Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett will announce Thursday a partnership aimed at decreasing foreclosures. The city has not been hit as hard as others, but is seeing its fair share. And lending institutions are now reluctant to give mortgages to risky borrowers, because defaults have been rampant nationwide. WUWM’s LaToya Dennis reports on a couple efforts underway in town, to make sure more people don’t become statistics.
It’s 8:30 on a rainy Saturday morning and about 15 people are gathered in a meeting room at Select Milwaukee Inc. It’s a non-profit organization that works to increase home ownership by teaching novices the basics. Mary Dietrich is here. She wants to learn a few more things, such as what types of mortgages are available. Dietrich has actually been meeting with counselors from Select Milwaukee for eight months to repair blemishes on her credit report.
“Umm, just like some old telephone bills and old cable bills and stuff like that. A car loan,” Dietrich says.
Dietrich has three kids and works as a medical assistant at Aurora Health Care. She says owning a home has always been a goal of hers.
What have you learned so far?
“Umm, to budget my money, to put money away for things just in case of an emergency, like if our furnace breaks down or I need emergency repair on the roof,” Dietrich says.
Dietrich says she notices stories in the news every day about foreclosures and shady lending practices, but after working with counselors at Select Milwaukee, she says she’s ready to purchase.
“I feel really secure right now. My credit is very good now and I know I can get the affordable house that with my income I can have,” Dietrich says.
Dietrich smiles when she talks about her ideal home—a four-bedroom, single-family in West Allis.
“It’s a nice place to raise children,” Dietrich says.
Raymond Schmidt is executive director of Select Milwaukee. He says the majority of people who walk into his office are like Dietrich. They have work to do before they’re ready to buy a home, because lending practices have tightened. He says however, that shouldn’t scare people off, because those who seek help before purchasing end up in a much better position.
“I think it’s safe to say that people who avail themselves of programs like ours today literally are going to save thousands and thousands of dollars over the life of their home ownership experience compared to many people who don’t take advantage of services like ours. Or people who have become default and foreclosure statistics,” Schmidt says.
Schmidt says the foreclosure rate for people who participate in home-buying classes at Select Milwaukee is 0.6 percent. In 2006, the foreclosure rate for Milwaukee County was nearly four times that, with the majority occurring in the inner city, according to Michael Barndt. He’s with the Non Profit Center of Milwaukee.
“The near northwest side around Washington Park is a good example of a hot spot, but it’s been fairly broad between 27th and 40th, Wisconsin and Capitol. There are some other hot spots around the city but basically in some of these neighborhoods many properties have been in the foreclosure process,” Barndt says.
“My goal is to have as many people as possible remain in their homes and really minimize the number of foreclosures,” Barrett says.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says he hopes the partnership he’s scheduled to announce today will also help people in some of the hardest-hit areas.
“Just last week I was out in the neighborhoods and saw four homes that were foreclosed upon and were empty. And creates problems in and of itself, because they become targets for people who are interested in vandalism or arson or prostitution or drug dealing,” Barrett says.
Barrett says the partnership he’s formed involves lenders, counseling organizations and community groups and will be funded by federal dollars. The coalition hopes to keep people facing foreclosure in their homes, improve the rate of code compliance for bank-owned properties and reduce crime at vacant foreclosed properties. The mayor says the city needs to stem foreclosures because they hurt not only the people losing their homes, but also the well-being of the community.
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