Milwaukee's old, abandoned structures can be an eyesore and a haven for criminal activity, and there is evidence that families sometimes live there.
Take the sprawling, former factory near 27th and Capitol.
"We know what's going on here but we can't do anything about it. All we can do is walk by and shake our heads," says longtime area resident Martha Freeman. She's seen the vacant structure deteriorate in the decade since its owners deserted it.
Frank Crivello discovered the problems more recently. He's with a company called Phoenix Investors. Last year, it bought an industrial property next to the blighted one. Crivello says soon Phoenix noticed gang activity, drug use and vandalism.
"On the roof, young males were taking rocks and throwing them on the cars of women that were going through the McDonald's drive-through," he says. "In my 30-plus years in the commercial real estate business, I have never seen anything as bad as this."
Crivello says the problems threatened Phoenix's investment, so the company decided to buy the blighted structure, tear it down, and replace it. City Hall stepped in to help.
"The City availed itself of the powers granted to it by the state, foreclosed on this property on an expedited basis, and transferred it to us a little over a month ago," Crivello says. "Now, this was a huge value to us because we quickly and efficiently got control of this property, which is important to any real estate firm."
He says Ald. Ashanti Hamilton was instrumental in moving the process along. But the now Common Council president was also disturbed by what he saw: evidence of people living in the decrepit building.
"When we walked through this place, we found mattresses, we found children's toys, bags of clothes, all of this stuff happening right up under our nose," Hamilton says.
On Wednesday, Hamilton held a news conference to urge private investors to buy blighted properties and tear them down or build anew. In return, he says the City will do what it can to expedite the process. Hamilton is also involving Milwaukee County, knowing there are people who frequent blighted structures who desperately need help.
County Executive Chris Abele joined Hamilton for Wednesday's announcement. "A lot of the people we serve in the homeless community have issues with mental illness, have all sorts of issues, and it's a hard constituency to track," Abele says. "We don't always know where people are. And so when the City says, 'hey, look, we're going to be taking down a building, but before we do, there's a big population of people who need services,' the sooner they can let us know, the sooner we can reach out."
Longtime resident Martha Freeman applauds the effort. She says while she doesn't like the crime that occurs in the building near 27th and Capitol, she feels compassion for the drug dealers and prostitutes and homeless families who use it.
"They need help to get out of what they've gotten into and when we look at blight buildings, we've got to have that same passion for human beings," Freeman says.
