Mary Spicuzza

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The City of Milwaukee is seeking developers interested in buying and rehabilitating foreclosed houses in the Sherman Park neighborhood.

The $1 million program will subsidize the renovation of 100 tax-foreclosed homes. Those homes will be sold for $1 each to developers, who will then be eligible for grants of up to $10,000 per home.

"It's a huge opportunity," said Ald. Russell W. Stamper II, one of the sponsors of the legislation that created the program.

He said small businesses, community-based organizations and non-profit groups — as well as people interested in jobs and workforce training — could benefit from the program.

"A big part of this is a workforce jobs skills program," Stamper said. "The workforce jobs skills portion will help us develop a pipeline for all of the billions of dollars of development that is happening downtown. So we want to grow business capacity with the small businesses, and grow workforce opportunity to individuals from the inner city."

COMPLETE COVERAGE: Sherman Park turmoil

Developers chosen to participate will be required to buy five or more city-owned foreclosed properties in the Sherman Park area, renovate them up to code-compliant standards, and hire at least one unemployed or underemployed worker for each house purchased. The work must be done by June 2018.

The houses being renovated must be in the greater Sherman Park area, bounded by N. 60th St., N. 20th St., W. Capitol Drive and W. Lloyd St.

City leaders also hope the program will encourage owner occupancy in the neighborhood.

"The goal here is for home ownership," Stamper said.

The money funding the program was announced in the wake of violent unrest in the Sherman Park neighborhood in August. That violence erupted after a Milwaukee man named Sylville Smith was shot and killed by then-Milwaukee Police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who was recently charged with first-degree reckless homicide in the shooting.

Milwaukee is set to release a request for qualifications (RFQ) for developers on the Department of City Development's web on Jan. 6.

On Jan. 9, a meeting about the program will take place at City Hall. City leaders are encouraging interested developers to send a representative to the meeting.

The program is being funded as part of a $2 million grant from the state Department of Financial Institutions for the demolition and rehabilitation of blighted properties.

That money was made available by the state Department of Justice and comes from a settlement with Volkswagen in connection with the company's manipulation of emission control readings.

It is also part of a $4.5 million funding package for Milwaukee that Gov. Scott Walker announced in the weeks after the unrest.

In addition, that package included $1.5 million in federal money for the Transform Milwaukee Jobs program; $1 million to help Milwaukee businesses train workers; and efforts by the Department of Workforce Development to send mobile teams into distressed neighborhoods.

Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett have previously clashed when the state in 2012 used some of the money from a mortgage industry settlement to plug a budget hole rather than address foreclosed homes.

At the time, Barrett said, "hundreds and possibly thousands have lost their homes because of this bait-and-switch" by lenders who pushed subprime mortgages during the housing bubble.