Inside Common Ground’s Historic Campaign to Reform Public Housing

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Local organization Common Ground’s Tenants United campaign is working to hold the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) accountable in keeping Milwaukee public housing safe and healthy. Common Ground has talked to thousands of tenants in these units about poor living conditions and HACM’s failure to address such issues accordingly. Milwaukee has had its fair share of inspiring marches, movements and protests, and the Tenants United campaign’s systematic display of low-income resident power is a profound example in recent history.

We spoke to Common Ground Associate Organizer Kevin Solomon and Resident Leaders Betty Newton, Chris Logan, Patrick Murphy and Felicia Shoates about their formidable efforts.

According to their website, HACM manages over 5,000 subsidized and affordable housing units in 27 properties, making them the second largest landlord in Milwaukee, behind Berrada Properties. HUD data shows that HACM residents are about 90 percent of color; many are senior citizens, people with disabilities and/or veterans. 

Origins of Common Ground’s Campaign

In February 2022, as an organizer focused on Milwaukee’s South Side, Kevin Solomon began speaking to tenants living at the HACM property Southlawn about issues they had with their living conditions. “I knocked on over 300 doors in the rain, snow and heat, and I found that people were dealing with a lot of big problems,” he recalls. “Mold, water leaks in basements, rats in walls, people having to throw bikes in streets to stop reckless driving, shootings, residents constantly feeling unsafe, unresponsive management … people were angry.”

Common Ground is a nonprofit, non-partisan coalition of 44 community organizations such as faith institutions, schools and small businesses. The group’s mission is to build power to address issues of economic and racial justice. Common Ground is funded by its member organizations and has a 15-year track record of making changes on systemic issues like housing, healthcare, gun safety, and most recently driver’s education.

The organization assembled a team of 20-25 residents at Southlawn to begin addressing issues. They went to the city and met with District 13 Alderman Scott Spiker, succeeding in getting speed bumps, traffic signs and potholes filled.

But then the organization discovered the same issues at other HACM properties.

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According to Solomon, “In almost two years, we’ve talked with more than 1,800 tenants across 22 HACM properties. We encounter the same systemic mismanagement everywhere.”

Speaking Out, Retaliation and Making Change

Mitchell Court tenants met with Solomon and talked to him about disrepair, infestations and poor treatment from management. “At the time I met Kevin, we had an abusive manager who made everything either her way or no way,” Chris Logan shares. “We were restricted on the use of our building and would get locked out of our community room, our TV room, our exercise room—everything.”

She says that she experienced intimidation from this manager once she started working with Common Ground, adding, “I received five written violations within one month. It was whatever the manager could chalk up and put on me. Then when I met with HACM and brought Kevin with me, they tried to force him to leave.”

Soon after that, tenants at Lincoln Court began organizing. Patrick Murphy jumps in, “We had the same manager as Mitchell Court with all the same problems as them. My shower had black mold and paint peeling off. The manager kept losing work orders and nothing was being done about it.”

Once Common Ground got involved, HACM proceeded to fix Murphy’s shower—but with a “band aid” patch job. “They sprayed over the mold, put plaster on it and then painted over it,” Murphy describes. “I could’ve done a better job of it myself.”

According to Medical News Today, black mold can cause symptoms such as respiratory problems, congestion, red eyes and skin rashes. HACM tenants have reported having such health issues.

Betty Newton at Becher Court adds that she and her fellow tenants got locked out of their amenity rooms as well, plus they dealt with issues like infestations, faulty plumbing and no working heat. “I would send emails to HACM and get no response,” Newton confirms. “I made a petition with all of the things we were promised in the HACM ad, and the ayor responded to it with a letter thanking me for advocating for my residents and that he would talk to HACM. But nothing happened.”

After being provided Solomon’s number at a resident organization meeting, Newton began working with Common Ground. Together they developed a team of residents, held listening sessions with dozens of others and went door-to-door talking to 84 residents in the building. Many reported plumbing or heat issues, and nearly all reported feeling unsafe.

“We’ve had six managers in the two years I’ve been at my building,” Newton notes. “We share managers with another property so they’re only at ours for half the week, and they do not have any idea of half the stuff that goes on in our building because they’re not there enough.”

A murder occurred on the 11th floor of Locust Court last year, where Felicia Shoates lives. “The perpetrator was posted up for two weeks in our building and making threats to the tenants, but we didn’t have security there to help anyone,” she details.

In 2022, 302 police calls (including 56 life-threatening ones) were made to Locust Court, according to MPD data cited in the Performance Review of Executive Director Willie Hines conducted by Common Ground and HACM residents. Three shootings, 10 instances of shots fired and 23 batteries were reported there that year. The city considers a building a nuisance if there are three minor crimes within 30 days or two violent, vice or gang-related crimes in a year. 

Newton adds that the tenants of these properties, many of whom are elderly or disabled, are being told to be their own security. “They blame a lot of these issues on the tenants and tell us that there’s not enough of them and that we need to patrol ourselves. It’s not our job to do something that they’re paid to do.”

An Ambiguous Relationship With the City - Clarified

Common Ground’s Tenants United campaign went live in March 2023 with 1,007 people at Mount Mary University. They have successfully applied pressure on HACM to fix hundreds of maintenance issues, install new lights and cameras, hire outside evening security, resolve unnoticed rent issues and much more in the aforementioned properties.

One of their biggest achievements has been securing permanent city-level accountability over the Housing Authority. 

Residents flooded City Hall in September holding up signs with pictures of mold, bedbugs, rats, broken windows and other deplorable living conditions, occupying the main room, overflow room and Zoom. It was one of the largest demonstrations of organizing by public housing residents in Milwaukee history, as well as one of the most well-attended Council hearings. 

In October and November, resolutions were passed establishing City of Milwaukee Department if Neighborhood Services oversight over HACM, with two full-time DNS inspectors specifically for the Housing Authority. The ordinance went into effect on January 1.

Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, along with Alderman Jose Perez, supported Common Ground from the beginning. “We must ensure that our city owned and supported housing is of the highest quality in order for our residents to thrive,” she affirms.

A Real Seat at the Table

Identifying leaders among tenants in each property is key to Common Ground’s organizing efforts. “Everybody was just fed up but scared,” Logan attests. “When I started speaking out, others followed. You’ll always run into a few naysayers—even tattletales—but you’ll also have a lot of people who have your back.”

“The mindset of a lot of people in my building had been that HACM wasn’t going to fix anything,” Newton adds. “And that’s accurate. We as residents had to create the changes we wanted. Working with Common Ground, we built a food cooperative serving healthy food twice a month in my building and we provided residents with free laptops.”

Logan points out, “We shouldn’t have had to go to Common Ground just to have our voices heard.”

One major goal of Common Ground now is to institutionalize a public housing tenants organization. “There is nothing of the kind in Milwaukee right now and it’s sorely needed, so we are building it,” Solomon reckons.

“We’re going to keep working hard until the tenants are happy again,” Logan assures.

Dimitrijevic maintains her support for Common Ground and HACM residents. “This is what makes the local government take action and be better,” she said about Tenants United. “To the residents who are demanding more: we hear you and we are working to improve conditions for you. You deserve the best.”

A recent Common Ground press release announced that both them and HACM residents are demanding the Housing Authority fire Executive Director Willie Hines Jr, who has been in his position since March 2022. Newton states in the release, “We as residents no longer have confidence in Willie Hines’ leadership. Despite faithfully paying rent for years, we have been neglected. These problems have started, worsened, and continued on Hines’ watch. My neighbors and I are tired of our rent subsidizing his incompetence, negligence, and over-inflated salary.”

Hines notably refused an on-camera interview about unresolved HACM issues with TMJ4 back in December. 

Tenants dealing with similar issues but under private landlords should contact the Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union, who have been leading the charge with tenant-led councils in the city. “Real balance of power creates real change,” Solomon concludes. “Success in this campaign is new, competent HACM leadership, and tenants winning a seat at the table.”

Learn more about Common Ground on their website at https://link.edgepilot.com/s/d8f30d4e/_XOi1k84PkugLy0-D50BBw?u=https://www.commongroundwi.org/.