A thick description of four city foreclosuresTeonna Cooksey
I examined boarded-up houses in Milwaukee’s North Side neighborhoods to find out why these once-active households turned into vacant and derelict buildings. Each of these homes has spiraled into dereliction within a span of one year, between 2016 and 2017. The homes share one thing in common: The residents of these homes were evicted by the city because the homeowners failed to pay property taxes or keep up with home maintenance. Many people think that the primary reason for an ongoing housing crisis is a homeowner's failure to pay his or her bank’s or lender’s mortgage bills. The common understanding is that homes are foreclosed by the banks who hold the ownership rights to these properties. However, the history of these four homes tell a different story. These are not bank-foreclosures. Instead, they are city-tax-foreclosures, houses condemned or acquired by the City. Since 2011, the number of city tax foreclosures increased exponentially. My goal is to examine the human impact and everyday practices that lead to city-tax foreclosures. I am interested in finding out how the physical structure of a building gets implicated in a destructive process that renders a vibrant home empty and worthless. City-tax foreclosure is a legal process. It involves the city government taking ownership of a property if accumulated fines or property taxes are not paid by the landlord. If a property forecloses, the tenants who may also live in that property will no longer have an active lease, no matter how much time is left on the lease prior to the foreclosure.[1] Therefore, although a foreclosure order takes the property away from the landlord, it requires the tenants to physically vacate the premises too. All the homes that were analyzed are city-tax foreclosures. Two of those homes show evidence of the tenants being evicted.[2] Homes that are occupied and lived-in suggest character, investment, class, and power of the homeowner. Valorized stories of homeownership are always part of idealized narratives around American neighborhoods.[3] Careful analysis, however, points towards a more complex and uneven history. Investment on homes depends on the larger social and economic conditions. What begins as a vibrant working and middle class community falls into bad times as economic, political and social changes devastate the region. The homes we studied suggest that investments on these buildings declined gradually, leading to a general deterioration of the housing stock and, more recently, to increasing forfeitures and city-tax foreclosures. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, Milwaukee’s North Side homeowners were from middle and upwardly mobile working class backgrounds. Many were employed in local industries.[4] During this period new homes were built and new settlements expanded westwards along North Avenue. The second period began around the middle of the twentieth century. The neighborhoods changed, going from majority white homeowners who had enough income to sustain a stable community, to majority African American tenants who did not.[5] In addition, the neighborhood housing stock declined further, as urban development and the highway construction changed the physical and social character of the area. Many industries, particularly those along a thriving railroad corridor, began to downsize. Racist urban policies and social inequities ravaged inner city neighborhoods. Nevertheless, we continue to find stable communities of African American homeowners in this area. The third period, began around the last two decades of the twentieth century, when major downgrading and disinvestments in the region destroyed its infrastructure and economic base. Many of the thriving industries of the region simply left. Warehouses were empty, stores were vacant, factories were derelict. Residents left for better neighborhoods and newer communities, leaving behind the downwardly mobile neighbors who could not move. The incarceration rate among residents increased, further devastating the human resources of this region. Economic decline contributed to unemployment and high rates of poverty. [6] |
Community Members' Views on Foreclosed and Vacant Properties in Sherman Park
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The first home
The first home that survived the three periods is located on 2478 W Vine Street in Milwaukee. As field school researchers examined the ownership history of this house they uncovered a story that demonstrates the consequences of the demographic and economic shifts on this street since early twentieth century. The story begins in 1903 when a building permit was initiated by H.G Ahiengs, but it was not until June 10, 1905 that an architect named Jacobi and a mason named R. Hoeppson built this brick cottage. The owner at the time, Juno Peterson, envisioned this house as a single-family residence. The interior was spacious, 4,800 square feet. The plan of the home was common among pre-WWII houses with low-hip roofs and interlinked living, dinning and kitchen areas in the ground level. The bedrooms and garage defined the back end of the home and were located away from the public and formal front zones. Bedrooms were tucked away on the upper level. Our research shows that considerable economic and social capital were invested on this home. Although Peterson owned the home from 1931-1942, additional work was not done on the home until August 19th, 1947. The owner, Sander Paterson, requested Cream City Company to apply inset brick to the exterior, erected the wood stairs from the second floor, and installed a full bathroom on the first floor. He also hired Iron Fireman Mfg. Company as the contractor to install a BP-200 gas burner. During his ownership, the building was considered a single-family home, with two bedrooms on the rear end of the second floor. He remained the owner until 1956, and by the end of his ownership, the housing authority re-categorized the building type into a duplex flat. This change in nomenclature, coinciding with a period of economic decline in this neighborhood, suggests that the home turned into a rental unit or a multi-family dwelling. When the field school encountered this home, it was vacant. A family was recently evicted and their belongings remained on the premises. This family that left was originally from Tennessee. Thomas and Georgia Flippin moved to Milwaukee after 1950.[7] They bought this home and had a stable household income. They lived in Milwaukee until their deaths in 2002 and 1986 respectively, but before dying, Thomas invested in the Wisconsin Memorial Park. They had five children together; Pearline, Yvonne, Sherral, Peshonne and Algier. The entire extended family lived in the same home. Pearline took out a mortgage, Sherral had six children—one attending MATC and another played football at his high school. Peshonne had three children and eventually ended up serving time in jail. After Georgia’s death, the family’s financial struggles started. In 1987, notices for unpaid bills and payment letters for the memorial came frequently. However, during the 1990’s, the family seemed to be more financially stable. This stability lasted well into the 2000’s, until Peshonne went to jail. Her absence contributed to increasing financial and even social barriers for the family. According to the most recent permits, there was a series of violations from 2005-2010, but there is no owner listed, nor is there any detail of the violations. The economic decline ended three generations of this family’s history—in 2015, there was a seller permit from the city of Milwaukee and by March the home was vacated. When we entered this home in the summer of 2016 we found furniture, clothes, toys, pianos and household good, as left behind by the departing Flippin family. Third home
My third case study is on 2506-08 N. 40th Street in the Sherman Park Neighborhood of Milwaukee. The home was built by Frank Zimmerman in 1914 and was intended to be a two-story flat. At the time, the cost of building the home was $48,000. Like the previous homes discussed above, Zimmerman made considerable investments to this house when it was built. The front section of the house is distinguished by intricate woodwork, ornamental moldings, and elaborate built-in furniture. A duplex home, typically, has two separate living units stacked on top of each other. One of these units can be rented out, generating revenue for the homeowner. In 1919, the then-owner George Schmitt added a garage. Schmitt lived in the lower unit with his family and worked as a merchandise broker. He rented out the upper unit to Richard, who was a foreman for a food and coal merchant, and his wife Hattie. By 1930, George Schmitt’s name disappeared from the manuscript census records and was replaced by two new names, listed as renters. Fred Gaertner, a jobber and his wife Marge shared the apartment with Mary Schilling who worked as a bookkeeper in an electroplating company. Mary lived with her adult daughter who worked as a store clerk in a stove manufacturing plant. In addition, a lodger named William Relihan who worked as a foreman in a motorcycle manufacturing plant also resided in the same premises. Within the span of two decades the duplex served as a residence, a rental unit, and as a home for an extended family with lodgers. Throughout its history, the count of residents, apartment owners, and renters on each floor of the building changed. Each made many structural changes to bathrooms and kitchens in both units and the attic.[9] Beginning in 2004, there were multiple changes in ownership. E. Offord owned the home in April, and the owners changed to MMG Capital LLC on December 15, 2004, to Danielle Debattista by December 28 of the same year. Shortly after those changes, the home started to receive many garbage violations and more frequent changes in ownership going into 2005. By 2007, three different people had taken ownership of the home and, the city had put out a nuisance order due to the furniture, bushes and broken windows found in the rear of the yard. These issues with inconsistent ownership and garbage violations continued well into 2010, accumulating $456 in fees for those owners. After 2011, the owners switched between Sareena L. Schwabe and Wells Fargo Bank suggesting bank mortgage problems. People vandalized the deteriorating property with graffiti, and in July of 2014, it was condemned due to interior maintenance. The city inspector noted in the final report that there was a carbon monoxide leak, exposed wires, pipes, boards on the windows, rotted-out porch (upper and lower) and a wide-open attic. However, records and historical images suggest that the home continued to be occupied by tenants during this time. It was not until 2017 that city took ownership of the home and exterminated any lease agreements attached to it. It is unclear if this property was subject to a practice called walkaways when bank lenders sue for foreclosure from homeowners, but never take the title. [10] As the house remains vacant and abandoned, it accrues back taxes and falls apart, only to be ultimately condemned or acquired by the City. |
Second home
This house was built in 1890. The story of this house represents the essence of transformation and investment, its history demonstrates that maintaining a single-family home is a difficult and laborious task. This story also shows us how homeowners struggle to keep their homes in good condition. The earliest record of a permit pulled for this now-vacant city-tax foreclosed home on 2461 W. Vine Street, is from 1953. The permit was submitted by an owner-builder named Lawrence Paquette. At that time, the garage was labeled as a wood frame barn and the interior was made of concrete, with no windows. Paquette became partial owner in 1947 along with Mickey Lester. In 1949, the city directory shows him as the sole owner. In 1953 he had the garage razed. The house changed hands multiple times and in 1969, the owner Kim Taylor hired a contractor named Sabepp Love to install a burner unit in the building. Amidst the changes in the neighborhood, described above, the ownership of this house changed hands too. By 1977, the new owners of the home were Lee Vester and Annie Mae, and the home was now considered “old” by the housing authority. The changes made during Vester and Mae’s ownership were mostly maintenance changes responding to several violations of Chapter 51 of the Housing Code. [8] The owners had to fix these problems in order to avoid property forfeiture. For instance, the exterior wood trim, wall surfaces, and front porch needed paint or another protective coating. There was a lack of required downspouts on the south side of the home. The chimney mortar and brick was missing to the rear of the house, and there were defective glitters to the east side. The housing inspector labeled many of the windows defective—with issues ranging from putty, to window panes and sashes that needed to be repaired. The steps were loose on the supporting columns of the porch, and the foundation of the home was missing mortar in all cardinal directions. The owners had to fix the problems, otherwise they would face foreclosure. The owners filed for an appeal based on the outcome of their inspection on September 28, 1977. On January 20, 1978, they received an extension to fix the code violations by September 1, 1978. Although they were working on those repairs, Lee Vester wrote a letter in which he requested more time because he could not afford to fix everything within that time frame. The story ends with the city forfeiting the property. Fourth house
The final example of a city-tax foreclosed home in Sherman Park is located on 2475-77 North 40th Street. The last residents moved out in April of 2017. Built in 1922 by W. Johnson, the original structure endured minor modifications until January 1944. The furnace in the basement caught fire and spread to the walls and furniture in the upper levels of the home. An owner by the name of O’Reilly spent years repairing the damages, which totaled about $3400. After the repairs were done, he requested a permit to transform the duplex into a three-story home. He was denied because there wasn’t enough space on the lot of land. From 1950 through 1978, there were two different owners who invested capital and labor on this home. P. Dow updated the electrical work and switched the gas burner, and Richard Schmitz installed white siding on the upper half of the building. The new siding was necessary to replace the old rotting wood. By 1991, Tonia Benford requested a permit to transform the lower level into a wedding consulting and planning business. Soon, beginning May 2011, the address began receiving nuisance violations that stemmed from the abandoned vehicles on the property. By 2012, it was sold to Chase Home Financial and was pending foreclosure with an outstanding balance of $275 dollars. In 2013, City records indicate that a new owner Nicholas Cline also had a pending foreclosure—with an outstanding fee of $329.55 dollars. The City of Milwaukee initiated a sell of the home in August 2013 to Deutche Bank National Trust. In October of the same year, a car backed into the home, leaving a hole in the side of the house. By that time, it was owned by Jocelyn Kimbrough, who initiated the home into a Neighborhood Improvement Project by December. During her ownership, she received multiple garbage nuisance violations. She remained owner until February of 2017, when she left her ownership with $255 dollars in outstanding fees. The first signs of the home’s exterior decline appeared in 2014, and has since gradually become worse. |
The older the housing stock becomes, the more likely it is to encounter maintenance and structural issues. Inability to invest on the property leads to lack of maintenance and upkeep. A pattern of disinvestment underpinning each of these stories shows that the complex process that produces abandoned homes in Milwaukee depends on multiple factors such as lack of employment, policy loopholes, social inequity, and apathy. The most prominent factors contributing to the decline is economic stability caused by a lack of employment opportunities within the community — a problem that impacts household income and rising cost of living.
[1] Definition of city-tax foreclosure--Tax Lien Foreclosure. (New York, Investopedia, LLC. 2017) Print. (Accessed July, 2016).
[2] Eviction is the removal of a tenant from a rental property to a failure to pay rent or any other breach of the tenant agreement. When a tenant is evicted, they could have from 5-90 days to vacate the premises, depending on what the court decides.
[3] John Gurda, Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, (Milwaukee: Historic Milwaukee, Inc., 2015)
[4] ibid.
[5] John Gurda, Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, (Milwaukee: Historic Milwaukee, Inc., 2015)
[6] Williams, Peter. Building Societies and the Inner City. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Vol. 3, No. 1 (1978), pp. 23-34. Accessed August 10, 2017 http://www.jstor.org/stable/621809
[7] Francesca Bisi, “A Story of a Foreclosure,” Picturing Milwaukee: Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School, Summer, 2016. http://blcfieldschool2016.weebly.com/a-story-of-a-foreclosure.html (Accessed July, 2017)
[8] Chapter 51 of the Housing Code is a series of regulation guidelines that are meant to maintain inhabitable living conditions. Violations to these codes result from homes having inadequate foundations, ventilation systems or mechanical systems. http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx
[9] Kaitlin, Malliet, “A Vacant Duplex on 40th Street,” Picturing Milwaukee: Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School, Summer, 2017. http://blcfieldschool2017.weebly.com/vacant-duplex-on-40th-street.html (Accessed July, 2017)
[10] Cary Spivak, “Lenders abandoning foreclosed properties,” Journal Sentinel, July 11, 2009,
http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/50548282.html/, (Accessed August 10, 2017).
See also, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
[1] Definition of city-tax foreclosure--Tax Lien Foreclosure. (New York, Investopedia, LLC. 2017) Print. (Accessed July, 2016).
[2] Eviction is the removal of a tenant from a rental property to a failure to pay rent or any other breach of the tenant agreement. When a tenant is evicted, they could have from 5-90 days to vacate the premises, depending on what the court decides.
[3] John Gurda, Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, (Milwaukee: Historic Milwaukee, Inc., 2015)
[4] ibid.
[5] John Gurda, Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, (Milwaukee: Historic Milwaukee, Inc., 2015)
[6] Williams, Peter. Building Societies and the Inner City. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Vol. 3, No. 1 (1978), pp. 23-34. Accessed August 10, 2017 http://www.jstor.org/stable/621809
[7] Francesca Bisi, “A Story of a Foreclosure,” Picturing Milwaukee: Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School, Summer, 2016. http://blcfieldschool2016.weebly.com/a-story-of-a-foreclosure.html (Accessed July, 2017)
[8] Chapter 51 of the Housing Code is a series of regulation guidelines that are meant to maintain inhabitable living conditions. Violations to these codes result from homes having inadequate foundations, ventilation systems or mechanical systems. http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx
[9] Kaitlin, Malliet, “A Vacant Duplex on 40th Street,” Picturing Milwaukee: Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School, Summer, 2017. http://blcfieldschool2017.weebly.com/vacant-duplex-on-40th-street.html (Accessed July, 2017)
[10] Cary Spivak, “Lenders abandoning foreclosed properties,” Journal Sentinel, July 11, 2009,
http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/50548282.html/, (Accessed August 10, 2017).
See also, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019).