Photo by Tom Jenz
Willie Hines
HACM manages over 5,000 subsidized and affordable housing units in 22 properties and 371 scattered site homes. The Federal Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) data shows that HACM residents are about 90 percent people of color. Many are senior citizens who have disabilities, some have intellectual or developmental disabilities, and some are veterans. These are vulnerable people, some facing challenges caring for themselves. How does HACM go about helping its tenants? According to some public housing residents, not very well. According to HACM, pretty well, given the intricate web of government agencies and nonprofits it has to deal with.
Since last March, I had been trying to gain an interview with Hines. Through his marketing director, Hines stated his focus had been on completing the federal corrective action plans, rather than meeting with journalists, who choose to portray HACM unfairly. Several officials told me the same thing. But he did finally agree to the interview. We met at the Hillside Family Resource Center in the inner city.
I said I’d be fair, and I was. Here is our conversation.
Tell me about your background, your parents, neighborhoods, and schooling. What was life like for you as a boy?
My family lived in the Hillside Public Development project. My grandparents lived in the Lapham Park development. We later moved into a rental house on 26th and Brown. My dad worked at the Milwaukee Railroad for 35 years, hard worker. He also became a pastor. I come from a family of ten children. When I was about seven, my dad bought a home across the street from Highland Park Public Housing. My first job was in the public housing towers, cleaning and doing errands for an older woman. I went to Rufus King High School, and I was selected to be in the International Baccalaureate Program. I also had great success as a basketball player.
How did you end up going to Marquette University?
This was the Educational Opportunity Program for first generation kids going to college. I was the first in my family to go to college. I played on the Marquette basketball team, but I mainly focused on academics. I majored in communications and business. After college, I worked in the corporate world, Pepsi Cola, JCPenney and Ford Motor Credit Company.
How did you transition to the political world from the corporate world?
It happened around 1990. I had left Milwaukee but got a call regarding a job with Democratic Congressman Jim Moody. He needed someone to focus on business and community affairs. When I returned to Milwaukee, I not only worked for Jim Moody, but also for the Urban League. In 1995, my dad and his neighbors suggested I run for alderman. I worked very hard on my campaign and won the District 17 office (later the 15th) by 14 votes.
You have a distinguished political career serving the city of Milwaukee. You served as alderman of Milwaukee’s 15th District from 1996 to 2014, and as president of the Milwaukee common council from 2004-2014.
On the City Council, I learned the nuances of City Hall. When City Council President Marvin Pratt left office to be Interim Mayor in 2004, I decided to run for City Council President. In 2004, I unanimously won and stayed in that position for ten years.
When you were alderman for District 15, what were some of your accomplishments over all those years?
When I was first elected, we had a lot of boarded-up houses and empty lots. The lots you could buy for a dollar if you would build on them. We began to get a lot of economic development in my district. I focused on the commercial corridors because commercial corridors are display windows into the neighborhoods. We got a new police station on 50th and Lisbon, a grocery store on 35th and Meinecke, new buildings on North Avenue, the YMCA on Teutonia, a new library on Lisbon and Sherman, and the Walnut Way housing development. All told, $500 to 600 million in economic development. Keep in mind that the 15th District was the city’s lowest in assessed value. Downtown was the highest. Though my years, District 15 became the number one district in increased assessed value.
Let’s talk about the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee. You were appointed the HACM secretary-executive director in March of 2022. As I understand it, your mission is to provide housing stability to low-income families, seniors and disabled adults. You had the ideal experience to handle this job because you had served as Chairman of HACM’s board of commissioners from 1998-2014. In the time you have served as executive director, what do you see as the biggest challenges?
The biggest challenge is centered around the reduction in resources, which impacts a number of areas of our deliverable services.
Why has there been a reduction of resources?
There has been significant cuts to public housing resources throughout the country—Federal, states, counties and cities. These cuts have impacted our ability to maintain our properties to the level we’d like to. Most of our buildings are public housing properties 65 to 70 years old, and the average age for all properties, excluding scattered sites, is 50 years, and they have suffered from deferred maintenance. We are still dealing with keeping those buildings preserved. In 2014, HACM did a study and found there would be $198 million worth of deferred maintenance to be addressed—roofs, elevators, boilers and transformers. We work on those in partnership with WE Energies. We lost two transformers in our oldest buildings last summer. We may lose another this winter.
Does the Federal Housing of Urban Development (HUD) help you in any way?
HUD provides operation money and capital funding, which address the big-ticket items like roofs, elevators, and transformers.
How much funding does HUD provide?
HUD provided us with $8 million in capital this year, clearly not enough. We recently reduced some of our unit sizes, but we still have capital needs. We will be doing a needs assessment to measure our costs for capital improvement. The other area where we need help is supportive services, and we partner with others to deliver those services.
Who are your partners?
Lutheran Social Services for wellbeing, WWBIC for financial literacy and asset building, the Hunger Task Force for food, UWM for helping with education, MATC, Boys & Girls Clubs, and then several organizations helping with childcare, mental and physical health.
Do you get involved with public safety for your residents?
We are one of the few housing developments in the country with an in-house Public Safety team. We encourage our residents to call the police department as the first option, but our Public Safety force can also respond or assist the police.
What is the average monthly rent for tenants? Let’s pretend I am interested in living in public housing. How do I qualify?
First, we’d look at your income. There are HUD regulations and rules. We can only charge you 30% of your income. If you do not have income, we collect $50 per month from you. Many
of our senior residents who live in the towers buildings make about $12,000 to $15,000 per year. We collect 30% of that money for their rental. The average monthly rent might be $320 to $350. In our family developments, two-and-three-bedroom units, their income might be over $18,000. Their rent could be $350 to $650. At our scattered sites, the income might be $25,000, and their rent could be 30% of that income for rent.
Given the huge job of managing over 5,000 residents, HACM will experience tenant complaints. A few months ago, a group of tenants under the umbrella of the large nonprofit, Common Ground, lodged complaints about some the residences having infrastructure problems including faulty plumbing, mold, water leaks, rats, and unresponsive residence managers. When tenants have complaints, what is the procedure for them to lodge those complaints with HACM?
First of all, I do recognize there are areas of improvement for HACM. We do have faults, we have had issues, but we are committed to the issues of our residents. The first thing regarding a complaint is for the resident to contact the resident manager. They can also upload their complaints through our technology system. But first, the manager gives the complaint to the maintenance/mechanic, who will enter the building unit and fix the problem. We get about 3,500 work orders a month. If the job isn’t done right or a part is missing, we can track back to see who is at fault. If the resident is not pleased with that work, they can call the manager or the resident liaison division. We have given all our residents a resource sheet that identifies who to call.
What about public safety complaints? What is that procedure?
Tenants should call the resident manager, the police or our public safety team or even the director of public safety. They can even contact their alderman. If they still have complaints, they can contact the Fair Housing Council in Milwaukee or the City of Milwaukee’s Department of Neighborhood Services.
I have found that you do have problems with some managers not doing their jobs properly, not responding or being rude.
If a tenant has a complaint about a manager or a contractor, he can contact our Human Resources Division. We have looked into the manager complaints, and we’ve shuffled some of them around, and we have dismissed others. Last year, HACM hired an individual who is in charge of our employee training, which is this person’s sole job. Responsibilities include customer service, challenging situations, and de-escalation training designed to create a more welcoming environment.
As I said, you’ve had problems recently with the nonprofit, Common Ground, which is highly critical of you and your board of directors for not listening to their complaints about many resident issues such as rats and bed bugs, broken plumbing, unresponsive resident managers, and more.
We did meet with Common Ground and were hoping to do a partnership with them. There are many churches apart of that organization, and I have worked with some of them in the past. The church people have wanted to be part of the solution. Common Ground has raised the issue through the media. The media has publicized the underfunding of affordable public housing. This underfunding makes it difficult for us to address every issue, but our staff are dedicated and trying their best. We will partner with any organization that can help us make public housing better.
One of Common Ground’s issues is your board of commissioners. They want to have a say in who sits on your board. Currently, I believe you need to fill three positions out of seven members.
The mayor and his staff had put forth excellent experienced candidates, and HACM is waiting for the common council to approve them.
What is the job of the board of commissioners?
The fiduciary responsibility of the agency.
Another issue is that Common Ground is trying to get you fired from your job.
That doesn’t accomplish much. For us at HACM to have success, we need partners. No matter who is the director of HACM, he or she will have to deal with lack of funding. Even HUD has indicated there is a lack of resources.
What would you like Common Ground to do to help you instead of public complaining?
They could help leverage resources from the Feds, state, county or city. And help my residents with transportation needs and basic needs like food. They could also help with spring clean ups or by adopting a senior or family. But mainly, Common Ground should be fair. Yes, highlight the bad but also highlight the good. A monologue will not work, but a dialogue will. Be fair.
What has been the HACM budget this past year?
Our budget is $141 million including money that goes to our private landlords. $62 million comes from the Federal government. $38 million comes from the housing rentals. $41 million comes from our development and other funding from ancillary sources.
So how much money does HACM need to do the job the way you would like to?
Probably about $400 or $500 million, which would allow us to become self-sustainable.
