Milwaukee County to ask airport passengers for spare change to help homeless

Milwaukee County would ask passengers at Mitchell International Airport for their spare change to help the homeless, under a plan to place donation containers at security checkpoints.

Travelers would have the opportunity to empty their pockets of change into the containers as they enter the checkpoint at each of the two passenger concourses at the airport.

The county's Housing Division would spend the cash on providing rental assistance and employment support for homeless individuals and families, county housing administrator James Mathy said Monday.

The County Board's economic and community development committee on Monday unanimously recommended board approval of the proposal on May 24.

Milwaukee County's proposal is based on a successful homeless donation program at Denver International Airport. Travelers there contributed a total of $282,722 over the first three years, 2013 to 2015, or an average of $94,240 a year.

The cash is spent on Denver's Road Home program to aid the homeless.

In 2017, more than 3.45 million passengers flew out of Mitchell International Airport.

If those travelers donated an average of just one penny apiece, the county would collect $34,500. An average of a dime from all of those departing passengers would add up to $345,000 in a year.

Supervisor John Weishan Jr., a member of the committee, asked how the public can be assured that the donations will be spent on helping the homeless here.

County officials will select a local financial institution to collect the coins and deposit the cash into a Housing First endowment fund managed by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Mathy said.

Milwaukee County established a Housing First initiative in 2015 to end chronic homelessness. The program has a 2018 budget of $1.5 million and it is on target to meet that goal by the end of 2018, according to Mathy.

"In order to maintain our progress and begin to focus on individuals and families that do not meet the definition of chronically homeless, the Housing Division must begin to attract more private funds," Mathy said.

“I am grateful that the committee gave its support to this creative solution that can make a real difference in fighting homelessness,” County Executive Chris Abele said Monday.

“We’ve been able to dramatically cut the number of homeless residents in the last three years, but we still have more work to do," Abele said. "Some pocket change from airport passengers can add up to making big changes in our community.”

RELATED:Downtown Milwaukee parking meters enlisted in campaign to end homelessness

Last year, the Housing Division placed seven parking meters in downtown Milwaukee to collect coins to help end chronic homelessness as part of a Key to Change MKE program.

Those special key-shaped meters are modeled after similar programs in Denver, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis and Detroit.

Online donors to Key to Change MKE can choose whether their contribution will go to funding a Downtown Homeless Outreach Coordinator, the Housing First endowment fund, or move-in kits for Housing First participants.