Milwaukee has $400M in federal aid and many proposals for how to use it
Advocates: Use $200M in relief for housing
The push-and-pull over nearly $400 million in federal pandemic relief funds has begun in earnest in Milwaukee.
Community groups and their supporters packed together outside a Common Council meeting room Thursday morning to advocate for $200 million for affordable housing just before the finance committee inside heard from Mayor Tom Barrett and approved spending $13.7 million on issues considered urgent.
“People need to know what’s going on so that their involvement is meaningful and focused,” the Rev. Greg Lewis, executive director of Souls to the Polls Milwaukee told those gathered. “We’ll have to educate ourselves, everybody. Nobody’s just going to give us the information . ... We can’t let this opportunity pass us by, and it certainly will if we don’t pay attention.”
The City of Milwaukee has been allocated $394 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, half of which the city has already received.
The events Thursday followed a vote of the Common Council a day earlier on a process for deciding how the first half of the funds will be spent. That process requires council members to submit requests for using the money by 5 p.m. on Oct. 1 and the compiled requests to be made public by Oct. 12.
The three pieces of legislation that won the committee’s support on Thursday were for needs deemed too urgent to go through the longer process: reckless driving, eviction prevention and support for the city’s struggling ambulance system.
The Milwaukee County task force charged with making recommendations for spending the $183.6 million received by the county also endorsed two emergency funding proposals Thursday.
Community groups call for $200 million for affordable housing
A half-dozen community groups and their supporters packed into the hallway outside the meeting room at City Hall to call for half of the city’s allocation to be devoted to affordable housing. “There’s no question that good housing is the core of absolutely every stable, safe, and thriving community, period,” said Jarrett English, director of housing development for Metcalfe Park Community Bridges.
He added: “We’re going to sit right at the table as these decisions are being made, and we’re going to make sure that the voices of the community are heard during these discussions.”
Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, or BLOC, said this funding should be used not only for bricks and mortar but also for programs such as apprenticeships that build skills and efforts that help homeowners make needed repairs.
In the month before council members’ proposals are due, she said, it will be key to continue educating community members in addition to keeping the pressure on elected officials.
Mayor Barrett cautions council on spending
Barrett in his comments soon after
ward cautioned committee members to be careful about how they allocate the funds.
Barrett said the second half of the money should not be allocated before it is received but also warned that the city’s lost revenue from the pandemic was likely to require a significant portion of the $400 million this year and in years to come.
“This is raining on the parade, but I think it’s important we have this honest conversation,” Barrett told the committee. “This nearly $400 million plan, roughly, will be reduced, if you decide to do it, in the next three years by $150 million in lost revenue.”
The city budget office calculated the revenue loss in 2020 at $53.7 million.
Barrett said the 2022 proposed budget he will release in the next month will use about $35 million of the federal funding to make up for lost revenue “to avoid service cuts and to avoid layoffs.”
The remaining $19 million is part of the $93 million “Stronger Summer” plan, he said.
Barrett may no longer be mayor when many of the allocation decisions are made, if the U.S. Senate approves his nomination by President Joe Biden to become ambassador to Luxembourg.
$13.7M for struggling ambulance system, eviction prevention, reckless driving
After a lengthy discussion, the finance committee approved spending more than $13 million in order to address pressing issues.
The allocations, if they receive council approval, will come on top of $3.8 million spent on the “Earn and Learn” program earlier this year.
The committee approved spending $7.15 million to respond to reckless driving, $4.7 million to support the ambulance system and $1.8 million for eviction prevention.
The reckless driving funding includes $1.15 million for the Police Department in addition to $6 million for the Department of Public Works to make changes to the streets that are meant to slow drivers and reduce reckless driving.
The $4.7 million seeks to respond to an emergency system that is stretched thin and bracing to lose one of three remaining private ambulance companies in the coming months.
Of that sum, $2 million would go toward staffing two ambulances the Fire Department is running on an emergency basis, and the remaining $2.7 million would provide financial assistance to the two remaining private ambulance companies that handle lower-level medical incidents.
“We either are going to embrace the facts as they are — and they made a very wise decision in there today — or we are going to absolutely hit a brick wall and there’s not going to be a recovery that occurs any time soon,” Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski told the Journal Sentinel after the committee vote.
The $1.8 million would go toward the Milwaukee-area’s right to counsel program for people facing eviction, an allocation officials argued became that much more urgent after the U.S. Supreme Court last weekrejected the Biden administration’s latest eviction moratorium.
Milwaukee County task force recommends emergency spending
Milwaukee County’s task force on Thursday recommended a total of $4 million in emergency spending in addition to unanimously approving a framework to guide its recommendations, according to a statement from the county.
One proposal would use $2.5 million for the county’s pandemic response, including helping the county to continue offering COVID-19 testing for employees, vaccine outreach and administration, and more.
The other proposal allocates $1.5 million to provide a “flexible housing subsidy” for people who are homeless or at risk of losing their homes.
The proposals will go before the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.
The new framework called for putting 63% of the federal funds toward “revenue loss recovery,” 20% toward “community support” measures such as limited-term financial assistance for residents, 13% for COVID-19 mitigation and 4% toward “fund administration” such as ensuring compliance with grant requirements.
“There’s no question that good housing is the core of absolutely every stable, safe, and thriving community, period . ... We’re going to make sure that the voices of the community are heard during these discussions.” Jarrett English director of housing development for Metcalfe Park Community Bridges