Madison’s New Homeless Shelter Won’t Open 24/7 Due to Funding Gap

The hope for Madison’s first permanent men’s homeless shelter has long been that residents would not have to leave the streets first thing in the morning and could stay during the day to access services. For now, that goal is deferred. Due to a lack of funds, the shelter, which is expected to open in late spring, will not immediately operate 24/7. Jim O’Keefe, Madison’s community development division director, wrote in a March 10 memo to alders that “the shelter will open as an overnight shelter, though the goal remains to operate it 24/7.”

O’Keefe wrote that operating the building around the clock will require more than the $3.5 million currently allocated to the shelter. “Initial estimates put the cost of a 24/7 operation at $4.2 million but that number is currently under review and is likely to rise,” he wrote. Initial budget projections estimated $3.2 million to operate the shelter as a day shelter. The city is contributing $1.7 million and the county $1.5 million, and smaller amounts have come from the state and Porchlight itself. At least a $700,000 gap remains for 24/7 operations.

The project dates to 2022, when Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and then-Dane County Executive Joe Parisi announced a collaboration between the city and county to build a 24/7 shelter at 1902 Bartillon Drive. An interim shelter operated by the nonprofit Porchlight opened at Zeier Road in October 2022. O’Keefe wrote in the March 10 memo that conditions there are subpar and that repairs would likely be needed to continue using it. Porchlight staff are notifying users of the Zeier Road facility that it will close when the new shelter opens, and users have been given information about the new intake process.

Proponents of the 24/7 model say it would reduce strain on residents and staff. Dane County Supv. Heidi Wegleitner, who chairs the county’s Health and Human Needs Committee, told Isthmus in August that “the day-to-day toil and exhaustion from having to ‘Get here. Get there. Get in on time. Get out on time,’ is dehumanizing, and it’s not a good way of serving folks.”

O’Keefe’s memo also outlined other details. Unlike the drop-in model at Zeier Road, the new shelter will require registration through Porchlight, and registered users will “retain their access from night to night.” The shelter will have a 250-person capacity, and O’Keefe wrote that “this means it does not have room to serve everyone currently using the Zeier facility.” Porchlight will set priorities using factors such as age and medical needs, and a waiting list will be kept for those who do not immediately get in. Residents may stay indefinitely but will be “asked to leave” if they have stayed longer than 90 days and are unwilling to work with case managers.

Several community members began a friends group in October to gather donations. Its dual goals are to provide immediate stopgap dollars so the shelter can open on time and to fund an endowment for the shelter’s operations in perpetuity. It is unclear how much the group has raised so far. Spokesperson Kristin Rucinski did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nearly 800 people were recorded as homeless in a volunteer-conducted January 2025 “point-in-time” survey, compared with 630 in 2020. People of color accounted for 58% of those recorded as homeless in 2025, although they make up 16% of Dane County’s population. A new point-in-time survey was conducted in January. Torrie Kopp Mueller, continuum of care coordinator for the Homeless Services Consortium of Dane County, told Isthmus in an email that results will likely be publicly available in “late spring,” once they have been submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Source: Read the original report