Milwaukee: The Future Of Affordable Housing and Homelessness  

The Community and Economic Development Committee held a meeting on March 8^th at Milwaukee’s City Hall discussing how people who contracted the coronavirus became unstably housed which caused a spike in the homeless population.  

This committee typical deals with matters pertaining to community development, block grants, job development, business improvement districts, city public relations, industrial land banks, revenue bonds for emerging businesses enterprises, recreation, cultural arts and the library system.  

Steve Maham from City of Milwaukee’s Community Block Grants administration came to talk to the committee about issues dealing with homelessness, as well as what could be potentially done with the money granted to help with the housing crisis. Maham says that for $350,000 dollars, about four units can be supported.  

Separately Maham and the committee discussed the development of the Home American Rescue Plan. 

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” says Maham. 

According to him the U.S Department of Housing, Urban Development and the Treasury came together with the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. It’s provided needed rental assistance during the COVID-19 crisis and has systematically brought to light a lot of things in a city like Milwaukee.  

“Our families are struggling,” says Maham; he mentions that when he talks about families, he means larger, four to five member families that live together. “They are having a hard time with keeping and maintaining safe, clean and affordable housing.”  

Maham also talks about the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the homeless population. A lot of people went from being in the hospitals after catching the virus to becoming homeless. People could not go home if they had the coronavirus because they didn’t have a place to isolate.  

“This is a grand opportunity to look up and say hey, if we had some money, how would we correct this,” he says. 

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development is looking ahead at continuum of care and shelter network, according to Maham. The biggest worry is that they don’t want anyone to go to shelter; that’s this is the last resolve.  

“We’re starting to see a new homeless,” says Maham.  

According to Maham, the new homelessness is because of overcrowding in certain housing and the diminishment and price of Rental Stop in Milwaukee, people who would not usually be unstably housed are becoming unstably housed. He says this is a chance to use the allocation which is at least $20 million to the city of Milwaukee.  

“We submit an application, we show the categories that we wish to apply for, it does not hold us to that,” he says. “It’s basically ways to ensure that we don’t see certain homeless populations come into our systems.” 

He says it’s a great opportunity and base of funding that they want to heavily leverage and that grant funding, collaborations, non-profit groups, individuals with a passion for affordable housing and homelessness will help them leverage these dollars.  

He also says there’s been an issue of doubling up in housing and the Milwaukee Public School system counts this as homelessness. Doubling up is when there are two families living in a space with only one person on the lease. This has been historically common in Milwaukee; however it’s become increasingly more difficult to do with stricter rental laws.  

“You can see how families can get broken up,” Maham says. “For very large families or folks that are not on a lease could cause them to be unstably housed.” 

“Is sex workers and prostitution part of those categories?” The Chair of the committee, Ald. Russell W. Stamper II. asked. 

Maham says that sex workers and prostitution does necessarily count as homelessness, however anyone in that field may have a need for alcohol and drug treatment, as well may have mental health issues and trauma; all of which contribute to homelessness. 

“Just because you’re a sex worker doesn’t mean that you’re homeless,” Mr. Mayam says. “But your definitely in a high ballpark of being that and maybe need to be stably housed to be able to work through what you’re involved in.” 

According to the Chair, the money that will be given to Milwaukee’s Community Block Grant is an additional allocation from the committee specifically for the development of the HOME American Rescue Plan. The amount of money has not yet been specified.  

“I’m so glad you spoke to the sex trafficking and whether or not we could possible use some of these dollars around that,” says District 8 Alderwomen, Jocasta Zamarripa. 

There is an indication that the some of the qualifying homeless populations are people that are fleeing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking and trafficking, and the way of helping people out of these situations is through housing, according to Alderwomen Zamarripa.  

The ultimate decision of how many dollars will be granted will come back to the Community and Economic Committee.