OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — Day By Day Warming Shelter is an Oshkosh-based organization aimed to help those facing homelessness in our community.
Their mission is to collaboratively provide temporary shelter, individualized services, and opportunities for self-sufficiency to empower the most vulnerable adults in our community.
The shelter first opened its doors on October 15, 2011. Over the last 10 years, the shelter has been operating on a temporary use city permit out of Most Blessed Sacrament Parish’s St. Peters site.
“It was established to serve, be a warming shelter for overnight services in a six-month capacity, so really during our most coldest months of the year. We were permitted a six-month temporary use permit by the city and the church and things we exist in,” said Molly Yatso Butz, Day By Day Shelter Executive Director.
Yatso Butz says she’s truly grateful for all the help and support they’ve received to have been able to operate six months out of the year through the church.
“However, we have learned in ten years that homelessness is not a part-time gig, homelessness happens all year round and many people don’t even know that homelessness is actually even more dangerous in the summer, in a Wisconsin summer than in the winter,” Yatso Butz said.
While their shelter has only been opened in the past between October and April, last summer it began offering services daytime resources and programming during the summer months.
While they are not able to take in any guests overnight, people can still come in during the daytime to utilize facilities such as showers.
The shelter director says she’s been seeing more and more people coming to use these resources.
“Our agency finds it ironic that really we are the temporary home for our most distressed and most vulnerable community members, but yet day by day warming shelter doesn’t have their own home. So we provide that basic service to hundreds of distressed community members, but yet we don’t even have our own facility to provide it in,” Yatzo Butz said.
She says as of right now their space only allows them to take in about 25 people from October through April.
“Space that just not allows us for opportunity to connect, opportunity to talk, engage, do the appropriate amount of laundry, we have not enough shower facilities for people who need them, our beds are on the floor,” Yatso Butz said.
Yatso Butz shares how the time has now arrived where they are ready as an organization to move forward and want a bigger space to continue doing their good work year-round.
So what is next? The executive director says they hope to continue moving forward with plans to have a permanent shelter by summer 2022.
“The city has continued to move our project forward through council and through our applications that we are applying for this piece of property and we are ready for our own home,” Yatso Butz said.
At their new shelter, they hope to increase the number of people they serve to 50 per night and have that be available all year long.
“From 2019 to 2021, we had to turn away 380 times, so it was just under 300 times the season before and just shy of 80 times this past season,” Yatso Butz said. “Every time we say we turn away that means we were at capacity, there were no beds available and we give that person a sleeping bag and a gift card. So again, in the course of the last two years when that happens that amount of time you know that your services are needed more and there’s a need for more beds.”
She explains often times these situations happen during extremely cold conditions or severe weather.
“Just two weeks ago during EAA week here in Oshkosh, we opened an emergency shelter because there was nowhere for anybody to go with half a million people in town. You have homeless individuals sleeping on the streets and now you throw a tornado on top of it and things got pretty intense. So that night we got permission to open an emergency shelter and those type of things,” Yatso Butz said.
Moving forward once they have a permanent location she shares how this will no longer be the case.
“We will just be open and it won’t be an emergency situation. People will just know that they have us to rely on every day of the year,” Yatso Butz said.
The proposed new location will be about four blocks away from the church where they are currently housed and relatively accessible from the Downtown Oshkosh area.
“It was really important to our community, to our guests, to our board of directors that we remain in the downtown area. It’s where a lot of our guests receive other services. It’s close to the city main transportation hub, the library, just a lot of other places that help homeless community members,” Yatso Butz said.
Over the next month or so, the shelter’s architect will be presenting plans to the city council for approval.
“We still have some work to do absolutely and the bottom line is that we still need our community to help support us financially. We still have a shelter to run,” Yatso Butz said. “It’s so important for everyone to understand that we are still here, we are still providing services and basic needs for our vulnerable community members and we still need your support to get through season 11.”
“We’ve definitely seen an increase in the number of people we are serving, particularly this summer. We know that just in past two weeks we’ve done intakes on 12 new people,” Yatso Butz. “I don’t know if more people are actually homeless or more people are okay asking for help. Either way, we’re here”
She said it costs about $85 dollars from start to finish in a 24-hour cycle to get somebody the help they need from the time they get to the shelter until the next night cycle.
“I think some people would be surprised to know that right now 40% of the guests who utilize Day by Day on a daily basis are employed,” Yatso Butz said.
