Federal official visits Milwaukee's troubled housing authority, but the public wasn't invited

Federal official visits Milwaukee’s troubled housing authority, but the public wasn’t invited

By: A.J. Bayatpour
CBS 58 News
August 16, 2024

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- A top federal housing official visited Milwaukee Friday and met with residents of the embattled Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM). Activists say the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) pulled the rug out from under them, pledging last month to give them a meeting with Richard Monocchio, the principal deputy assistant secretary for HUD's Office of Public and Indian Housing, then telling them this Monocchio would not have time for that meeting.

Felicia Shoates, a tenant at the Locust Court apartments, said she saw Monocchio tour the building Friday. She said her biggest concern with the building was unwelcome visitors constantly getting inside.

"We have trespassers urinating and defecating in our stairwells," she said. "Yesterday morning, I was on my way to work. I live on the 14th floor. There was urine right in front of the elevator."

Two other Locust Court residents did not want to be interviewed on camera, but they told a CBS 58 reporter they're fed up with drug dealing and trespassing on the property.

The activist group, Common Ground, has taken up the cause of residents who've long complained about safety, maintenance and bookkeeping issues at HACM. The group's lead organizer, Jennifer O'Hear, said those complaints are still coming in.

"Someone the other day called me because the housing authority had her sign a lease that was backdated two years," O'Hear said. "And they said, 'Guess what? Now, you owe all this rent because we raised your rent two years ago.'"

Common Ground has focused its energy on removing HACM's executive director, Willie Hines. The group recently sent an open letter to Mayor Cavalier Johnson calling on him to endorse the idea of HACM's board finding a new director.

When asked if he was meeting with Monocchio during his Milwaukee visit, a spokesperson for Johnson said the mayor did not have a public event on his calendar but believed it was set up as a private meeting.

A spokesperson for HUD said Monocchio would not be available for an interview Friday. The spokesperson said HUD would provide a "readout" of his conversations with HACM residents, but when asked for that readout Friday, the agency did not respond.