How Did This Project Begin?
From podcast episodes to a book creation, all roads led to this group coming together.
Bobbi Rathert returned from her Mississippi River kayak trip and Paddling for Hope Fundraiser in 2022 with relief to be back in the familiar place of home. Living on the river, camping on its banks, and repeating it day after day alone was an incredible experience of complicated challenges, discoveries, and unnerving hazards. But home was always on Bobbi’s mind as it became her touchstone while living outdoors.
Once home, she walked through La Crosse again, feeling the sense of refuge and security that comes from belonging to a community and neighborhood. But the contrast between her rooted experience and that of the people who were unhoused and commonly seen in the community was profound.
As she walked along the river park, Bobbi passed a man staring across at the large tent encampment. It was an active neighborhood, even though temporary, full of unhoused people going back and forth on foot, riding bicycles, and carrying provisions from one tent to another. The man spoke, “Why can’t something be done?” His face was pained when he said, “I will just keep praying for them. But, oh, the drugs and needles, the excrement, what a mess…” he shook his head, switching from compassion to disgust as he walked down the trail.
Bobbi realized then that, without empathy, compassion, and understanding of someone else’s life and struggles, actual solutions could not arise. She then felt a strong pull to interview the people of the homeless community to learn their stories, hear their disappointments and dreams, and understand where they came from before they became unhoused. She then decided to create a book, “Where’s Home: People Experiencing Homelessness in La Crosse County Share Their Stories,” to help build awareness and open hearts. It can be one road to compassion and solution, Bobbi hopes.
A committee has formed with others planning and implementing related projects while using Karuna House, the pilot program to create a home for the unhoused, as the central focus for raising awareness, fundraising, community responsiveness, and involvement with the unhoused people in activities that will open dialogue, understanding, and stability.
When Ope! Publishing originally formed, our best intention was to build on the local culture in the realms of art and literature, through the medium of the zine (punk-inspired booklets that incorporate art, text, and paper design). After about a year, we realized how difficult it was to maintain such a singular focus, so we branched out, into what felt like the furthest reach from art: city government. By approaching city government with an artistic slant, however, we suddenly saw story potential everywhere. The idea that your city can be, at least in part, of your design? That’s serious art.
The more we worked to demystify city government in narrative form, the more connections we made with other groups and individuals who also want to strengthen our community (we all live in a city where three rivers meet, so we should know something about convergence). Roxanne had started making podcasts as an Ope! side project in 2022, calling it Goat Cart—for reasons too hard to explain—and interviewed several local city officials before meeting Julie McDermid, who pretty much blew Ope! away with her podcast interview on homelessness in La Crosse. After that interview, Ope! wanted to focus more podcasts on the subject, so eventually, with Julie’s help, we were able to start holding interviews in the kitchen of the Karuna House. As we write this, we’ve released four podcasts: three with individuals who have long, personal experiences with homelessness, and one round table discussion with county, city, and “tent city” representation. Each one has been revelatory and incredibly meaningful, giving real dimension to a community struggle that is too often flatly dismissed.
Again, because of Julie and her incredible ability to align similar forces, we met the Where’s Home? team before we even started recording the podcasts. So while these projects each have their own slant and momentum, they’ve also always been collective and cooperative. As it should be, because that’s some serious art.
New nonprofit aims to give unsheltered people a home
Ryan Henry Gundersen Health System | Dec 19, 2023 | Source: La Crosse Tribune
A new La Crosse nonprofit aims to offer housing for some of La Crosse’s most vulnerable residents by building on past successes in the community.
With support from Gundersen Health System, Karuna aims to elevate the dignity of unsheltered people in La Crosse by not only meeting their basic needs of shelter and food, but by providing a foundation on which they can turn their lives around and “build a life worth living.”
Established in 2021, Karuna — the Buddhist term for “compassion” — is the vision of Karuna’s executive director, Julie McDermid, who formerly led La Crosse’s Collaborative to End Homelessness. As part of that work, she and others were involved with programs facilitated by La Crosse County that used hotels as shelters during the pandemic. What they noticed during that time caught their attention.