On January 24, the Housing and Homelessness Coalition, sponsored Project Connect. This housing resource fair provided information to individuals and families and connected them with local agencies providing financial and other basic needs resources. Lunch was provided by The Salvation Army and haircuts were available thanks to Mrs. Liz Hart and her students at the State College of Beauty.
The night before, 20 volunteers participated in the twice yearly Point in Time Count of homeless individuals in the community. This January, 6 individuals were identified as homeless. Generally, Point in Time count numbers of homeless individuals are lower in January than July. One reason for that is the Wausau Area Warming Center, which was one of the Housing and Homelessness Coalition's first projects. Having a safe place for people to spend the overnight hours during the winter months was a large gap in services in our community until they opened in 2013.
