A Kenosha County resident urged the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to increase county funding for the Shalom Center, the county’s largest homeless shelter, saying the organization needs more operating support as federal funding declined and rents rose.

Marita Half (presented in public comment with address on the record) described several people she knows who are homeless or at risk and said the shelter is the community’s only resource to house people during the winter. “The homeless homelessness is a housing problem,” she said. She told the board that the county has provided $100,000 to the Shalom Center in prior years but said that amount would not be sufficient this year because the building is “twice as big as it was in 2018,” operating costs are higher and federal funding has been cut.

Half said the Shalom Center needs more staff, that heating and staffing costs have risen and that the center may need to operate warming nights beyond the typical four or five nights when temperatures hit zero. “Do you think that the taxpayers of this county want to see human beings outside in the winter?” she asked the supervisors.

Half also criticized broader local housing policy trends, saying the city focused on promoting home ownership at the expense of rental units and described historical legal and policy actions she said reduced low-income rental stock. She credited past county funding—the $100,000 “shares” money given since 2018—with helping the Shalom Center but urged the board to consider increasing the county’s contribution or otherwise supporting the shelter’s staffing and operations.

Her remarks were made during the citizens’ comment period; the board did not take immediate action on the request during the meeting. The county’s budget process was noted on the agenda, with human services and finance budget hearings scheduled in the coming days, including a human services budget hearing the following night and finance budget hearings the next week. Those scheduled budget meetings are the forum where additional county funding decisions would be considered.

Half said supporters of the Shalom Center plan a campaign to inform residents and solicit sustaining monthly donors to help cover staffing and operating costs. The board recorded the comment in the public record for potential budget consideration.