During the past six months, the Forum has facilitated meetings of a local stakeholders group seeking to collaborate on efforts to prevent evictions in Milwaukee County. Our new report summarizes the group’s initial recommendations, which include pursuit of several promising strategies for improving service coordination and filling service gaps.
Key consensus items include:
- Create a new tenant and landlord resource center to serve as a “front door” for eviction prevention services in Milwaukee. Establishing such a center could help clarify and simplify the process of accessing services and could help service providers function as more of an integrated system.
- Expand awareness of mediation services. Recent efforts to steer tenants and landlords to pre-eviction mediation have shown the promise of that strategy, but few are aware it exists. Enhanced referral processes and community awareness strategies are needed.
- Enhance capacity of temporary rent assistance programs. Existing programs in Milwaukee County have limited resources and narrow eligibility criteria. A new or expanded temporary rent assistance fund should be created to assist more renters facing temporary financial emergencies.
The eviction prevention stakeholder group was convened by the City of Milwaukee and CommonBond Communities with the assistance of a grant from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment.