MILWAUKEE — In the past month, there have been two major developments regarding the embattled Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM).
Residents at College Court, a HACM-managed public housing building, filed a class-action lawsuit against the Housing Authority on Aug. 28. The lawsuit surrounds an ongoing bedbug infestation at the property that residents have been vocal about for more than a year.
On Sept. 11, HACM’s Board of Commissioners held their first in-person meeting in eight months. This comes after board meetings this year had either been moved to virtual, or canceled.
More than 20 residents and members of the grassroots organization called Common Ground addressed board members and HACM’s Secretary-Executive Director, Willie Hines, for over two hours.
One of those residents was Roye “Chris” Logan. Logan is the Resident Organization President at Mitchell Court, another public housing building managed by HACM. She said she has been trying to change the culture there for years. She has been a tenant at Mitchell Court for more than a decade. For more than a year, HACM has been under scrutiny for living conditions and security concerns primarily at its public housing buildings.
“It used to be such a lovely building,” she said. “Up until about six years ago, we had no problems like this.”
The problems Logan is referring to include trespassing, drug dealing, prostitution and nuisance tenants not being evicted quickly enough. She discussed a tenant who she said got evicted on Sept. 18, whom she filmed lighting off fireworks on the property’s front lawn. She said she had been reporting him for more than a year to HACM.
“They have more excuses than anything,” she said. “We’re working on it, we’re working with the city attorney, Alderwoman Zamarripa has contacted Willie Hines about him.”
A Housing Authority spokesperson would not confirm the eviction, nor would she confirm how long the eviction process took. She directed Spectrum News to court records for the tenant’s case but did not provide his first and last name.
Common Ground’s Kevin Solomon has been working with tenants to organize for two years. He said they brought up this problem tenant at two different meetings this year with the Housing Authority’s Chief of Public Safety Marlon Davis. Alderwoman JoCasta Zamarripa’s assistant was in both meetings as well.
“We had a first meeting earlier this year, and the agreement was to have a follow-up meeting in six to eight weeks,” Solomon said. “June 10th was that follow-up meeting to check in on the status of specific items they wanted addressed.”
Other items discussed included extending security hours, more lighting on the building’s back parking lot, and more lighting by the building’s back entrance. Logan said it’s a place that often sees illegal activity and vagrants.
“Anybody who comes through here late at night has to walk all the way around to the front entrance because this door is shut and locked at 6 p.m.,” Logan said. “Their safety is in jeopardy any way it goes because the lighting is so poor.”
In an email, Chief Marlon Davis said Mitchell Court has 20 cameras on the Rhombus system.
“There are supposed to be cameras out here on the parking lot, but anytime someone reports something going on with their car, ‘oh, our cameras weren’t working,” Logan said. “Or, ‘oh, we don’t have cameras in that area.”
Lighting has been a top concern for residents, Logan said, especially in the back of the building. The June 10th meeting comprised Logan, a small group of tenants, Solomon, Zamarripa’s assistant, Chief Davis and other members of the Housing Authority staff.
“We pointed ‘this light,” Solomon said. “We pointed to it. We pointed ‘this doorway’ and it was super specific.”
In that meeting, Logan, Solomon and Zamarripa’s assistant said Davis told them Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works (DPW) found the lighting at Mitchell Court to be adequate.
In a series of emails, Spectrum News obtained between Davis and DPW, Davis was only told the existing alley lights had been upgraded. A DPW spokesperson confirmed they were the only city-owned lights on the property. Therefore, they are the only lights DPW can inspect. In an email on April 26, DPW’s Electrical Services Operations Manager told Davis “it may be worthwhile looking into upgrading the lights in that parking lot.”
Solomon said Davis did not bring that email up in the June meeting.
“He just said they found it was adequate, and we asked him to share that conversation and he said he’d share a snip of it and he never sent it,” Solomon said. “Then, we get it through the good work of the Alderwoman’s office that, in fact, they recommended additional lighting in the parking lot and that the lighting could be upgraded.”
Zamarripa’s assistant confirmed DPW was talking about the back parking lot, also known as Mitchell Court’s north parking lot. On June 17, Zamarripa’s assistant emailed Davis. She said DPW also told the alderwoman that the parking lot lights are “very old and not very bright.” She also received the following response from DPW’s Electrical Services Operations Manager on June 10 regarding Davis’s claim that DPW had done a lighting survey on the whole exterior of the building:
“Our department doesn’t generally do work for HACM. It’s my understanding that they typically use outside contractors. I reviewed the request myself, and I also recommended that they look into upgrading the parking lot lights.”
Davis emailed Zamarripa’s assistant back on June 17, stating a list of improvements made at Mitchell Court. They included new lighting along the back parking lot garage and a high-intensity bulb above the back door, one of the security requests from residents. Davis also said upgrades to high-intensity lighting were done in 2023 “for the soffits, acorn light poles and north parking lot,” which is the same parking lot DPW referenced.
Logan, nor Solomon were included in that email.
“The Housing Authority has not announced any changes to tenants in the building whatsoever, no flyers indicating ‘here’s what we did,” Solomon said.
Logan said it’s a frustrating and confusing cycle she wishes would end. She said she’s resorted to carrying a pocket knife with her for her own safety.
“The only time I don’t have it is when I’m in my bed asleep,” she said. “I want to see better security personnel. I want to see a building where you can walk out the door and not worry about who’s jumping out from behind a corner. I want to see a building where you don’t have vagrants running in and defecating in your stairwell, or drug dealers running in from floor to floor.”
Another item tenants discussed at those meetings with HACM was extending security personnel’s hours. Logan said the concern specifically is regarding a gap from the time guards leave the building to the time management returns in the morning. Spectrum News reached out to HACM to see if security personnel hours were extended. A HACM spokesperson sent the following response:
“There has not been a need for additional security services revealed by data or reports to public safety. There is no data or reports of incidents that would support adding additional security at Mitchell Court.”