Who Owns What in Milwaukee

Branden DuPont

Milwaukee Common Council Meeting

Steering and Rules Committee

101:18 & 1:14:42

Problem

Milwaukee policymakers and community members face a serious obstacle in working to improve housing conditions, neighborhood stability and displacement: we don’t know “who own’s what.” We need a public-facing portfolio of property ownership that shines a light on who Milwaukee's top evictors are.

• Not at all
• By hand, weeks of manual effort

How Property Ownership Mapping Was Originally Handled

Government Officials ≠ Landlord Accountability

Two Antagonists

• Republican Legislature (Robin Vos)
• Siloed data systems

Robin Vos + Landlord Legislation

• Preemptive legislation on
  • municipal landlord registration
  • LLC's only need registered agent
  • moratorium on eviction moratorium
• Robin Vos himself a landlord

Data Siloed

• Data on property ownership siloed between multiple agencies
• Data access is $$ and difficult to work with

Data Obstacles

• Data inventorying is boring & slow work, with many dead ends
• Eviction data suddenly cut off
• Wisconsin Department of Financial Records
  • Need to scrape data from their website one by one

Property Ownership Mapping: Imperfect But Useful

Who Owns What in NYC

Wins Along the Way

Partnership with Marquette Law School

Collaboration's Major Findings

•  The number of eviction filings a housing unit receives depends more on who the landlord is than how poor a neighborhood’s renters are.
• Large landlords and out-of-state landlords file for eviction at significantly higher rates than small landlords, especially ones who rent in the same neighborhood where they live.
• A small number of rental properties — this includes anything from single-family homes to apartment complexes — are responsible for the vast majority of eviction filings.
• Some renters are the targets of multiple eviction filings, a practice referred to as “serial eviction filings.” (40%)

CDC Moratorium Trends

CDC Moratorium Trends

• The two months after the end of Governor Ever's moratorium, Berrada filed an estimated 497 evictions -- approximately 17.47% of all evictions filed in Milwaukee during that time period.
• During the CDC eviction moratorium, Berrada filed an estimated ~22 evictions. This is a 99.98% of Berrada's historical average and 1,481 less eviction filings when compared to three-year average of the same period (1,503 eviction filings). Berrada is averaging less than 1 eviction per month during the CDC moratorium whereas before the pandemic he filed an average of ~122 eviction monthly evictions.
• Highlighted Milwaukee Rental Distribution Efforts

Milwaukee County Right to Counsel Passed

American Rescue Plan Funds

How Its Used So Far

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel team
• Legal Aid attorney’s using the site to strategize targeted legal representation
• Legal Action using the site in court to demonstrate how a certain landlord weaponizes housing court
• WI DOJ AG Litigation
• Milwaukee Tenant Union
• Milwaukee DA Investigation

Finally, Thanks