MILWAUKEE COUNTY

Housing alliance calls for Milwaukee to steer half of $394M in federal stimulus dollars toward affordable homes

Emiliano Tahui Gómez
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
People gather as Taylor Vessel, an MATC student, speaks at City Hall in Milwaukee during a news conference fighting for affordable housing on Monday, July 26, 2021.

More than 50 church, union and social rights leaders rallied Monday at City Hall as a part of the newly formed Housing Justice Now alliance. 

Their call: that the city allocate half of the $394.2 million Milwaukee will receive as part of the American Recovery Plan Act to affordable housing development, with the end goal of constructing 35,000 affordable housing units. 

"The folks on the second floor, they have a choice. They can do the same thing they've been doing for decades and let developers build luxury units," said Peter Rickman, president of the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization. "The other choice is for the mayor and the Common Council to look at who's here today and look at the broad strokes of Milwaukee's working-class and say we hear you and we will put half of the American Rescue Plan money into affordable housing." 

The gathering occurred a week after Mayor Tom Barrett released his Stronger Summer Plan, a proposal for how to distribute the first $93 million of ARPA dollars. To date, the city has received the first half of federal dollars. It will receive the second half next year. 

Barrett's plan would direct about $30 million in the first round of funding toward "affordable and sustainable housing" to fund energy efficiency upgrades, "shovel-ready" affordable housing projects and code compliance loans, among other projects.

About half of the $30 million would go to the Westlawn Choice Neighborhood Initiative, a federally funded mixed-income housing development on the northwest side that needs extra funding to be completed. The city's Housing Authority has worked on that project since 2012.  

The Stronger Summer Plan would direct the other two-thirds of the COVID relief funds toward employment and job training, early childhood education, public health efforts, economic development and core city services, which includes street repairs and efforts to combat reckless driving. 

Group says mayor's plan doesn't go far enough

For the community leaders and residents who gathered, the mayor's proposal has fallen short of demonstrating the city's commitment to increasing access to affordable housing. 

"The mayor's proposal didn't scratch the surface on what's necessary for affordable housing," Rickman said. 

Central to the alliance's demands is that both the mayor and the common council focus on building new affordable housing units through the city's Housing Trust Fund, which provides loans and grants to help finance privately developed affordable housing. 

Rickman said the coalition would like to see at $100 million go toward this fund, which developers could use, alongside other tax incentives, to raise half a billion dollars for the construction of new units of affordable housing. 

Angela Lang, the executive director for BLOC — Black Leadership Organizing Communities — said she hopes the city will pounce on the opportunity to make a dent in its problems with affordable housing and evictions. 

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Lang told the Journal Sentinel the Housing Action Now coalition is important because it brings together a diverse set of Milwaukeeans in a city that has been "extensively segregated."

The pandemic, she said at the news conference, magnified the city's lack of affordable housing, a problem with effects across numerous issues, including public safety. 

Giving people a safe place to go home at night, she said, makes communities safer. 

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Jarrett English, director of housing development for nonprofit Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, agreed.

"Safety and security doesn't come from people with guns, it comes from the stability and prosperity of our communities: Black, brown and otherwise," he said. "The foundation of that comes from families being able to raise their children in beautiful, permanently affordable, nontoxic houses." 

English said his organization would like the city to commit to allocating the dollars to nonprofit developers like his organization, who "are responsible to the community." 

"We work to move from renter-occupied to owner-occupied at Metcalfe Park Community Bridges," English said. "We want to see that across the city and we can use some help." 

The community organizers' demands are not far off from some of the ideas that have begun to gain traction at City Hall.

District 8 Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa was among the members of the Common Council who attended the news conference to hear the demands of the ralliers. 

Zampirra said her original intention was to push for the city to invest at least $100 million into housing but that she is open to hearing from community members as to why the council should allocate more. 

"They're asking for a catalytic investment in housing and I'm asking for a catalytic investment in housing," the alderwoman said. 

District 4 Ald. Robert Bauman proposed to the Common Council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee last month that the city spend $150 million of the stimulus dollars to develop affordable housing units, with a focus on rehabilitating 700 single-family houses and duplexes that would otherwise be demolished.

These units, according to Bauman's proposal, are owned by the city through property tax foreclosure and would likely be demolished because of their poor state.

Bauman estimated that the average rehab cost of the properties would be $150,000 for a total cost of about $105 million and that the project would create about 1,000 new units. 

Bauman's plan would dedicate $35 million to the city's Housing Trust Fund.

Barrett spokesman Jeff Fleming told the Journal Sentinel the mayor's proposals will continue to prioritize funding for housing. 

"It is highly likely that more funding would be allocated to housing in future rounds," Fleming said. "The mayor has no higher priority than housing issues — that is why nothing was funded to a higher extent." 

The Common Council is expected to hold a special meeting to discuss the mayor's proposal in September. The Council delayed consideration of the mayor's plan last week after council leaders said the mayor did not provide enough time for their review ahead of a July 21 finance committee meeting. 

The city of Milwaukee ranks near the top of U.S. Cities receiving stimulus dollars. A March Journal Sentinel assessment pegged the city's allocation at $687 per resident, the 12th highest per-capita distribution among the nation's 100 largest cities.  

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the aldermanic district Robert Bauman represents as District 4.