About These Data
The Milwaukee County housing data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimate1. Milwaukee County’s Strategy Dashboard Team in partnership with the Community Development Alliance selected five key performance indicators determined to be relevant to housing stability: homeownership rate, rent burden, homeless count, eviction and anti-displacement.
Why These Data Are Important
Milwaukee County’s vision is to be the healthiest county in Wisconsin by addressing racial equity, and we have developed a strategic plan that focuses on addressing the root causes of racial inequities. Housing stability is critical to dozens of quality-of-life measures including employment, early childhood development, stress levels, education and health.2
The data show there are many challenges to housing in Milwaukee County including low wages and the end of the eviction moratorium in place during much of 2020 and 2021. Milwaukee County is also losing homeownership. From 2010 to 2020, Milwaukee County homeownership decreased by nearly 3%. Disproportionately, Black homeownership decreased 4.4% during that same time.
What Are We Doing About It
This effort aligns with the Milwaukee County’s strategic focus activity of applying a racial equity lens to all decisions and investing “upstream” to address root causes of health disparities. With this dashboard, Milwaukee County is charged with compiling these data points and showing historical trends for each housing focus.
Milwaukee County employs a Housing First philosophy, which provides housing to those most in need without pre-condition. This is because we have found that most vulnerable in our community can only solve one life-changing problem at a time. Providing a home first offers individuals stability to focus on other issues such as employment and child and medical care.
The Milwaukee County Housing Dashboard was developed in collaboration with the Community Development Alliance, an affiliation of community development funders and practitioners that has a collaborated for over a decade on neighborhood improvement efforts in Milwaukee. Milwaukee County, the City of Milwaukee and other housing funders and stakeholders developed the Collective Affordable Housing Plan, which was approved unanimously by the Milwaukee County Board and supported by the Milwaukee County Executive.
1The American Community Survey (ACS) is an ongoing survey that provides vital information on a yearly basis about the nation and its people. Information from the survey generates data that help determine how more than $675 billion in federal and state funds are distributed each year. This data comes from the 5-Year Estimates: 60 months of collected data, Data for all areas, 2005–2009 ACS 5-year estimates first released in 2010, Less current as larger samples include data collected in earlier years, Smaller margins of error than 1-year estimates, and Increased statistical reliability for smaller geographic areas and small population groups
2Cunningham, M. (2016) Reduce Poverty by Improving Housing Stability, Urban Institute with other housing funders and stakeholders, developed the Collective Affordable Housing Plan, which was approved unanimously by the Milwaukee County Board and supported by the Milwaukee County Executive.