The women’s shelter served 128 people on the night before the Salvation Army shared its latest figures. It averaged about 110 women a night in recent months, up from 65 to 75 a night three years earlier, according to Major Michael Sjogren, the organization’s Dane County coordinator. The building has just over 140 beds.

The shelter’s family program can accommodate about 36 families each night, but its waiting list typically ranges from 40 to 60 families, Sjogren said. The Salvation Army says it has not turned anyone away since the COVID-19 pandemic, using overflow options and case managers to help people find other places to stay when necessary.

The proposed facility would include 157 beds for single women, an emergency shelter program for families needing a place that night, and continued round-the-clock family shelter services. The organization has raised $13 million toward the project. Dane County Executive Melissa Agard’s proposed budget includes just over $2 million to support it.

The Salvation Army had planned to replace its shelter on East Washington Avenue, but Sjogren said that plan was not financially feasible. The organization is now working with Madison and Dane County on a location and is considering the YMCA’s west-side site. The county has set aside potential purchase funding as the YMCA builds a new facility in Fitchburg.

The YMCA project recently broke ground, with construction expected to continue through 2027 and completion anticipated in early 2028. The Salvation Army cannot start building at the west-side location until the YMCA moves out. Sjogren said he hopes the location details can be finalized in the coming months.

The growing shelter demand reflects a wider housing problem, said Angela Jones, community impact director for United Way of Dane County. She cited families facing reduced work hours alongside rising costs for housing, food, utilities and child care.

A 2025 county point-in-time count found 790 people experiencing acute homelessness, including 114 children in 54 families, a 7.2% increase from the previous year. The one-night count covers people in shelters, transitional housing or unsheltered situations, but does not include people staying temporarily with friends or relatives or in hotels and motels. United Way has separately cited federal figures of 912 homeless single adults and 62 families, and says more than 1,000 Madison school district households with students are doubled up or otherwise without their own housing.

The point-in-time count also found that Black or African American residents made up 44% of people experiencing homelessness, despite comprising 5.2% of the county’s population.

Jones said expanding shelter is needed, but lasting progress also depends on affordable housing, stable employment and preventing evictions. United Way operates eviction-prevention programs and works with employers and community partners to help people retain housing. In 2025, the organization reported that 1,050 of 1,088 households in its eviction-prevention services avoided a likely or pending eviction.

“Shelter is not the goal — finding housing is,” Sjogren said. The Salvation Army also works with case managers to help residents move into permanent housing, while raising money for the proposed facility through a capital campaign.