Low Income Housing Milwaukee

PNC buys $76 million in tax credits for Westlawn project

The tax credits were awarded to the city of Milwaukee’s housing authority, which will spend $85 million developing 250 affordable housing units, improving Westlawn’s public infrastructure and incorporating environmentally sustainable design. The balance of the funds will come from the housing authority, the federal government and another undisclosed source.

PNC Bank’s investment represents the Pittsburgh-based bank’s first local tax-credit project since entering the Milwaukee market in December 2008 by buying National City Bank. Then-Gov.

Feds sue New Berlin over low-income housing denial - 620 WTMJ ...

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MILWAUKEE (AP) -- The U.S. government has filed a lawsuit alleging New Berlin city officials caved to pressure from their largely white community by deciding not to build low-income housing that could attract more black families.

The mayor and other city officials voted in May 2010 to allow the construction but reconsidered following an immediate backlash from the community, according to federal prosecutors. Their lawsuit was dated Wednesday and released Thursday.

Messages left with Mayor Jack Chiovatero and City Attorney Mark Blum were not immediately returned.

New Berlin is about 15 miles southwest of Milwaukee. The city's website quotes 2000 census data that say about 96 percent of the city's 38,000 residents are white.

The lawsuit said MSP Real Estate Inc. of St. Louis Park, Minn., submitted an application in March 2010 to build 180 units of affordable housing in New Berlin. The units would be designated for low-income workers and seniors, and rents would be below market rate.

The city Department of Community Development recommended that the application be approved. A few days later the city planning commission, of which the mayor is a member, voted 4-3 to approve the general application.

Over the next few weeks, city officials were inundated with emails and phone calls, the majority of which voiced opposition to the project, federal prosecutors said.

"Some of the opposition was based in part on fear that the prospective tenants would be African American or minority," the lawsuit said.

Congressional Record, V. 153, Pt. 2, January 18, 2007 to February 1, 2007

Congressional Record, V. 152, Pt. 17, November 9, 2006 to December 6, 2006

Journal of affordable housing & community development law

Black Milwaukee, the making of an industrial proletariat, 1915-45

Developing affordable housing, a practical guide for nonprofit organizations