The Madison Warming Center Campaign, a coalition composed of students and local homeless individuals, is currently working to establish a center that would provide not only a warm place to sleep, but also a comprehensive job and resource center for people trying to get back on their feet.

<p>The coalition is comprised of one-third students and two-thirds homeless individuals.

<p>”It’s about getting our city government to see shelters as a human right,” campaign organizer Ryan Spangler said.

<p>Brian Peters, 25, is a college-educated man who moved to Madison and had a job earning $13.50 per hour. However, he has since lost his job and is now, like many other people in Madison, struggling.

<p>”I’m trying to get a job,” Peters said. “But nobody hires anybody without an address or a phone number.”

<p>Peters is staying at the Drop-In Shelter on 116 Washington Ave., but after the 45-day limit is up, he will likely return to the street.

<p>In 2002, 8,000 people were denied at Madison homeless shelters, while 3,700 were granted a temporary place to stay, according to the Homeless Consortium Report.

<p>One part of the Madison Warming Center, the overflow center, would be a place people could go after being turned away from other shelters in under 50-degree temperatures.

<p>The Salvation Army of Dane County provides a warming shelter where people can spend the night, and this winter the warming shelter had up to 16 people each night, according to Ruth Ann Schoer, development director of the Dane County Salvation Army.

<p>However, the shelter is only available for families, leaving single men and women with few choices besides sleeping outside in the cold.

<p>The effects of such conditions can prove fatal.

<p>In the winter of 2002, two men came to the drop-in shelter during below-freezing temperatures, but they smelled of alcohol and were turned away. The next day they were found dead, according to Spangler, who works at the drop-in shelter.

<p>”Human survival is when you start to do irrational things,” said 33-year-old Arthur Carey, a client at the drop-in shelter. “Before I freeze, I will break the law.”

<p>Carey has spent time at five or six other homeless shelters in Wisconsin and said the conditions of Madison shelters are the worst.

<p>Spangler agreed.

<p>”It’s really degrading treatment. Staff will use baseball bats when addressing the clients,”

<p>Spangler said, adding that there are only two caseworkers for more than 100 men.

<p>”It’s like an animal house down here; its inhuman, indecent,” Carey said, speaking of the drop-in shelter.

<p>Besides providing basic needs, Carey believes shelters should help people gain independence.

<p>”Other places have social workers who help you find a job. This is the capital and they don’t have anything to offer,” Carey said.

<p>The other part of the Madison Warming Center, the resource center, would provide members access to voice mail, a P.O. box and job referrals.

<p>The warming center, coupled with the proposed available resources, is drumming up support from individuals in Madison, such as Ald. Austin King.

<p>”I think housing is a basic human right and obviously there are a huge number of people who don’t have that right secured, and our community has a responsibility to do something about it,” King said.

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