Federal official visits Milwaukee’s troubled housing authority, but the public wasn’t invited

By A.J. Bayatpour

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    MILWAUKEE (WDJT) — A top federal housing official visited Milwaukee Friday and met with residents of the embattled Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM). Activists say the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) pulled the rug out from under them, pledging last month to give them a meeting with Richard Monocchio, the principal deputy assistant secretary for HUD’s Office of Public and Indian Housing, then telling them this Monocchio would not have time for that meeting.

Felicia Shoates, a tenant at the Locust Court apartments, said she saw Monocchio tour the building Friday. She said her biggest concern with the building was unwelcome visitors constantly getting inside.

“We have trespassers urinating and defecating in our stairwells,” she said. “Yesterday morning, I was on my way to work. I live on the 14th floor. There was urine right in front of the elevator.”

Two other Locust Court residents did not want to be interviewed on camera, but they told a CBS 58 reporter they’re fed up with drug dealing and trespassing on the property.

The activist group, Common Ground, has taken up the cause of residents who’ve long complained about safety, maintenance and bookkeeping issues at HACM. The group’s lead organizer, Jennifer O’Hear, said those complaints are still coming in.

“Someone the other day called me because the housing authority had her sign a lease that was backdated two years,” O’Hear said. “And they said, ‘Guess what? Now, you owe all this rent because we raised your rent two years ago.'”

Common Ground has focused its energy on removing HACM’s executive director, Willie Hines. The group recently sent an open letter to Mayor Cavalier Johnson calling on him to endorse the idea of HACM’s board finding a new director.

When asked if he was meeting with Monocchio during his Milwaukee visit, a spokesperson for Johnson said the mayor did not have a public event on his calendar but believed it was set up as a private meeting.

A spokesperson for HUD said Monocchio would not be available for an interview Friday. The spokesperson said HUD would provide a “readout” of his conversations with HACM residents, but when asked for that readout Friday, the agency did not respond.

O’Hear shared an email James Cunningham, a deputy regional administrator, sent to Common Ground on July 17 offering to have Monocchio meet with the group.

“PDAS Monocchio still plans to travel to Milwaukee in August,” the email read. “And we will set aside time to meet with Common Ground during that visit.”

O’Hear then showed an email she received Wednesday from Stephen Lucas, the chief of staff for the Office of Public and Indian Housing.

“Unfortunately since that original email, we are no longer be able to add meetings due to a scheduling change,” the email read.

“Our meeting wasn’t an add,” O’Hear said. “It’s been in there since this visit was planned.”

Shoates said she had planned on attending the meeting and had arranged with her workplace to have an extended lunch break so she’d be available.

“For him to cancel at the last minute was very disrespectful,” she said.

On Tuesday, Acting HUD Secretary Adrianne Todman visited Milwaukee to announce additional federal funding would be available for new affordable housing developments. Todman told CBS 58 at the event any decisions about Hines’ future should be left to the HACM board. She indicated inadequate funding might be one of the agency’s problems.

“Sometimes it’s all about leadership, but sometimes people need money to put toward the things that I know the residents need,” Todman said. “And this administration will continue to fight for those fundings.”

HACM is poorly managing the money it currently receives, according to an April 2023 HUD review. It outlined more than $3 million in “forced adjustments to the bank reconciliation” and noted HACM was even failing to track how employees used agency-issued credit cards.

O’Hear said she was still holding out hope for a future meeting with HUD because HACM won’t hear them out. She noted that starting in February, the board stopped having its meetings in-person at City Hall. Instead, each meeting since then was staged virtually.

“I think they’re hiding from us,” she said. “They don’t want to be publicly accountable.”

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