Repairers of the Breach

Thanks to your generosity, on Match Day 2012 Repairers of the Breach received almost $42,000 from faithful supporters. Thanks to generous match pool donors, each dollar was s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d to $1.63!

You can help us do even better this year!

Your donation supports the living ideal of "homeless helping homeless" at our empowering daytime resource Center. On average, 90 destitute men and women come through our doors, Monday-Saturday, 7AM-4PM, seeking and finding solutions to their plight.

As many as 2,500 persons in crisis benefitted from our Center in 2012, which provided the basics of 10,000+ warm lunches (and at least that many continental breakfasts); 1,500+ private showers with toiletries and towels (some shelters have large group showers); many thousands of articles of new and gently used clothing and footwear; hundreds of sleeping bags for unsheltered persons, and 2,500+ walk-in "appointments" in our Medical Clinic.

Our History

Repairers of the Breach (RotB) began in 1989 when six people pooled $50 to create a newspaper entitled "Repairers of the Breach." RotB was chartered in 1991 as a 501(C)(3) nonprofit with a focus on communications projects. In 1994, the focus became a daytime center. Today, the Repairers of the Breach Center provides a supportive community and services for homeless people--but it is not our only program. An Alumni Association keeps ties with “program graduates” and a Speakers Bureau amplifies the “voice of the voiceless,” breaking down barriers and paving the way for social change.

Center Program

Our foremost program is the Repairers of the Breach Center, Greater Milwaukee's only distinctly daytime homeless refuge and resource center. We fill a crucial gap in the local homeless provider network, offering a "constellation" of free life-changing, even life-saving, DAYTIME programs and resources.

Our Center is open Monday-Saturday, 7AM–4PM and on several holidays. We stay open overnight as an emergency warming room when wind chill temperatures reach a life-threatening ten degrees. We also provide a safe daytime sleeping place for homeless 3rd shift workers--those who work at night and sleep during the day, when overnight shelters are closed.

We serve between 70 and 150 men (86.5%) and women per day--as many as 2,500 individuals annually. Almost 50% are unsheltered "street people"--those often completely outside of the homeless provider network, but for our Center. The remainder stay in overnight shelters or are "doubled-up homeless" living in over-crowded conditions which are temporary, at best.

Center Governance

Our Center is a sanctuary--a place free of gangs, drugs and alcohol. The homeless community keeps it that way by enforcing House Rules, which emphasize respectful behavior. Within this culture of respect, profoundly marginalized persons encourage one another to move forward in their lives by using the resources available to them.

Those we serve are not passive "clients" or "guests," but rather active "members"--of a community of homeless men & women in transition to the mainstream. With nurturing & direction, the Center is run primarily by members, who encourage one another with the ideals of “self-help” and "homeless helping homeless.”

Center Initiatives

Our Center is a productive place--a "highway out of homelessness." Basic program services offered daily include, but are not limited to, safe sanctuary with a sense of community, even an extended family; "lifelines" in the form of a telephone/message service and a secure mail service (which also serves as a voter registration address); two private daytime showers and six toilets; continental breakfast, snacks and a warm mid-day meal through our licensed soup kitchen, the "Breach Café."

Several times per week members can participate in substance abuse recovery support groups; one-on-one or group counseling; a chance to "shop" for seasonal clothing and footwear in our large-scale clothing bank; register for a replacement birth certificate; a legal clinic; a medical clinic for the uninsured and underinsured of our community, and much more.

When our building renovation is complete, our drop-in literacy program will resume, in a brand new Learning Center. In an exciting new collaboration, Milwaukee Achiever Literacy Services will staff this vital mainstreaming program. A post-renovation Employment Assistance Center is also planned, for job preparation and support, along with a quilt-making micro-enterprise for the never employed.

The Repairers of the Breach Center is a place to learn to fish.