The Problem |
The Solution |
Housing Injustice: Threats to Health and Security
Threats to Health
In 1872 the City of Milwaukee mandated lead be used for water pipes in the city – this legislation was fully overturned in 1967. There are still over 70,000 lead pipes in use in the city. In 2016, Reuters reported that 11.5 percent of children tested in Milwaukee had elevated blood lead levels. According to the CDC, only 4% of children tested nation wide have confirmed high blood lead levels. Furthermore, an internal report by the City of Milwaukee Health Department found that Elevated Blood Lead Levels were most dense in aldermanic districts 6, 7, 8, 12, and 15 (these districts encompass Sherman Park and Washington Park) Foreclosure Foreclosures create empty houses; a once lively community becomes a disused neighborhood full of gaps. There are two types of foreclosures: bank initiated and city initiated. If a homeowner defaults on payments to their bank or mortgage lender, the bank can foreclose the property. Likewise, if a homeowner fails to pay property taxes or does not keep their property up to code, the city can foreclose the property. Older houses such as those in Sherman Park and Washington Park are difficult and expensive to maintain. Furthermore, historic disinvestment in the North Side means that the economic conditions of the neighborhood have shifted from a growth pattern to stagnation or declension. A 2012 report by the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee states there have been 12,000 foreclosures in the city since 2007. Eviction
Eviction creates an unstable neighborhood because people are frequently arriving and then abruptly leaving a block. When housing is insecure in this way, it is difficult to build a community of people who know and care about each other. In Eviction, Sociologist Matthew Desmond outlines how eviction overwhelmingly affects single black mothers in Milwaukee. Eviction is not just the loss of shelter, but a disruption to your entire life. Loosing your belongings, having to start from square one, and the associated fees of eviction damage lives and continue a cycle of poverty. EvictionLab.org reports that in 2016, Milwaukee County had an eviction rate of 3.26% (a statistic above the national average), with an average rate of 17.25 evictions per day. Discriminatory Housing
We live in a new era of segregation, one without signs or markers. Old patterns of division still exist, even while new ones appear. Location determines access to healthy lifestyles and education, interactions with law enforcement, families’ financial foundations, ability to invest, and susceptibility to crime. Contemporary segregation stems from the hidden history of federal and local governments tailoring homeownership, social security, and other program to Anglo-American while restricting access to people of color. Local governments wrote racialized zoning laws and produced restrictive covenants preventing people of color from living in wealthy neighborhood, often leaving the most degraded housing to people of color. Financial institutions were also complicit in this injustice, resulting in the practice of Redlining, which involved rating areas in the city based on the racial background of its residents. Even after the courts struck down these measures in the 1940s, the outline of segregation had already been etched into Milwaukee's landscape, in places such as Sherman Park. We are still living in the aftermath of these policies, because they have framed how we think about the city, and where we place ourselves in it. |
Grassroots Resistance: How is the Community Fighting Back?
ACTS Housing
By helping low-income families reclaim and rehabilitate vacant, often vandalized foreclosures, ACTS Housing seeks to transform blocks into communities. By actively forming relationships with members of the communities it serves, the organization offers the opportunity to both empower new homeowners and cultivate neighborliness. Today, ACTS housing has placed Milwaukee's lower-income residents in over 1,000 homes. Individual Homeowners Transforming their Homes
Individual homeowners are also transforming their homes as a form of grassroots resistance. In the Field School, we call this caring. Care is a concept that may seem very concrete in our minds. However, we rarely consider what the term really means, or how care is tangibly practiced in our day to day lives. For many in Sherman Park, gardening is a way to show concern for their environment. Ms. Tremerell Robinson sees gardening as a “chain reaction” because it encourages an attitude of caring. She notes that flower beds that she planted in front of her house encouraged others on her street to plant and nurture their own flower gardens. This “chain reaction” has worked on her block: the flower beds on 40th Street are symbols of the community’s collective effort to nurture their environment. Another homeowner, Ms. Jackie Smith, purchased her home twenty-five years ago. In 2016, while still maintaining her home beautifully, she decided to purchase the vacant bungalow across the street. She completely refurbished and transformed the classic Milwaukee bungalow and, this past year, sold it to life-long Milwaukee resident Mr. Dionicio Hernandez, who is quickly becoming involved in the Sherman Park community. Aging in Place
After encountering a strange man doing laundry in her basement, Tremerell Robinson decided she no longer wanted to rent the upper story of her duplex. Instead, her daughter has moved into the upstairs unit with her husband and grandchildren. This type of duplex occupation, known as 'intergenerational housing', offers the opportunity for families to take care of each other, with grandparents available to look out for their grandchildren, as well as children to look after their parents as they age. Rather than forcing a cohabitation by strangers, the duplex now offers a shared family dwelling that still maintains separate living spaces for nuclear family groups. Porch Culture Much like the duplexes they are attached to, many of the porches on Milwaukee's North Side no longer function as they once did, with many residents preferring the privacy and quiet of their backyards. Nevertheless, some community members in Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood recognize how reoccupying the porch can be a strategy for regenerating walkability and reclaiming their streets.
Adaptive Reuse
Adaptive reuse of Sherman Park’s older housing stock offers the opportunity to transform these houses, which were not originally designed for their residents, into homes that work for the people living in them. For example, when Mr. and Mrs. Brown began refurbishing their house, they maintained the historic exterior, but opted to make changes and improvements to the interior. |