A $7.5 million grant from Wells Fargo to boost homeownership among Milwaukee families of color, will be spent on acquiring homes, down payments, and financial counseling for would-be homeowners.
The donation is being done through the company’s Wealth Opportunities Restored Through Homeownership (
WORTH) initiative, a $60 million national effort to address systemic barriers to homeownership for people of color. Milwaukee is just one of eight markets across the U.S. to receive a WORTH grant. It competed with 15 applicants nationwide.
Teig Whaley-Smith of the
Community Development Alliance (CDA) – an affiliation of stakeholders that has long collaborated on neighborhood improvement efforts in Milwaukee – and Michael Gosman of Acts Housing will lead the effort, which aims to create 5,000 new homeowners of color in the city by the end of 2025.
The first $2 million of the WORTH grant will be used to leverage a total of $11 million to acquire 100 homes per year, Whaley-Smith said.
Speaking at a press conference outside The Mecca Sports Bar and Grill in downtown Milwaukee’s Deer District on Wednesday evening, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who both experienced housing insecurity growing up, applauded the news.
“This is a (monumental) occasion,” Johnson said. “Growing up in Milwaukee I went to six different elementary schools, plucked out of classrooms in the middle of the school year, because we moved so many times. No family, no kid, should have to endure that, and that is the future we want to bring to residents all across our city.”
Crowley called the WORTH grant a significant step towards achieving racial equity in Milwaukee County. As a child, he and his family were evicted three times in the span of two-and-a-half-year period, he said, not because his mother “didn’t want to pay rent, but because she wasn’t getting enough hours” at her job to actually afford the rent.
“We know that communities of color have faced many barriers when trying to purchase homes. That history has had an adverse, generational impact on many people in this community. And it has had a detrimental impact on the collective health of our community… but here we are today, addressing that history, not only with intent, not only with strategy, but most importantly with dollars.”
How it will work
As part of the WORTH initiative, the CDA has outlined the following strategies: Acquire and rehab roughly 100 properties that would otherwise likely be owned by investors; scale homebuyer counseling and down payment systems to support 1,000 families of color per year by growing these systems 10% per year; maximize existing inventory systems by producing 75 starter homes available each year for families of color; and advance other supportive systems that help increase homebuyer success rates.
According to U.S. Census data, Milwaukee has the second-lowest homeownership rate of major cities in the United States. White homeownership is at about 56%, Latino homeownership is at 38% and Black homeownership is at 27%.
Future strategies will focus on reducing Milwaukee’s homeownership gap through down payment assistance and converting vacant lots into entry-level homes.
'Financial legacy'
During the press conference, Gigi Dixon, head of external engagement for Wells Fargo in North Carolina, pointed to Rae Johnson, an
Acts Housing participant who became a new homeowner in 2020 thanks to the program. The press conference took place just before Acts Housing's “Neighborhood Table 2022” event – a fundraiser celebrating the more than 3,214 families the entity has helped purchase homes over the last 26 years.
Speaking after the event, Johnson, who was able to purchase and rehab a five-bedroom, two-bathroom 1926 bungalow in the Lindsey Heights neighborhood thanks to help from an Acts homebuying coach and real estate agent, said she was happy to see Wells Fargo stepping up to address racial inequality in the housing market.
“I like that they are recognizing their history, and the roles they and other companies played in literally blocking people out of the housing market, and are doing something about it,” said Johnson, who is the first homeowner in her family.
“It feels really humbling. It’s cool to be the first. It’s scary,” she said of being a homeowner. “My family is really proud of me and has been really supportive. We didn’t grow up with a lot of financial literary, so just knowing that I am creating this financial legacy for my 12-year-old son is reassuring.”
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