Milwaukee County’s goal is to enrich your life by providing essential services that meet your needs and those of your family, neighbors, co-workers and friends.
We enhance the quality of life in Milwaukee County through great public service.
Milwaukee County is home to over 950,000 people living in one of 19 communities, which range in size from the City of Milwaukee, with 595,000 residents, to the Village of River Hills, with roughly 1,600 residents.
Still a manufacturing stronghold, the region features 16 Fortune 1000 companies and thousands of others in the financial services, medical device, hospitality and retailing industries.
Find information about things to do and happenings in Milwaukee County.
A Bold Step Toward Removing Barriers, Enhancing Access, and Fostering Equity in Our Community.
The Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) is committed to a ‘No Wrong Door’ model of customer service, meaning that when an individual connects to DHHS, they have access to holistic care and services, and resources offered by community partners.
The new Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Center will continue to be a trusted location to access health and human services, as it has been for more than 50 years, in the King Park neighborhood with the inherent benefits of walkability and public transportation.
Four-story, 60,000 square foot office building.
The first floor is intended for provision of information and services to the public & to house the NourishMKE food pantry.
The upper three floors are administrative space for DHHS staff.
For Supportive Services Call 211
For the first time, Milwaukee County will have a building designed specifically to deliver health and human services.
The Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Center location is served by public transportation and is adjacent to the freeway, ensuring ready access for those in need of services. Its proximity to the Mental Health Emergency Center is intentional and intended to promote a human services campus.
Designed to help Milwaukee County achieve the goals of its Climate Action 2050 plan, namely, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
The building design was recently approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to receive Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR® recognition.
View the construction livestream
A photo of Marcia P. Coggs at the groundbreaking ceremony on October 2nd, 2023. Photo by Lee Matz
With more than six decades of collective experience in government, the Coggs family has had a huge impact in Milwaukee. Marcia P. Coggs is the matriarch of that political legacy. Known as the “Conscience of the State of Wisconsin,” she was small in stature but a giant in state politics. Coggs was the first black woman elected to the Wisconsin state legislature in 1976 and the first black member to serve on the Joint Finance Committee in 1987. Coggs served until 1992, when her nephew, Leon Young, won the seat. Coggs’ husband, Isaac, was one of the first African Americans elected to the state legislature and also served on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.
Prior to serving in public office, Coggs worked 13 years for the former Milwaukee County Children’s Home, an institution that had the role of caring for Milwaukee County’s dependent children in the late 19th and 20th centuries. According to her daughter, Elizabeth Coggs-Jones, her mom would often bring children home who didn’t have family on weekends or holidays. The home for children closed in 1982, and children were transferred to smaller capacity, privately-owned, shelter-care facilities. Now the building serves the Milwaukee County Parks Administration and is on the National Register of Historic Places. When serving as state representative to the primarily black district, Coggs championed legislation in education, school desegregation, equal housing, health and racial equity. Coggs was prolific with respect to bill authorship. During her first week in office, she authored 45 of the 89 bills introduced in the Assembly that year. Three were signed into law.
Early in her career, Coggs said, “My mission is to work for social change. Period. When I say social change, that is self-explanatory: human needs.” Milwaukee County’s Human Services building at 1220 W. Vliet St. was renamed in her honor in late 2003 after Coggs passed away at the age of 75.
by:Bobby Tanzilo, On Milwaukee
With a scheduled opening about eight months away, Milwaukee County hosted a tour of the new Marcia P. Coggs Health & Human Services Center currently under construction at 1230 W. Cherry St. in the King Park neighborhood on Friday.
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by: Jeramey Jannene, Urban Milwaukee
A group of city, state and federal politicians put Milwaukee County’s “No Wrong Door” policy to a physical test Friday afternoon. Led by County Executive David Crowley, officials got a hard hat tour of the new Coggs Center, which is being designed from the ground up to embody the county’s No Wrong Door strategy of linking residents with the services they need.
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by: Lee Matz, Milwaukee Independent
County Executive David Crowley, local and state leaders, the Coggs family, and members of the public gathered on October 2 at a construction site in the King Park neighborhood to help Milwaukee County break ground on the new Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Center.
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by: Graham Kilmer, Urban Milwaukee
Milwaukee County is looking for contractors to build its new $42 million human services building in the King Park neighborhood.
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Photo by Jeramey Jannene, Urban Milwaukee
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors approved approximately $32.3 million in funds for a new county building to replace the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center.
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