Newcap assets go up for auction as agency winds down

Newcap’s online auction began June 24, with the contents of its building at 504 Lakeland Road in Shawano offered through Titletown Auction Company. The sale is the latest visible step in the breakup of the anti-poverty agency that once served Menominee County and nine other Wisconsin counties.

Newcap abruptly closed March 31 after more than 50 years in operation and later filed for bankruptcy in federal court in April. A bankruptcy court then approved a plan to pay employees, while court records showed the agency owed money to 209 parties totaling about $4.03 million. Another filing put Newcap’s assets at about $5.9 million, including an estimated $4.89 million tied up in 25 properties.

For Menominee County, the loss reaches beyond a single office in Shawano. Newcap operated across 10 counties since 1965 and served more than 25,000 people in 2022. Its programs covered employment and job training, educational support, financial coaching, health and food assistance, housing services, home repair and case management, the kind of day-to-day help low-income households often use to stay housed, keep working and navigate paperwork and referrals.

Housing was the clearest part of the safety net that had to be reassigned. Newcap’s closure put 134 Wisconsin families at risk of losing housing and threatened to pull more than $2.7 million in federal funding from northeast Wisconsin. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office later said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would transfer Newcap housing grants to other nonprofits, preserving support for those 134 households.

The closure also left a workforce to absorb. Newcap laid off 90 employees when it shut down, and a 2024 audit by Bakertilly found the organization was operating with a deficit of more than $2 million. In February 2026, the CEO was placed on administrative leave amid concerns about financial mismanagement and impropriety, and the Wisconsin Department of Administration later said the CEO was no longer employed. That sequence of warnings, shutdown and liquidation has now moved from boardroom trouble to auction block, with the agency’s remaining office equipment and contents being converted to cash as the final legal process unfolds.