I am sponsoring a resolution to purchase an eight-unit apartment building at 2504 Calypso Road near Warner Park using funding from the county’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The building will be owned by Dane County and leased to Housing Initiatives, who will provide on-site case management services and to the building next door. The Department of Housing and Urban Development will be providing the funding for case management. These buildings are in need of significant improvement and having services on-site makes all the difference in allowing folks down on their luck to live regular middle-class lives. Dane County wishes to end homelessness among all veterans and this is a step toward this goal.

We continue to explore options for remodeling our 1954 Alcatraz-style jail. Currently, we are exploring adding four floors to the Public Safety Building as a replacement for the unsafe and totally inadequate maximum security beds on the sixth and seventh floors of the City County Building. We also need to do away with our heavy reliance on using solitary confinement by adding special needs and health care beds.

We should also provide a permanent home for the Sheriff’s Office and consolidate the Huber Work Release facility at the Alliant Energy Center with the rest of the jail. Consolidation saves dollars while allowing for a hotel or other economic development use at the Alliant site.

How to do all this and make it affordable is a big challenge. The county has significant legal liability with our out-of-date facilities. Today’s unsafe jail conditions and the possibility of loss of life worry me and many of my colleagues.

Supervisor Rusk can be reached at 249-9667 or rusk@countyofdane.com.