There’s a new player in Milwaukee’s housing market. And here’s why residents and leaders are concerned | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
PrincessSafiya Byers
February 21, 2024
The multibillion-dollar VineBrook Homes Trust Inc. made its way into Milwaukee in 2019 and now owns about 1,000 single-family homes, primarily on the city’s North Side.
As the Texas-based company buys up homes on Milwaukee’s North Side, some residents and community advocates worry about the potential impact on the community.
Perhaps more concerning is the fact they didn’t know VineBrook had moved in.
Darrol Gibson, the executive director of the Sherman Park Housing Advancement Cooperative, or SHAC, was stunned to hear about the foothold VineBrook has gained in Milwaukee.
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VineBrook owns several homes in the Sherman Park neighborhood and hundreds in surrounding areas.
SHAC works with residents and local partners to combat investors taking over city neighborhoods.
Gibson said he worries about corporate ownership of homes and the negative implications for Sherman Park and other Milwaukee neighborhoods.
He said Milwaukee’s neighborhoods mirror the diverse people and families that reside in them. Sherman Park, for example, is reflective of the African American, Jewish and Hmong families that have lived there for years.
“Milwaukee is known for its neighborhoods. They all mean something,” Gibson said. “As investors like VineBrook come in, we see our neighborhoods losing their identities.”
According to the Data You Can Use Sherman Park neighborhood portrait, around 29,747 people live in Sherman Park. About 80% of them are Black; 12% are white; 5.1% are Hispanic; and Asians make up 1% of the neighborhood.
Data You Can Use is an organization that helps residents use data to improve community conditions
Christal West is a lifelong North Side resident. As a homeowner and community research specialist, West has seen the neglect and disinvestment that out-of-state investors usually bring to her community.
She, like Gibson, had no idea VineBrook had moved into the community.
“A quick Google search lets us know this group is a potential slumlord, so I can’t understand how we allowed this to happen,” West said.
Megan Grabos, VineBrook’s vice president of communications, said, “VineBrook is helping preserve and expand access to affordable housing in Milwaukee.
“VineBrook rents in Milwaukee are lower than market averages, and the average rent/income levels of VineBrook residents do not constitute any definition of rent burden.”
Grabos cited a report by the Urban Institute that shows housing shortages are not caused by single-family rental providers but by a lack of housing supply. She said VineBrook’s goal is to immerse itself into the complex issue of affordable housing in Milwaukee and collaborate with others to be a part of the solution.
Wyman Winston said the city continues to see investors like VineBrook moving in and buying up neighborhoods because of Milwaukee’s lack of regulation and investors taking advantage of a system meant for residents.
Winston has followed the issue closely as the principal consultant for neighborhood wealth and former executive director of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority, or WHEDA.
Milwaukee has historically had modestly priced housing, which made it attractive for families who wanted to own a home.
Some investors have taken advantage by buying those modestly priced homes in bulk for more than asking price and with no contingencies, which appeals to sellers.
That means an average family can’t compete for a home in a community in which they may live and work.
According to City of Milwaukee property data, VineBrook has been buying homes priced from around $50,000 to $150,000 in bulk from other smaller investors.
When homes are sold in bulk, those open to purchasing an entire inventory are more likely to end up with homes than those who simply want to purchase one home.
“We are now in a market where the out-of-state investors are a big part of the inability for African Americans and residents to buy because these guys have come in and bought the whole community wholesale,” Winston said.
He said because the city has no formal way of tracking investors, people don’t know these groups are in their communities until they cause problems.
VineBrook has received complaints from its tenants. There’s even a Facebook group where tenants across the nation share their bad experiences with its properties. Several residents who have posted to the group live in Milwaukee.
What’s more, the city Department of Neighborhood Services has received calls about several violations involving VineBrook properties.
Ryeshia Farmer, community program manager for the African American Roundtable, a community-organizing group that serves Wisconsin’s Black community, said VineBrook is just adding to “an already terrible, largely poor, largely Black and Brown residential experience.”
Like the others, Farmer hadn’t heard of VineBrook before NNS contacted her for an interview.
She said the city has seen a cycle of investors with no ties to the community buying up properties, resulting in negative rental experiences for residents.
A series of reports produced in the last few years, like this one from the American Sociological review, associate corporate investor-owned rental properties with poorer maintenance, higher health risks and higher eviction rates when compared to those with local ownership.
Homeowners traditionally were anchors of central city blocks, but as corporate investors move in, homeowners move out — often to the detriment of the community, Winston said.
“As we’ve lost homeowners, we see a lack of civility, the increase in crime …,” he said. “All types of craziness is the result that you don’t have those homeowners who were the anchor to block clubs.”
Leaders like Winston are urging the city to do more to monitor property ownership in Milwaukee neighborhoods, such as establishing a rental housing registry.
“Right now, they have no real way of knowing what’s going on,” he said.
According to the mayor’s office, City of Milwaukee property data is the most effective means for the city to keep up with property owners because other measures have been pre-empted by state law.
SHAC is working to establish co-ops and land trusts for homeowners.
A co-op is a form of homeownership in which residents collectively own and control a housing unit, so expenses are split between everyone who resides in that unit.
Land trusts are nonprofit organizations governed by a board of residents and public representatives that provide community assets and shared equity homeownership opportunities.
Farmer, of the African American Roundtable, said being civically engaged, reaching out to local leadership often and organizing are things people can do to strengthen communities.
Community advocates like Gibson said they are determined to fight the corporate takeover of Milwaukee’s neighborhoods.
“As a result of losing physical community, we’ve been losing community altogether,” said Gibson. “But there’s truly is power in numbers. Once we start communicating with one another, we can do something about it.”
The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel received support from the Poynter Institute for this story through funding from the Omidyar Network. The Poynter Institute and Omidyar Network played no role in the reporting, editing or presentation of this project.