Since late 2025, WUWM has been reporting on the many systemic challenges that affect people’s ability to find an affordable home in Milwaukee. But just as importantly, we’ve been exploring programs and approaches that are helping to break through those barriers.
Our series, “Seeking Solutions: Keys to Homeownership,” is part of WUWM’s broader focus on solutions journalism — reporting that examines problems unflinchingly, but also shows that there’s room for hope and for action that community members and leaders can take to make a difference.
On May 27, WUWM and the Milwaukee's Community Development Alliance held an event showcasing a few stories from our “Keys to Homeownership” series. Three reporters who worked on the series spoke about their stories, each with a group who was featured in their reporting. The event closed with a conversation with Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson.
Milwaukee Community Land Trust
First, Lake Effect Producer Sam Woods spoke with Lamont Davis, executive director of the Milwaukee Community Land Trust (MCLT). In the land trust homeownership model, an organization like the MCLT sells a home on land owned by the trust. Because the homeowner is only paying for the building, it’s cheaper to buy.
“Most of our homes that have sold are somewhere between $60,000 and $90,000 dollars ... so that's affordability,” Davis says.
The homeowner must be an owner-occupant, and if they decide to sell in the future, they have to sell the home back to the land trust at a 1.25% appreciation per year. That fixed appreciation rate helps to reduce gentrification and offers predictable costs for homeowners.
“Our model really gives people predictable costs,” Davis says. “They know what their tax assessment's going to be from one year to the next. They also know what they're going to be able to sell that unit for. And for folks who have been living in disinvested neighborhoods, who've been with landlords who move ... with little notice, they appreciate the predictability of their tenure.”
You can check out Sam Woods’ full story on MCLT here.
VIA Community Development Corporation
Next, WUWM News Reporter Jimmy Gutierrez speaks with JoAnna Bautch, executive director of VIA Community Development Corporation (CDC). Founded by the School Sisters of St. Francis in 1995, VIA has been working for decades to increase housing accessibility in various Milwaukee neighborhoods.
“When people don't have to worry about how they're going to pay their mortgages, or how they going pay the rent, or how their going to put food in the refrigerator, they're able to show up more authentically in their community .... And when people are burdened by the cost of housing, it stops that and it stops all of us from working towards a better quality of life collectively,” Bautch says.
VIA has been purchasing dilapidated homes from the city and rehabbing them for sale through the Turnkey Program since 2008.
"Essentially, it was developed and created to purchase foreclosed and dilapidated properties and then designed to use philanthropic and government funding to rehab those homes and then sell them back to income qualified families, many of whom are first time homebuyers,” Bautch says.
She says that without VIA, many of these cheap properties might otherwise be bought up and flipped for massive profits by out-of-state landlords. You can find Jimmy Gutierrez’s story on VIA and other community groups here.
Acts Housing
WUWM News Reporter Maayan Silver is joined by Dee Kemp, vice president of Impact at Acts Housing. Founded by St. Michael’s Catholic Church on the West Side in 1995, Acts offers a wide variety of services — from homebuyer education to lending to real estate brokerage and home rehabilitation.
“When families come to us, we've made a commitment to [them]. We've said, ‘If you do the work, we're going to have your back, we're going to be there next to you, and we're going to help you find something that's safe, affordable, and sustainable,” Kemp says.
Acts Housing is working to increase homeownership and reduce out-of-state landlords' grip on the Milwaukee housing market. For Kemp, access to housing is a matter of human dignity.
“You consistently hear about home [ownership] being one of those social determinants of health,” she says. “[But] more than that, it's a social determinant of dignity to me: do we believe that every person is valued enough to have the right to a stable, safe, and affordable home, or do we not?”
You can check out Maayan Silver’s story on Acts Housing here.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson
To conclude the event, WUWM News Reporter Eddie Morales spoke with Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson. Johnson says 2026 is the “year of housing.”
“The ‘year of housing’ is about working to make sure that we're elevating the things that we are doing around housing in Milwaukee and working to make sure that folks in the city have access to housing that is affordable, safe, that meets their needs,” he says.
He speaks a bit about his continued housing priorities this year: growing Milwaukee’s population (and tax base) to one million, growing the number of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in Milwaukee, pairing library building projects with housing development and working with nonprofits and developers to increase the supply of housing at all levels. Johnson says that includes everything from affordable workforce and middle-income housing to luxury developments as well.
“I want housing at every single price point, because when more folks who have the ability to go into luxury housing or market rate housing, when they have the ability to do that, it lessens the pressure on other folks who are trying to rise up into other housing that we have in the city,” he says. “More housing growth is good across the board.”
Check out the, “Seeking Solutions: Keys to Homeownership,” here.
