Residents and city leaders came together at the Community Development Alliance, 3800 W. Lisbon Ave., on Wednesday, Feb. 18 to unveil a mural celebrating more than 3,000 new homeowners since 2023.

Teig Whaley-Smith, Community Development Alliance’s chief alliance executive, says that his driving force is to make Milwaukee the best place on Earth.

In 2021, the city of Milwaukee launched the Milwaukee’s Collective Affordable Housing Strategic Plan. The 10-year plan lays out a road map on advancing racial equity and ensuring a quality affordable home for every Milwaukeean.

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The plan has four main focuses: strategies to increase Black and Latino homeownership; strategies to ensure that Black and Latino residents stay in their homes; systems to make housing more affordable for those earning between $7.25 to $15 per hour; and ensuring that existing affordable housing for residents earning $7.25 to $15 per hour is preserved.

Local artist Tia Richardson speaks in front of the mural she painted that was unveiled Wednesday, Feb. 18.

Local muralist Tia Richardson created a mural commemorating the new homeownership efforts after collaborative brainstorming with local residents and staff from the Community Development Alliance. 

“I wanted to visualize that connection to developing the hearts and minds of the community, developing all of those involved and developing the future,” said Richardson.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson speaks during the event.

Ensuring residents have stable, quality housing has become one of the main focuses for Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who declared 2026 “the year of housing.”

“I’ve asked every single city department to see what we can do to support housing this year,” said Johnson.

Beatriz Espinoza and her daughter Elena Fernandez pose for a photograph during a mural unveiling and event celebrating new homeownership. Espinoza recently became a first-time homeowner.

For Beatriz Espinoza, homeownership was not a priority until she became pregnant with her daughter, Elena Fernandez. She no longer wanted to have to deal with a landlord and closed on their home shortly after  daughter was born. 

Espinoza said she doesn’t think she would have been able to become a homeowner without support of the Community Development Association. 

“Even if I would have, I wouldn’t be as financially stable as I feel that I am,” Espinoza said.

Espinoza took advantage of the organization’s Early Childhood Education Homes, a program run in collaboration with several community partners.  The program provided homes exclusively for early childhood educators for approximately $105,000.

Attendees applaud during the event.

While 3,000 new homeowners is a significant milestone, the efforts to make homeownership more accessible in the city won’t stop there.

“The main goal of the affordable housing plan is to get and sustain 1,000 new homeowners each year,” said Teig Whaley-Smith, the Chief Alliance Executive for the Community Development Alliance.

A new mural by Tia Richardson on display at the Community Development Alliance’s Home Ownership Lab, 3800 W. Lisbon Ave.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

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Jonathan Aguilar is a photojournalist as well as a Report for America corps member and Catchlight Local fellow. Before coming to Milwaukee, he spent two years as a photographer at one of America’s oldest daily newspapers, The Blade, in Toledo, Ohio. Aguilar grew up in the Chicago suburbs. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from DePaul University and his master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism.