Residents continue battle with Milwaukee's housing authority into the holiday season

PUBLISHED 2:38 PM ET Dec. 20, 2023

MILWAUKEE — Residents living in Milwaukee’s public housing have been working together to address the issues with the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) for months.

What You Need To Know

Residents living in public housing have complained about their living conditions to the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee for months
Common Ground is helping residents fight for fair living conditions
HACM is Milwaukee’s second largest landlord with 4,000 units of subsidized housing and 1,000 units of affordable housing

Tenants living at Locust Court said they are still dealing with unacceptable living conditions during the holiday season.

Linda Gilmer said it’s been a stressful time lately as a resident of Locust Court. She said she is still dealing with a list of issues, from lack of safety in the building to cleanliness.

“I’m just hoping they realize that we would like to be comfortable,” said Gilmer. “Especially at my age. I want to be living comfortable.”

She’s just one of many tenants here who say they have shared their concerns with the Housing Authority. Those include concerns about rodents, bed bugs, mold, management and maintenance.

Kevin Solomon is the associate organizer with Common Ground. They’ve been helping residents take their concerns to HACM and its director Willie Hines.

Solomon said for months, residents’ complaints have continued to fall on deaf ears.

“Hines says some good words like ‘partnerships with residents is paramount,’ then he doesn’t respond to residents for over two months,” said Solomon.

Solomon said HACM is neglecting and mismanaging its buildings. He said the prolonged issues are making for a stressful holiday season for many.

“Residents don’t even want to celebrate Christmas because they don’t want to bring bed bugs to their family members,” he said.

Felicia Shoates is another Locust Court resident. She’s worked with Common Ground to send HACM a list of improvements needed for the building.

Shoates said HACM only addressed the minor issues and that more than half of the list remains incomplete.

Some of those requests included hiring a security guard, installing cameras, a full inspection of mold and asbestos in the building, and other internal maintenance needs.

“It makes me feel like he don’t care because we did invite him to stay here for a weekend just to see the conditions of the building and he did not respond,” she said. “We still have homeless people sleeping in our stairwells, a lot of trespassing, prostitution and drug dealing in our building.”

Fred Grace has lived at Locust Court for 13 years. He is a veteran. Grace said given his age, he shouldn’t have to deal with the problems that come with living in the building.

“There’s a lot of violence breaking out in the building, a lot of fights, alcohol and drug problems, prostitution problems,” said Grace. “We went to the management about it and they seem to drag their feet or not even move at all.”

Spectrum News 1 has reached out to HACM for months for an interview, but there has yet to be a response to those requests.

When asked how they’re handing the ongoing concerns, HACM provided the following statement:

“The Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) serves over 15,000 residents, and we take any concerns they raise very seriously. We are aware of issues raised by residents, many of which have been resolved, and others that we have been actively working to address with the resources we have available. Our process remains the same, we continue to encourage residents to contact their property management office with any concerns, and HACM will address those matters.”

HACM said when residents have a complaint or concern, these are the steps to follow:

Call the development office, or submit by logging into your resident account at myportal.hacm.org if able, give a description of the problem and give permission to enter the unit if you are not present, or make arrangements.
The work order is assigned to a maintenance technician.
Maintenance goes to the resident’s unit and completes the work requested (if only minors are in the unit, maintenance will leave and return at a later time when an adult is present).
If a work order is put on hold, the maintenance staff will notify the resident and manager and estimate a date and time when the work order will be completed.
If the work order needs a contractor, staff will inform the resident, get the work order entered for the contractor, and contact them right away.
Once the work order is complete, if a resident is unsatisfied, they should first reach out to the on-site manager or contact the Quality Control Specialist at 414-286-8202.

Tenants said they want HACM’s Hines to take accountability. They said they all just want a safe and clean place to live in.

Link to article here.