The City of Milwaukee and the Housing Authority has received a $30 million federal grant to revitalize housing and improved the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
The city plans to use the money to transform the northwest side of Milwaukee and redevelop the western half of the Westlawn Neighborhood, said Paul Williams, spokesman for the Housing Authority.
About 708 new housing units are planned for the neighborhood, which is bound by Sherman Boulevard west to 76th Street & Mill Road south to Villard Avenue.
The city also plans to work with Milwaukee Public Schools and focus on making sure every child living in the neighborhood is enrolled in an early childhood education program and that the schools are performing at a high level. There will also be a focus on workforce development, public safety and health care, Williams said.
“We want to focus on the neighborhood as a whole and maximize assets so it is an attractive place for businesses to locate,” Williams said. “There are a whole host of partners who will unite so residents will have the services they want and need.”
Milwaukee is one of five cities to receive $30 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to redevelop severely distressed public housing and revitalize surrounding neighborhoods.
HUD also awarded $30 million grants to Atlanta, Kansas City, Mo., Memphis, Tenn. and Sacramento, Calif. as part of President Obama’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, which is intended to transform distressed public and assisted housing into sustainable, mixed-income housing with access to community assets and services.
The five cities have proposed to replace more than 1,650 distressed public housing units with more than 2,800 new mixed-income, mixed-use housing units as part of an overall effort to revitalize neighborhoods.
For every $1 in Choice Neighborhoods funding they receive, the awardees and their partners will leverage an additional $9 in public and private funding for their project proposals.
In Milwaukee, the $30 million will be matched with $251 million from the city and Milwaukee Housing Authority’s partners, Williams said.
