Housing advocates at the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council (MMFHC) have created an impactful toolkit for vulnerable communities that continue to be impacted by the legacy of redlining.
MMFHC traces its roots back to 1977 when Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood was beginning to become racially integrated. At the time, Sherman Park was a mostly white neighborhood with realtors engaging in “blockbusting” to prevent it from becoming integrated.
Blockbusting is a racially discriminatory practice of scaring white homeowners into selling their homes because members of a protected class are about to move into the neighborhood. To counter the blockbusting efforts, a group of 40 neighborhood residents founded MMFHC in 1977.
The organization works to educate people about housing discrimination and how to combat it. MMFHC is the only member-based nonprofit organization working on fair housing issues in Wisconsin.
“We work to address the legacy of redlining, which still haunts our neighborhoods today,” said Bethany Sanchez, senior administrator of fair lending at MMFHC.
Due to the 50-year-long legacy of dedicated advocacy and community organizing of groups like the MMFHC, Sherman Park is now one of Milwaukee’s most racially and ethnically integrated neighborhoods.
MMFHC also created multiple programs to address housing discrimination, such as fair housing education training and fair housing testing initiatives that it offers to neighborhood-based and community service-oriented nonprofits, banks and realtor organizations.
“Our programs look at larger policies and systems in order to encourage more racial integration and economic integration,” said Sarah Jenkins, MMFHC’s program manager for outreach and education.
Outside of its education efforts, MMFHC engages in fair housing enforcement efforts. MMFHC’s enforcement program helps renters and homebuyers address fair housing concerns through the legal system. MMFHC receives fair housing complaints, investigates them and then fights on their clients’ behalf in court. MMFHC clients have won 642 of those cases due to the advocacy tools that were acquired from the organization.
MMFHC also operates a housing accessibility program called Opportunity MKE. The program is designed to help Section 8 voucher holders in Milwaukee County find housing in neighborhoods with good schools and high-paying jobs. So far, 78 people have enrolled in the program, with MMFHC expecting to have a total of 125 families enrolled by the end of the first year. Jenkins said Opportunity MKE is particularly impactful for children.
“There’s a better likelihood that they’ll graduate from school, earn higher incomes and be less likely to experience chronic health conditions,” said Jenkins.
NCRC has strengthened MMFHC’s work by providing the tools, knowledge and networking opportunities to grow its reach in the communities it serves. For example, NCRC trained MMFHC’s staff on the Community Reinvestment Act, which improved MMFHC’s fair lending programs by giving them the tools to work with banks to expand their service offerings for low-income households.
NCRC has also helped connect MMFHC with new supporters and program partners through its advocacy efforts and national conferences.
“Advocacy is always about power in numbers,” Sanchez said. “So the more people you have saying the same thing, it sends a message.”
Robert Davis is a Contributing Writer with NCRC’s Communications team.
Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council.
