On The Road-Destination: Milwaukee Wisconsin story by August H Mallory

I begin this story from Milwaukee Wisconsin, dated back on September 16, 2008. as I am returning from another trip from washington dc I decide to make a stop in the badger state. I am very curious as to how other cities cope with their homeless situation. and in Milwaukee the homeless problem is just as bad or even worse as other cities. when I arrived in Milwaukee I still had copies of the newspaper street sense with me. and I allowed some of the clients at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission to observe them. they were quite impressed with the layout of the newspaper. many of the clients even stated that this is what Milwaukee needs. even now I am thinking about considering talking to local nonprofits about the possibility of a street paper in Milwaukee. before I arrived I asked to speak with a staff member to get more information on who is a resent resident of the mission and I was directed to someone known as joe the cook. we spoke for awhile. when I arrived at the mission that is exactly who I asked for, and sure enough joe the cook appeared. I informed him that I was there to do a story on how Milwaukee deals with its homeless situation. so I decided to stay for a couple of nights before I headed back to seattle. during the day I toured the city for awhile. and I have to say that services in Milwaukee are not very good. there is probably more red tape to deal with than any city that I have dealt with.
and trying to reach council members on how to work on solutions to help the homeless, was just a no win situation. I just kept getting the run around everytime I would call city hall. I guess it just comes to show that many cities don't really care about their poor citizens. this is another midwest city and in the midwest people do judge one harshly on how they dress and talk and so forth. but as I was in downtown Milwaukee I did notice how very clean the city was. I had to commend the city workers or downtown employees for their tremendous effort on keeping their city clean. I wanted to talk to more homeless people on their time on the streets of Milwaukee, and I met a man who has lived on the streets for well over twenty three years. he even asked me about a television show called hawaii 5-0 and asked if it was still on the air. I had to curiously ask him just how long has he been on the streets. but I did answer his question and informing him that that program has long left the air. and that its main character Jack Lord who played the role of Steve McGarrett has long since passed away. as clients lined up for breakfast outside of a place called the gathering, I had to have counted at least well three hundred and ninety people for breakfast, I won't even tell you the number for lunch that day. but the homeless problem is forever growing across america. the question is how do we stop the problem and is there a solution to this problem.
many people say that we must start looking toward the private sector. maybe that could be the key. but even in business and industry this are starting to hit rock bottom. I can only say that this is a time to pull together and work with one another on finding solutions to an aggrevating problem.