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

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