Pathfinders unveiled an expanded, renovated Milwaukee drop-in center that will allow it to better serve homeless youth, young adults and young families.
The drop-in center serves as the heart of the organization, offering young people a safe space where they can come to hang out, eat, do laundry, shop for clothing, access computers, discuss their housing situation and receive help if they’re experiencing sexual exploitation or a mental health crisis. The drop-in center is one of only a handful in the country serving unhoused youth in this manner.
“If I’m in crisis and don’t know what to do, I can come into the drop-in center,” one Pathfinders youth said of the facility, located on North Holton Street north of Capitol Drive.
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The new drop-in center is on the second floor of a block-long building partly occupied by Pathfinders, where the organization also operates an emergency shelter. The drop-in center had previously been located on the main floor.
“Our focus is on youth and young adults experiencing homelessness, housing instability or who have other vulnerabilities associated with that basic need not being met,” said Tim Baack, who has served as the organization’s president and chief executive officer since 2013. “That can include trafficking, exploitation and unmet mental wellness needs. That’s really the focus of what we do. We deal a lot with precariously housed young people. They are just one or two issues or crises or paychecks away from being on the street.”
The drop-in center operates as a day shelter for youth and young adults ages 11 to 25, and their families, and is essentially open to anyone within that age range. The center is a walk-in service and requires no application or documents.
“Our intake is pretty much finding out a little bit of who you are and what you need,” Baack said. “A lot of our homelessness prevention and housing stabilization is focused on bringing more young people in while also doing community case management to keep them safely housed and getting their housing more stable.”
Pathfinders serves more than 5,000 youth and young adults annually, including more than 800 who receive intensive services. About 1,000 of these youth and young adults receive services at the drop-in center. The organization’s services include case management, counseling, housing, shelter and sexual exploitation advocacy.
Pathfinders’ original drop-in center opened in the spring of 2010 when the organization moved into the North Holton Street building from its long-time East Side location.
“We spent several years prior connecting with community partners, really getting feedback on what a drop-in center would look like,” Baack said. “We looked at a couple of models – one in Chicago and one in Seattle – to really get a sense of what worked in other communities. The idea of a day shelter is what really kept coming to the surface as what would be best in meeting the needs of young people in Milwaukee. Some place safe during the day to be present with caring adults while having unrestricted access to basic needs resources and staff support.”
The drop-in center, Baack said, is a starting point in examining educational, employment, housing and wellness needs.
“It’s all of the stuff that we surround and support young people with once we meet their needs for food, clothing, a safe space, shower, laundry, all of the fundamentals,” he said.
Many of the youth and young adults arrive at the drop-in center via public transportation with word-of-mouth being a primary means of spreading the word about the facility.
“It’s really young people telling other young people,” Baack said.
Pathfinders opened its new drop-in center at a time when reports show increases statewide concerning students experiencing homelessness.
The number of students in Wisconsin’s public schools identified as homeless increased to 20,195 during the 2023-24 school year, according to a recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report.
This is the highest number since 2019 – the first year for which data is available from Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction – and represents a 9.1% increase over the previous year despite the total number of enrolled students declining 1.1%.
The number of reported homeless students in Wisconsin increased for a third consecutive year in 2023-24 after hitting its lowest level on record at the height of the pandemic in 2021, according to the report. Subsequent increases coincide with the trend across the country as reported by the National Center for Homeless Education.
In Milwaukee Public Schools, 7.4% of students were homeless in 2024, or three times more than the statewide average.
“School systems across the state have indicated pretty troubling increases in student homelessness,” Baack said. “When somebody experiences homelessness, generally school attendance is one of the first thing to go.”
Pathfinders’ renovated drop-in center space formerly housed the Southeastern Education Center, a middle school for traumatized and behaviorally challenged students that Pathfinders operated in partnership with Milwaukee Public Schools.
“This issues with MPS just became insurmountable for us last year so we unfortunately, after several decades, ended up closing the school,” Baack said. “But it allowed us to repurpose this space.”
Among the drop-in center’s features is a spacious computer lab.
“The computer lab offers protected but unrestricted access with some limitation in order to allow youth to have access to the technology and the resources they need,” Baack said. “This could be employment, housing or education focused. Social media is also a big deal and youth don’t always have readily available access to that.”
There’s a secured locker room, too.
“That is where we house our participants personal things,” said DeShanda Williams-Clark, chief program officer at Pathfinders. “A lot of times when young people are moving house to house or living in crowded situations or are literally homeless, they have a lot of personal things that they carry with them. This is a safe space for them to hold their things until they get housed or find something a little bit more permanent so that they aren’t constantly trying to replenish the things they have.”
It’s also a place to store vital documents, without which they won’t be eligible for housing support elsewhere in the community, Baack noted.
“It’s really that critical stuff that often gets lost or stolen from them as they are unstably housed or transient in their sleeping arrangements,” he said.
A clean and tidy clothing boutique offers a wide array of options for those coming through the drop-in center’s doors.
“We get a lot of donations from around the city and this is where young people can get day-to-day clothes or clothes for job interviews,” Williams-Clark said. “This is a space that is a really big deal for young people. Their presentation is super important.”
Baack said young people put a lot of time and effort into not standing out as experiencing homelessness.
“That’s important not only for their own safety but for their own self-esteem,” he said. “We partner the clothing with hygiene products and for youth entering our supported housing program we also try to furnish their apartment units with household items to give them not just a house but a home.”
There’s also a kitchen and a spot to gather for meals.
“We’re not a food pantry and we’re not a meal site but we do offer food for nourishment,” Baack said.
The hub of the drop-in center is the lounge area, where young people gather on couches to watch television, play games or simply nap.
“We wanted to make it feel like a living space not just a facility that you drop into for services,” Williams-Clark said.
The drop-in center also has a laundry room.
“From a research perspective, one of the things that can increase attendance at public schools, perhaps the biggest factor, is for young people to have laundry facilities available to them,” said Renee Kirnberger, Pathfinders chief development officer. “It’s a dignity issue. If you don’t feel comfortable and you and don’t have a space to clean your clothes or yourself, that can be a real barrier to other things.”
The cost of the drop-in center renovation is about $100,000, according to Kirnberger. “That’s something we still need help with,” she said. Resource drives and financial gifts are appreciated in helping to cover the cost of the project. Donations can be made on their website.
Drop-in Center hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Friday. The center is open Monday by appointment only for one-on-one support services and is mainly closed on weekends with the exception of occasional skills training sessions.
The first-floor space formerly occupied by the drop-in center is being transformed into workspaces and staff offices for Pathfinders supported housing team. “We’re going to grow back into that space,” Baack said.
Pathfinders’ history dates back decades. Three grassroots organizations formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s in response to community crises. Originally established in the basement of St. Mary’s Hospital, The Counseling Center of Milwaukee formed in 1970 to serve the needs of low-income people living with mental health issues after branching off from the Underground Switchboard, which launched in 1969. The Underground Switchboard eventually rebranded as Impact 211 – a critical central access point for people in need and a collaborative partner of Pathfinders today.
Pathfinders formed separately in 1970 as a shelter for runaway and homeless youth by members of Plymouth Church, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee faculty and students and concerned East Side residents. The Counseling Center of Milwaukee incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1973 and merged with Pathfinders one year later.
With their spirits high while celebrating the opening of the new drop-in center, the staff at Pathfinders at the same time had to deal with the intense sting of recent news that massive cuts would be made to the federal volunteer program AmeriCorps.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration gutted the 30-year-old federal agency by placing most of its staff on administrative leave and terminating nearly $400 million in federal contracts for AmeriCorps programs.
AmeriCorps is the federal agency that helps support and launch national service projects and volunteerism. It began in the 1960s as an offshoot of the Peace Corps and has since evolved as a critical provider of funding and support for a range of services.
“That’s a resource we use heavily,” Kirnberger said. “It helps us keep our shelter open 24-7, 365.”
Pathfinders has nine to 10 full-time equivalent AmeriCorps members who support its operations throughout all of its service offerings.
“They get a small stipend and access to healthcare and childcare,” Baack said. “It’s really a point of entry to our employment opportunities and employment in the social service sector. It’s something that otherwise wouldn’t likely be available to them.”
Williams-Clark served as an AmeriCorps member, among others at the organization.
“Right now, we’re feeling it,” Kirnberger said. “It will likely affect our services in a big, big way.”
Through its work with the Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services, a statewide group through which Pathfinders gets it AmeriCorps support, Pathfinders extended its relationship through the end of the month at its own expense until it determines the extent of the fallout, Baack said.
