A $6.2 million redevelopment project led by Layton Boulevard West Neighbors, Inc. and Impact Seven, Inc. earned recognition from Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago this week as the organizations were honored with the bank’s Community First Partnership Award.
The award highlights the community revitalization work of the bank’s member institutions and their local partners, with an emphasis on saluting efforts around economic development and affordable housing.
Town Bank, a key lending partner to LBWN and Impact Seven, nominated the organizations for an award for their Rent-To-Own Homes program, which over the course of 2013 and 2014 renovated 24 bank and city-owned properties on Milwaukee’s south side into inhabitable spaces. Along with 22 residential foreclosures, those properties encompassed a city-owned foreclosure along a commercial corridor of the Silver City neighborhood, now home to retailer Our Daily Salt, and another mixed-use property that will eventually become home to a tailoring business.
Rehabbed properties are located in Layton Boulevard West, Clarke Square and Muskego Way neighborhoods.
The organizations’ revitalization work has breathed “100 years of new life” into each property, according to Charlotte John-Gomez, executive director of LBWN.
Currently, all 22 residential homes are occupied by residents who are “now contributing to the improvements in the neighborhoods as well,” she said.
Through the Rent-To-Own Homes program, those residents are able to rent their homes for 15 years. Every month, LBWN and Impact Seven, who own the homes along with National Equity Fund, record a credit. By the end of the 15-year-timeline, those residents will have a $36,000 credit toward the purchase of their homes.
The properties, including the commercial spaces, area also improving property values in their neighborhoods while acting as catalysts for additional community development, John-Gomez said.
Along with LBWN and Impact Seven, Rent-To-Own Homes program partners include: Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, Town Bank, Bank of America, City of Milwaukee, LISC Milwaukee, National Equity Fund, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, s.c., Schultzwerk Architecture, Universal Construction Solutions, U.S. Bank, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority, Wisconsin Redevelopment, Multicultural Entrepreneurial Institute, Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation, and the Zilber Family Foundation.
LBWN and Impact Seven accepted their award during a ceremony held in Madison on Tuesday.
The organizations are looking forward to pursuing other development projects that will make the same kind of impact, John-Gomez said.
