2000 Best Practice Awards

Best Practices: Home Sweat Home – Beloit Housing Authority

Beloit Housing Authority Offers Residents Training for Carpentry Employment

Beloit. The "Home Sweat Home" program offers a public yearlong employment and training opportunity in carpentry and housing rehabilitation to housing residents. The Beloit Housing Authority established the program in partnership with Beloit Neighborhood Housing Services, Rock County Opportunities Industrialization Center, and the Beloit Foundation. Phase I of the program involves in-class training in math, interview techniques and resume writing, as well as hands-on instruction in carpentry and construction techniques. Upon graduation, participants receive a certificate and a set of tools before moving on to Phase II, an internship program in rehabilitating houses. The participants apply the knowledge and the skills they learned from Phase I and spend six months working under the supervision of two carpenters. They are also required to attend a multiple-week Home Buyers Club course. For public housing residents that meet additional criteria, their labor or "sweat equity" may be applied toward the down payment on a house that they help rehabilitate. Participants also receive a minimum wage stipend for 20 hours of work each week. To date a total of five public housing residents have graduated from Phase I and one resident has graduated from Phase II.

Contact: Catherine Percell, Phone: 608-364-8750
Tracking Number: 1782
Winning Category: Program (Public and Indian Housing)

Best Practice: Eastpointe Apartments

Renovated Eastpointe Apartments Reserve Complexes for Low-Income Residents

Madison. Future Madison Eastpointe, Inc., a 501(c)(2) not-for-profit organization, spearheaded the renovation of Eastpointe Apartments, a 20-building complex. These buildings house 120 families in the Madison’s Darbo-Washington neighborhood. The renovated apartments will include refrigerators, oven ranges, garbage disposals, carpeting, patios, blinds, laundry hook-ups or a common laundry room, and outdoor surface parking. Twenty-four units are reserved for tenants with household incomes at or below 50 percent of the County Median Incomes (CMI) for Dane County and 48 units are for tenants at or below 60 percent of the CMI. The rents, including utilities, do not exceed 30 percent of the median income. The Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority and HUD ensured that the appropriate funding from the public and private sectors was obtained. The project was creatively financed with loans from the city of Madison’s Home Investment Partnership’s funds and with tax credits sold to a local bank. This project has been the catalyst behind the revitalization of a declining neighborhood in Madison.

Contact: Fritz Grutzner, Phone: (608) 836-1152
Tracking Number: 104
Winning Category: Program (Multifamily Housing)

Best Practices: Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program

Milwaukee Health Department Reduces Lead Poisoning in Children

Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Health Department’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program was developed in response to a higher than national average for childhood lead poisoning. It includes an intervention program that protects at-risk children while maintaining the affordable housing stock. A Lead-Safe Housing Standard, codified in two city ordinances, was developed following identification of windows as a likely source of lead exposure, and adoption of a cost-effective abatement procedure for windows. Through grants from HUD and city funds, certified lead abatement contractors were hired to conduct window abatement, at the cost of $135 per window. Property owners also invest an average of $400 per unit for lead-safe maintenance. The results: window treatment that will protect children for 15 or more years, a cost-effective program that encourages voluntary participation and maintenance of the affordable housing stock. A working group of 20 affordable property owners has helped to develop and refine the standard. Since 1997, 1,700 housing units have seen lead hazard reduction. The standard has also enabled establishment of a registry of lead-safe housing, and may be adopted statewide.

Contact: Amy Murphy, Phone: (414) 286-8028
Tracking Number: 3211
Winning Category: Program (Office of Lead Hazard Control)

Best Practice: City Hall Square

City Hall Square Offers Residential and Commercial Space in Downtown Milwaukee

Milwaukee. City Hall Square provides 136 units of mixed-income residential and commercial space in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. The project is located directly across from the city hall, a Flemish Renaissance building, and along the recently developed Milwaukee River Walk. The project cost $17 million, of which more than $8 million was financed with a FHA-insured mortgage. Putting together the financing package was a particularly complex process involving three kinds of tax credits: low-income housing, historic preservation, and tax-exempt bonds. In addition to a FHA-insured mortgage, the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority, the city of Milwaukee and a major private investor, Kimberly-Clark Corporation of Neenah, WI, provided financing. To accommodate the various players, the Wisconsin HUD office guaranteed speedy processing and reasonable flexibility.

Contact: Lynn Fournier, Phone: (972) 281-1460
Tracking Number: 106
Winning Category: Program (Multifamily Housing)

Best Practice: Deconstruction, Recovery & Reuse of Building Materials for Affordable Housing

Milwaukee Uses Recovered Materials to Provide Affordable Housing

Milwaukee. The Harambee Ombudsman Project, the REEHouse Development Company, Guaranty Bank, and North Shore Bank have partnered to create a unique arrangement in which condemned buildings are demolished by hand, and building materials from these structures are recovered and reused to build affordable housing. At-risk youth are trained to carefully demolish the buildings, offering continuous on-the-job training that allows these workers to better understand the construction process. This training is enhanced by in-shop construction of wall systems and other tasks and further supplemented by at least one full day of classroom training per week on construction techniques. The partnership plans to use recovered materials to build two to five affordable homes annually in the economically disadvantaged Harambee community. The Wisconsin Conservation Corps provides five trainees from the local neighborhood and two supervisors to help deconstruct existing structures, process recovered materials, fabricate wall components, and build new houses. Because the Corps pays crewmember salaries, labor costs to the partnership are reduced and the newly constructed homes are more affordable.

Contact: Casandra Slade, Phone: (414) 272-3933
Tracking Number: 1566
Winning Category: Program (Community Builders)

Best Practices: Homeownership Counseling Education Consortium

Education Helps Potential Homeowners

Milwaukee. The Homeownership Counseling Education Consortium, started in 1994, is a partnership of state and local government, nonprofit organizations and private business, working together to expand housing opportunities by offering comprehensive training for homeownership counselors and educators. The consortium works on the premise that education helps to overcome obstacles to homeownership, and that well-informed consumers can better protect themselves from discriminatory practices and feel less threatened by the home buying process. The weeklong training program, based on case studies, introduces participants to homeownership counseling techniques and mortgage and real estate guidelines. It also includes fair housing and fair lending information. The consortium started continuing education classes in 1999—offerings include consumer regulations, fair housing, insurance, and diversity issues. Each partner brings its own expertise to the training—for example, Metro Milwaukee Fair Housing Council conducts fair housing education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee provides program coordination, lending institutions provide the underwriting criteria, and the city and county provide clients. Because the consortium provides a standardized approach toward homeownership counseling, it has gained the support of area lenders.

Contact: Carole Jones, Phone: (414) 278-5251
Tracking Number: 3205
Winning Category: Program (Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity)

Best Practice: The Milwaukee Community Capacity Project

Project Builds Community’s Ability to Solve the Problem of Childhood Lead Poisoning

Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Community Capacity Project (MCCP) organizes communities to address childhood lead poisoning in high-risk, minority neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Created in collaboration with the educational arm of the Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund, the state's largest advocacy organization, the MCCP builds the community’s ability to be a part of the solution to the problem it faces. As part of the MCCP, the Milwaukee Health Department Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program establishes contracts with community-based organizations to prepare neighborhood-specific education initiatives, promote risk-reduction behaviors, and develop community empowerment and capacity to support primary prevention. A resident leadership group designs projects and influences decisions that increase lead-safe housing availability in each neighborhood. Through basic community health education activities—such as presentations, health fairs, neighborhood canvassing and community meetings—organizers have been able to raise awareness and concern while identifying potential leaders in their community. Community awareness events have reached hundreds of residents, and a Primary Prevention Ordinance was passed in Milwaukee requiring owners to fix high-risk rental properties before children are lead-poisoned.

Contact: Sara Schubert, Phone: (414) 286-5537
Tracking Number: 3242
Winning Category: Program (Office of Lead Hazard Control)

Best Practice: Regional Opportunity Rental Initiative

Initiative Offers Many Freedom to Relocate by Reducing Financial Barriers

Milwaukee. Through the Regional Opportunity Counseling (ROC) program, HUD seeks to promote regional strategies for helping Section 8 certificate and voucher recipients choose neighborhoods that offer the best housing, education, and employment opportunities for them. Recognizing that ROC program participants were frequently unable to accomplish a move to better areas because of the financial barriers, Milwaukee County applied to the State of Wisconsin's Housing Cost Reduction Initiative (HCRI) program. The HCRI program provides grants to local units of government, public housing authority, American Indian tribes, and nonprofit organizations for projects that reduce the cost of housing for low-income renters and homebuyers. The HCRI grant, used as a revolving loan fund, supplies an immediate source of security deposits, first and last months' rent and assistance to tenants in bringing their utility bills up to date. All other funds are repayable at zero interest, with flexible terms designed to accommodate each family's financial circumstances. This initiative has provided security deposits equaling $18,285 to 33 households; first and last month's rent of $6,967 to 20 households; utility assistance in the sum of $5,745 to 17 households; and moving expenses of $12,471 to 28 households.

Contact: Nancy Olson, Phone: (414) 278-4899
Tracking Number: 2188
Winning Category: Program (Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity)

Best Practice: SCO Self Help Housing Program

Milwaukee’s South Community Organization Doesn’t Sweat the Down Payment

Milwaukee. The South Community Organization, Inc.’s Self Help Housing Program is a housing rehabilitation and homeownership program that enables low-income homebuyers to reduce down payment requirements, earning sweat equity through self help labor. Applying the successful self help model used throughout rural Wisconsin to an urban environment, the organization helps families’ purchase rehabilitated or newly constructed houses. The program serves low-income, larger families that are effectively priced out of segments of the housing market. By performing an average of 400-600 hours of work, including demolition, clean up, interior painting, and floor sanding, homebuyers can earn up to 10 percent of the development cost of a single or two-family home as their equity investment in the property. Families receive technical assistance and training and homeownership counseling. To date a total of 19 units are completed or under construction, 13 have been purchased, and seven families are in the process. In addition, the program has trained families to maintain and repair their properties, and many of the participants have learned new skills and been able to find better jobs in the building trades.

Contact: John M. Bach, Phone: (414) 643-7913
Tracking Number: 2134
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: The Wisconsin Homeownership for People with Disabilities Collaborative Institute

Wisconsin Helps People with Disabilities Buy Homes

Milwaukee. The Wisconsin Homeownership for People with Disabilities Collaborative Initiative is a multi-agency, statewide project that helps low- and moderate-income people with disabilities become homeowners. While homeownership overall in Wisconsin is 70 percent, the National Home of Your Own Alliance estimates that less than 5 percent of those receiving Social Security disability benefits are homeowners. This project enables people with disabilities to access mortgage products specifically designed for them. In addition, two collaborative members, the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority and Fannie Mae, expanded flexibilities within mortgage underwriting guidelines to qualify credit-worthy homebuyers with disabilities. The initiative also creates financial support mechanisms for homebuyers who wish to purchase new homes. This collaborative design will be promoted as a model at the National Council for Independent Living Conference in July 2000.

Contact: Charlene Dwyer, Phone: (262) 782-2480
Track Number: 1475
Winning Category: Program (Community Builders)

Best Practice: Best of the Best

Wausau Community Development Department Puts Good Ideas to Good Use

Wausau. Staff members from the city of Wausau’s Community Development Department attended the Best Practices Symposia in Charlotte, NC, in 1998 and Kansas City, Mo., in 1999, where they learned about successful programs sponsored by communities and nonprofits. These Best Practices were borrowed and customized by Wausau in the spirit of taking good ideas and applying them to improve local community development activities. The city’s Community Development Department now offers housing counseling to help low- and moderate-income residents purchase new homes. The department also developed a partnership with the Marathon County Health Department to undertake lead hazard reduction in Wausau homes. A fair housing message is now included on resident water bills, and the department organized a neighborhood council to serve low- and moderate-income residents under the Building Better Neighborhoods program. Finally, the department developed a pamphlet to help first-time homebuyers find answers to questions related to real estate closings. These programs assisted 15 low-income families purchase their primary residence, and assisted over 150 potential home buyers, assisted 12 households with lead issues, and mailed out 14,300 fair housing messages.

Contact: Ann M. Werth, Phone: (715) 261-6680
Tracking Number: 2865
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: Long Term Flood Mitigation Strategy

Wauwatosa Removes its Homes from its Flood Hazard Area

Wauwatosa. On June 21, 1997, the city of Wauwatosa suffered tremendous flood damages to more than 1,000 of the city’s 6,000 homes and caused Wauwatosa to lose more than $8 million from private property damage. A single business had over $1 million worth of damage while another went out of business. In 1998, there was another incidence of flooding along the Menomonee River, signaling the need for immediate action for serious flood mitigation. HUD’s Milwaukee Community Planning and Development office was the first to extend aid to the city. The HUD Disaster and Recovery Money served as the instigator for additional funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Combined, the funds will eventually lead to the removal of all 67 residential and 10 commercial properties from the flood hazard area, resulting in the removal of two-thirds of the city’s flood hazard area. Along with these projected goals, all of FEMA’s designated repetitive loss properties will also be removed. Thanks to the flood mitigation efforts, over 120 individuals have been relocated from flood-prone housing to equal or improved housing locations.

Contact: Mr. Robert Harris, Phone: (414) 479-8957
Tracking Number: 1627
Winning Category: Program (Community Planning and Development)

Best Practice: Replacement Housing Program

Replacement Housing Program Provides Students to Construct Homes

LaCrosse. The Replacement Housing Program is a collaboration between the city of LaCrosse, the Western Wisconsin Technical College and Community Action Program (CAP). The program uses Community Development Block Grants to buy and demolish dilapidated housing. After a parcel is cleared for construction, Home Investment Partnership funds are used to finance the new home construction. The actual construction of the home is done by the students of the Wood Technologies class at Western Wisconsin Technical College. The students serve as the construction work crew performing all tasks from digging and setting the foundation to last minute internal finishing details. A city of LaCrosse construction manager and the professor of the Wood Technologies class supervise the students. The students work on-site during the morning and attend classes in the afternoon. While the home is being developed, the city of LaCrosse works with CAP to do homebuyer counseling for income eligible clients.

Contact: John Florine, Phone: (608) 789-7512
Tracking Number: 745
Winning Category: Program (Community Planning and Development)

Content Archived: April 20, 2011