed back on the idea that crime by unhoused people is widespread. At a Sept. 30 community meeting, he called lawbreaking by people experiencing homelessness an occasional problem rather than a "rampant" one, and said the unsafe behavior some neighbors notice doesn't describe most people who are homeless.^12,3 He cited one recent complaint of public urination in front of a preschool.¹² A city parks director said the restroom closures protect park users and city staff, and Pingel said he doesn't know when they'll reopen. People living outside are using local businesses and shopping centers instead, WBAY reported.³

About 200 people filled Union Congregational United Church of Christ for that meeting, which state Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) organized with Green Bay council members, Brown County supervisors, the city's outreach team, police and nonprofits.¹² Some attendees asked how the city could hold people accountable for where they relieve themselves after locking the restrooms they'd been using. One attendee said they felt unsafe because of comments and behavior from people experiencing homelessness and that taxpayers' concerns were getting less attention.³ Proposals from the floor included portable toilets or public restrooms in parks, designated overnight parking for people living in their cars, and more affordable housing.¹²

Rivera-Wagner, who is in a rematch for his Assembly District 90 seat this fall, said the point was to find where the system breaks down. "Our goal is to figure out where there are gaps, where there are challenges," he said.¹² Fox Watershed covered that race in August.

The Newcap Hole

This summer's count was the first in five years without Newcap, which closed March 31 after more than 50 years serving 10 northeast Wisconsin counties.^4,13 The agency laid off 90 employees, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy owing nearly $4 million to creditors, and closed three year-round homeless shelters, two of them in Green Bay.^4,13 A 2025 Baker Tilly audit found a deficit of more than $2 million in 2024 and raised substantial doubt about Newcap's ability to keep operating.¹³ Former CEO Cheryl Detrick, whose 2024 compensation of $239,641 was the highest among the 15 Wisconsin community action agencies with listed salaries, was placed on administrative leave in February.¹³

The collapse put four HUD grants and the 134 households they supported at risk, 84 of them in Brown County. Housing advocates estimated the region could lose more than $2.7 million in federal funding if the grants weren't transferred, including more than $1.6 million tied to Brown County.¹³ HUD confirmed the transfers nearly a month after the closure. House of Hope in Green Bay took three of the grants, including a $1.1 million permanent supportive housing grant for adults in Brown County, and Foundations Health & Wholeness took a youth outreach grant worth nearly $300,000.⁴ House of Hope's primary mission is serving homeless youth, while some of the grants it inherited require permanent housing for adults.⁴

U.S. Reps. Tony Wied (R-De Pere) and Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) asked HUD to investigate Newcap in March, and two Democratic Green Bay-area state lawmakers also called for an investigation.¹³

Safe Haven's Path to a Permit

Green Bay's zoning code has also decided where people can find a bed indoors this year. In February, Green Bay cited Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary for letting people sleep in its Broadway building during a January cold snap, saying overnight housing violated the zoning rules for its special purpose district.¹⁴ The city said it had received formal complaints about life-safety and public health concerns and that its enforcement wasn't meant to discourage compassion.¹⁴

In April, Safe Haven Hope Center received a temporary permit to shelter nine residents at the former Newcap site at 315 S. Jefferson St.¹⁵ State Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett), who owns neighboring property that shares a driveway with the site, opposed the plan, citing safety concerns, and said he would report violations to police.¹⁵ Executive director Cathi Oreto acknowledged she hadn't contacted neighbors first. "I missed a step. That was on me," she said.^15,4

The Common Council approved a conditional use permit May 19 allowing up to 19 residents and 26 people total, with at least one staff member for every 10 residents and a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol.¹⁶ An amendment requires the operators to give the council a status update in six months, which falls in November.¹⁶ Safe Haven rents the building from Newcap, so its hold on the site depends on what happens as Newcap's assets are liquidated.⁴

Rents and the Housing Math

Service providers keep returning to the same cause. Benti said at the April summit that housing development hasn't kept pace with demand, which squeezes low-income residents out of the units that do exist. "The solution is really easy, but how we get there is really difficult," he said.¹⁷ The Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition's blueprint calls for adding housing, working with landlords to make better use of existing units, and preventing evictions.⁶

Federal data shows how little slack the market has. HUD estimated the Green Bay metro's rental vacancy rate at 3.6% at the start of 2025, down from 4.8% in April 2020. Average apartment rent reached $1,097 in late 2024, up 4% in a year, and professionally managed single-family rentals averaged $1,766, up 13%.¹⁸

Rent: The Math Was Never Going to Work Out in Your Favor

Rent was never going to make financial sense for those working for a living, and it's time we address things we can do to solve that

Fox Watershedhttps://www.facebook.com/emrouse02

Green Bay received $1,948,216 through HOME-ARP, a pandemic-era federal program for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The city put $1 million of it toward affordable housing development and $753,395 toward supportive services, with the remaining $194,821 for administration and planning.¹⁹

What Comes Next

Rivera-Wagner plans to compile the Sept. 30 suggestions into a list of possible solutions and action items and present them at a second public meeting before the end of the year.¹² No date has been announced.¹ St. John's emergency shelters are scheduled to open Nov. 1, and Safe Haven's six-month report to the council is due the same month.^8,16 Freedom House and its partners are still analyzing the July data to decide where services and funding should go.²

1. 'Every day is a struggle': People continue to sleep outdoors as Green Bay searches for homelessness solutions
2. Brown County homeless count finds 556 people without stable housing
3. Green Bay community members, officials discuss homelessness concerns at community meeting
4. One Nonprofit Closing Leaves 10 Counties Scrambling on Homelessness
5. Homelessness is increasing in Brown County. These volunteers traded a night's sleep to document the challenge
6. Brown County making progress in fight against homelessness
7. Officials release numbers from Brown County homeless count
8. St. John's Ministries
9. Men's Shelter - St. John's Ministries
10. New Community Shelter of Green Bay, WI
11. City of Green Bay working to help the homeless amid concerns about them staying in city parks
12. Packed event brings people together to find solutions for unhoused community
13. Nonprofit closure could cost northeast Wisconsin $2.7M, put 134 households at risk
14. Green Bay gives 'clarification' after citing Safe Haven for sheltering homeless overnight
15. Safe Haven receives temporary permit to operate homeless shelter out of former Newcap site
16. Green Bay council approves permit for transitional living home
17. Brown County homelessness summit addresses housing challenges
18. HUD PD&R Housing Market Profiles: Green Bay, Wisconsin
19. HOME-ARP Program | Green Bay, WI