Tenants United — Common Ground

Issue Campaign

TENANTS UNITED: A CAMPAIGN TO REFORM PUBLIC HOUSING IN MILWAUKEE

CG and HACM Tenants Call for New Leadership: Hines and the HACM Board Must Go

You wouldn’t let your grandmother live in a place like this

Since 2020, Common Ground has talked with more than a thousand people who live in Milwaukee public housing. We’ve helped them vote. We’ve worked with them to improve their neighborhoods with speed bumps and stop signs. As we’ve gotten to know them, they’ve shared hundreds of stories of their unacceptable living conditions.

Bed bugs. Rats. Roaches and mold. Heat that doesn’t work. Busted pipes and broken kitchens. Kitchens you can’t get into if you're in a wheelchair. Flooded basements. Doors that don’t lock. People being assaulted in their elevators (or buildings). Rent payments that get “lost” and unexplained fees and backcharges. Openly hostile property managers who treat their tenants like prisoners and abuse their authority.

watch resident testimonies here

This is wrong. The residents of public housing pay rent, and no one deserves to live this way. To all HACM residents … you are not alone. Working together, residents from HACM properties and Common Ground Leaders are building power to address systemic issues and make their public housing a place where residents are happy and comfortable. Read our Performance Review of Director Hines. Together we can make this right.

What is HACM?

Run by Executive Director Willie Hines Jr. and Board Chair Sherri Reed Daniels, the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) is Milwaukee’s second largest landlord with 4,000 units of subsidized housing and 1,000 units of affordable housing. HACM also administers Section 8 rent assistance vouchers to 6,000 households. That’s 11,000 households and $287 million in assets.

Sherri Reed Daniels
Chairwoman of the Board of Commissioners

Why is there no accountability?

The City of Milwaukee created HACM back in 1944, giving it the responsibility to provide housing options for people with low incomes and with disabilities.

Back then, the City did not retain oversight or authority over HACM. For 79 years, the City did not have the authority to inspect HACM properties until we worked with Common Council President Jóse Pérez to change that, effective January 1, 2024. The City does not approve HACM's budget. The Police do not use the Nuisance Ordinance for HACM properties. The City Attorney also represents HACM, as its primary lawyer.

HACM has a 7-member Board of Commissioners. Unfortunately, however, that Board has just 3 legitimate current members, with a 4th staying on past their end date to maintain a quorum. No member of the current Board has ever voted against any proposal or suggestion from Director Hines.

The Mayor appoints and the Common Council approves members of the HACM Board of Commissioners. Mayor Johnson has not nominated new Board members since Common Ground went public with its campaign in March of 2023.

Although the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has some authority over HACM—e.g. to inspect properties and check for regulatory compliance—they lack effective "carrots and sticks" to compel changes.

HACM has one job

It’s a big job, but it’s one job — provide safe, quality homes where people can thrive. All people. Seniors, veterans, folks with disabilities, and individuals and families with low incomes. HACM consistently fails at this one job in almost every way imaginable.

Residents and Taxpayers are paying for substandard housing

HACM receives revenue from rent and public money from HUD and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA).

We, the public, are subsidizing HACM's mismanagement. Even HUD recognizes things are out of hand -- so much so that they recently required that HACM outsource the entire operation and management of its Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, its largest program serving 7,823 families across Milwaukee. No longer should our public dollars be funneled toward public neglect!

The Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee must be held accountable. Common Ground and HACM residents are organizing to make change.