From homeless to the ‘King of downtown’
St. Anthony’s Place gives “wraparound services”
“The privacy, the chance to rest, the chance to just be yourself.”
That’s what an apartment at St. Anthony’s Place gave 58-year-old Michael Daniel, who had been homeless for more than a year and displaced for more than a decade.
Daniel said he often felt out of place as a drifter. He said he hadn’t done drugs or drank his money away — “I fell through the holes in society’s safety net,” he said.
But it hadn’t always been that way.
The Franklin native used to live on his family’s homestead until flooding in 2008 made it unlivable. He tried to rebuild in 2009 but lacked the money and the home was eventually condemned.
Daniel said he schlepped from motel to motel in Oak Creek, Franklin and Milwaukee between 2009 and 2017 until he ran out of money.
“I couldn’t pay the rent anymore,” he said. “I left the motel when I didn’t have a dime in my pocket.”
In September 2017, he found himself huddled at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission with dozens of other homeless men.
Roughly a year later, he became eligible for the city’s My HOME Housing Program, which offers rent assistance for supportive permanent housing. After he applied and got the voucher, he found himself with something he hadn’t had in years: a home he could call his own.
St. Anthony’s Place, one year later
Since the opening of St. Anthony’s Place at 1004 N. 10th St. at the end of 2018, the Heartland Housing location has housed nearly 40 of Milwaukee’s homeless and displaced residents. The building once was St. Anthony’s Hospital.
Joseph Dutra is the media manager for Heartland Housing, which is part of Heartland Alliance, a collection of five Chicago-based companies focusing on different areas of trauma-informed care.
“Permanent supportive housing, in our belief, is the real solution to ending homelessness,” he said. “We believe that you can’t truly achieve the ultimate goals of self-sufficiency, great health outcomes or anything else without the safe and supportive housing.”
First, he said, you provide the housing.
The second, third and fifth floors of St. Anthony’s are all residential, featuring 60 housing units, 39 of which are coordinated through Impact, a nonprofit information agency for Milwaukee residents in need of resources.
Currently, 57 units are occupied and three are in the process of being rented.
Tenants are given a loaded laundry card when they move in and offered transportation to and from medical offices as well as small medical vouchers.
And in addition to the three support staff members, the building is the locus of several resources, which Dutra said is the second step.
“(Those) wraparound services help
individuals achieve goals that they may have tried to meet for years and contributed to them being homeless; health care, employment, substance use, mental health (needs) or all of the above,” he said.
An Ascension Clinic with health and dental care capability is located on the first floor of the building, while the second floor contains a community room with computers.
Residents are also connected through a tunnel to St. Ben’s Community Meal site, which provides dinner six days a week at 5 p.m. and opens an hour before mealtime so neither residents nor those coming for meals have to wait outside.
St. Ben’s Gathering Space, located in the basement, features a conference room, children’s play area, private shower and laundry machines, while Capuchin and other social service providers offer driver’s license recovery, hygiene packages, haircuts and other services.
Gerard Campbell, the area manager for Milwaukee’s Heartland Alliance properties, said the combination of apartments and services provides a sense of stability, which many who are not homeless take for granted.
“Dignity, respect, independence and control with the power that comes with this little piece of metal,” he said, holding up his key. “That’s what I hear (from tenants) a lot.”
Daniel’s journey to St. Anthony’s Place was not an easy one.
He injured his leg after stepping in a pothole in 2018, which led to him developing edema and a severe leg infection.
At St. Luke’s, he got treatment for his leg and also entered Salvation Army Emergency Lodge’s Respite Care Program.
There, he heard about “the building across from St. Ben’s,” where he had been eating most of his meals and decided to check it out. Since he had been homeless for over a year, he was eligible for a housing voucher and completed the paperwork to become a tenant at St. Anthony’s Place.
He moved in December 2018.
From homeless to the ‘King of downtown’
“I can’t tell you what it means to me to have my own apartment,” he said. “Having an apartment is so much better than being in the shelter. I rest a lot. I read a lot. I listen to the radio a lot.”
He said the space gives him a chance to think about what’s happened in his life these past 10 years and decompress.
How has his life changed? “There’s a million ways,” he said.
There’s no curfew and things are close by. He walks everywhere and takes the bus when he has enough money for the fare. He is in control of the temperature and he can turn on the lights, use the bathroom and take a shower whenever he wants.
In a two-week span as recent as last month, he went to a Marquette basketball game and a show at the Riverside Theater, thanks to the generosity of friends. Those two things — friends and entertainment — just weren’t in his life years ago.
“I kind of feel like I’m living like a king — I’m the king of downtown,” he said.