“The City” Is A Horrible Affordable Housing Partner!

Send a former police detective (Gloria Reyes) to do a Social Services Job – and you get what a police officer would do. Not what is needed. The City should not be pursuing an action against its community partner when there has been so much progress.



There is just no other way to say this – “the city” effed this up, big time. “This” being the Tree Lane affordable housing project for formerly homeless families on the west side of town. I think if you want to see why, there three videos give you a pretty clear understanding of how. The police are on one page, and the community and alders are on anther page – and of course, the police win, they have the guns and are bullies. And so is our mayor (Paul Soglin) and his staff (Gloria Reyes). I digress . . .

Why “the city”? Well, it is actually the city and the county and the United Way truth be told, “the city” is the only one that seems to be trying to “fix” it, sort of. The city and county both helped fund this affordable housing project and are paying for some services at the building. Along with the United Way, but as usual, their support is mostly upfront and for show and then they kinda disappear and say they don’t have any money to support the project they took credit for. I digress . . .

What has me so riled up today . . . this . . .

For those of you who don’t know, the “nuisance action” that is discussed here is a result of a messed up local ordinance. I say it is messed up because it is used by the police department to intimidate and harass landlords and often results in them doing things that are illegal under tenant-landlord law or the Violence Against Women Act. That’s right, I’m standing up for landlords in this limited case here. The landlords are forced to choose between angering the police department who will continue to harass them until they get what they want, or breaking the tenant landlord law. Given that most tenants don’t have lawyers and the landlord is likely to get away with it, which route do you think they choose? I can say this all now since I don’t work for the Tenant Resource Center and they can’t threaten my funding. I don’t have to play along and be nice any more. I swore I wasn’t going to be the person who stepped up and did this work for free when there are people getting paid at the Tenant Resource Center who should be doing this, but this has reached epic proportions and its clear the Tenant Resource Center doesn’t have the capacity or skills to do this work. I digress . . .

What is particularly galling about this particular use of the ordinance . . . well, there are so, so, so many things . . . but among them are that Heartland, according to the article, is cooperating and has done all the following:

Heartland has made changes affecting building access, rules enforcement, parking restrictions, lighting, installment of security cameras, coordination with law enforcement and staffing schedules and ensured there is one private security person on site at all times.

I think some of the things that “the city” has forced them to do are questionable when it comes to the rights of the tenants who live in the building. Several of the evictions were rejected by the courts, their lease has been found to be “void and unenforcible” by the court and I understand the city is pressuring the landlords to violate the Violence Against Women Act. This is so very, very messed up.

“The city” is a complicated thing here . . . the police department is doing one thing, the alder and the mayor’s office is supporting that or doing their own thing and on the other hand the Community Development Division and the Homeless Services Consortium are trying house homeless families and their children. So “the city” here is not really acting as one entity and it doesn’t seem to have goals that are are consistent. And, as usual, I don’t think we’re doing a good job of having a community discussion about solutions. In fact, look at how the community discussion is going . . .

NOTE: There may be a huge gap after the videos – scroll down . . . there is more text to this post.

The Public Safety Review Committee heard from the Police Department about the issues

The City-County Homeless Issues Committee heard from the developer/property manager (and the police were conspicuously missing from that meeting, despite having a member on the committee)

The difference between the two is that the Homeless Issues Committee understands that you can’t have one (security) without the other (services)

Even the City council members understood that! Here’s their discussion from the last meeting:

ITEM 78 – TREE LANE
Mic isn’t on, I think they are moving referral. More confusion. Discussion actually starts at 2:25.

Phair had a question about what the rationale for referral is. If this is an urgent situation, why are we waiting another 3 weeks. Lots of off mic discussion.

Paul Skidmore says that at the time Finance Committee considered this, but there have been further discussion and additional information and they are asking for delay to bring the funding for wrap around services and bring them back together so they have a total solution, instead of just one of the pieces.

McKinney says that we can’t do this piecemeal. Its not just providing more police officers and coverage, its a broader set of things the community needs.

Bidar asks O’Keefe about the referral to bring both resolutions together, this other resolution is by title only, what is the process for the language to be produced. O’Keefe says that this will be referred to the finance committee in time for it to come back to the next council meeting. Finance will meet February 11th and the resolution will be completed by Thursday for that meeting.

Bidar asks if this would go to Community Services or anything else? O’Keefe says it only goes to finance. Bidar says that this is sole source and doesn’t go to those committees?

Phair says that he agrees they should do this together, he says the strategy going forward seems disjointed and he hopes they can do better working together.

McKinney says they put Heartland in place quickly and maybe they should have done more due diligence and she hopes when this comes to Finance, she hopes they won’t just look at dollars but strategies and measurements about how the money is used. She wants to look intensely at how they can make the lives of residents and the community around them better.

I have two other rants that could be their own posts, but first, Housing First! Lets be real about this, progressive Madison is VERY LATE to the Housing First model – and its embarrassing for a so-called progressive city. Housing first was developed in 1988, 30 years ago. I mean, this isn’t new and innovative by any means, this is something the federal government/HUD had to force non-progressive communities to do. When HUD is leading the way . . . yikes! Here is (even Donald Trump’s) HUDs description of Housing First. Our big screw up here in Madison is that we don’t want to pay for the supportive services that are needed and we don’t support the nonprofits adequately that are trying their best to do this work. Funding of these projects is the fight between the city, county and United Way. It’s easier to pay for the housing upfront than it is to support it for years afterwards.  The city is stepping up, where are the county and United Way in this?  For reference, a similar project in Milwaukee run by the same property Managers Heartland Housing has $650,000 in supportive services. Here in Madison they have $165,000. That’s a huge difference.

And last, but not least

And . . . what Conner said . . .

You’re being classholes.

We seem to like the idea of social justice more than the reality of what it takes. Brag all you want about our 28 protected classes. That doesn’t mean much when you call the police when they move in next to you. Articles published about Tree Lane highlight our community’s entrenched classism. And also racism, but that’s a lot of “isms” to confront in just one op-ed.

A Cap Times article from Aug. 21 states the majority of police calls have been related to “partying, drinking alcohol and playing loud music until the early hours of the morning … littering and loitering.” Is subjecting families and their children to homelessness a just consequence for what sounds like any given night on State Street?

In a Channel 3000 article from Nov. 27, a local business owner recalls “through tears” witnessing a stolen car being discarded, stating that she, her co-workers, and her clientele are “scared.” Here’s what you need to be scared of when you’re homeless: battery, discrimination, abuse, theft, rape, harassment, trafficking, exposure, intimidation, attempted homicide.

In a Nov. 27 article in the Cap Times, Ald. Paul Skidmore decries Heartland Housing has having “failed in their promise to keep us safe.” While the residents of Tree Lane have been the sole victims of the crimes at Tree Lane, the “us” refers to the surrounding neighborhood.

The incident that garnered the most public attention was a shooting that occurred at Tree Lane in mid-November. The police report reads, “The suspect fired one round through the victim’s apartment door after he had been kicked out of the residence for fighting with another man.”

Listen: The resident was attempting to remove a nonresident from the property who was causing a problem. The fact that the resident had the safety of an apartment in which to take refuge empowered her to take control of her environment. How would this scenario have played out on the streets?

Most egregiously, not one article includes a single interviewed resident. At best this is poor journalism, at worst borderline propaganda.

To be clear, the problem is not applying constructive criticism to improve the quality of life for the residents and the surrounding community. The problem is the way in which these criticisms are framed, which prioritize privileged Madisonians.

Personally, I’m tired of trying to appease people who value preserving their own privilege above the needs of our community.

I’m tired of people who would rather others suffer the endless indignities of homelessness out of sight and out of mind than practice a little unconditional love or acknowledge their own prejudices.

I’m tired of people complaining about the callousness of Donald Trump and Scott Walker while we treat our very own neighbors just as disdainfully.

I’m tired of waiting to change hearts and minds with pathos-infused stories and evidenced-based data while people experiencing homelessness remain vulnerable to violence and exploitation.

There’s more at stake here than a bourgie temper tantrum.

It’s time to get on board or get out of the way. If you’re not willing to ask what can I do rather than what are we going to do about them, then kindly leave our community. We could sure use the housing.

And if they’re partying too loud, well, maybe they’ve earned it because they’ve survived long enough to be housed. And if they’re emotionally reactive and get into fights, maybe it’s because without fighting every minute of every day, they wouldn’t have made it.

And maybe you would understand that if instead of calling the cops, you went over and had a beer. You could even bring a six-pack of that chardonnay-barrel-aged-guava-double IPA from that craft brewery you’ve been dying to try.

I bet they’d welcome you.

Conner Wild has been involved in homeless services in the Madison community for the past decade. The views expressed here are his own.