More About Housing Projects in the Johnson's Park Area

Many houses in the area were simply revitalized by doing some painting and fixing a few things around the house. Others had to be completely demolished to make way for new and better housing. Here are some pictures of 2 houses that were demolished.



This is a picture of an abandoned home before it was demolished.
These area a few pictures of the kind of homes that are being built in the Lindsay heights area. They are very nice and affordable for the people who live in the area.



Most of these homes were built with the help of WHEDA who worked with other organizations in the area such as Walnut Way Conservation Corps, JPNA, the CDC, and the YMCA. these organizations did most of the hands on work in the Lindsay Heights Neighborhood. North Shore bank also helped in the financial area with the houses.

a brief history of Johnso's Park and the Lindsay heights area

Lindsay Heights was named after Bernice Lindsay the “Mother of the Black community.” Bernice Lindsay was an early African American rights activist in the Milwaukee area. The area is on the south side of Milwaukee between west Center, Walnut Way, N 20th and Hwy 43. The area started as a working class neighborhood but changed when many homes were demolished to make way for the freeways. Many of the prospective freeways were never built in the area leaving behind many empty lots. After the 60’s many residents and businesses in the area began to move out; the neighborhood began to deteriorate and succumb to drugs and crime.
In 1997 WHEDA (Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority) started the Lindsay Heights Initiative, which set a goal to make 60 new houses in the area. They sold the empty lots left by the unfinished freeways to people looking to move into the area. The lots were sold for $1 and the residents of the area were also eligible for mortgage help and tax breaks. By 2007 WHEDA had put 9 million dollars into the area and more than doubled their goal of creating 60 houses. They built 165 new houses and rehabilitated another 221. In 2008 the mortgages in the area are now market driven and the WHEDA is no longer treating the area as a special project area.
The success of this project caught the attention of the Zilber Family Foundation. Mr. Zilber grew up in the area as a kid and now wants to help in its revitalization. He plans on giving over $1 million to the area allowing the residents to decide what to do with the money, he believes in a bottom up program that allows residents to put the money toward what they feel needs it most. Despite all of the rebuilding in the area not all is perfect. According to U.S. census data 48% of the areas residents are below the poverty level, 25% are unemployed, 45% have never earned a High School degree, and less than 5% of the residents in the Lindsay Heights area have a college degree.

Amarath Bakery/Muneer Bahauddeen

On April 28th I went to the Amaranth Bakery to do serve hours. I got there at around four an hour early for the class because I took the bus and didn’t know how long that would take. I talked to the owner of the bakery for a while before the meeting started. He has been living in the neighborhood for 12 years and told me a little about the history of the area. When he first moved there it was a predominantly African American community and still is. He told me it was 70% African American, 15% Asian American, 10% German speaking, and 5% white. He talked about how when he moved there it was common for the German population there to never have to speak a word of English. When the class started at 6:00 we first went out to the Amaranth Community garden, which is a small garden in the back of the Amaranth Bakery. At the garden people in the community can help plant vegetables and then harvest them later. We worked in the garden moving railroad tiers to portion off sections of the garden and create a small path. After helping there we went back into the bakery and got soup. Then we went across the street to Muneer Bahauddeen’s studio. Muneer is a professional ceramics artist. He has made installations for several parks in Milwaukee and a hospital. Muneer works with clay pressing it out into tiles, which he then designs. His real passion is to help out his community. He works in the schools system and has done artist in residencies at the Saint Charles center, working mainly with troubles teens. He has residencies their 3 times and has the kids make tile murals based on Traditional African symbols. Right now Muneer is in the process of creating a proposal to submit to Alice’s garden. He would like to create an arch and different posts with tiles marking off different family plots in the garden

Here are a few links to websites about Muneer Bahauddeen
http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1091
http://www.artsatlargeinc.org/muneer.html
http://unifiedmilwaukee2.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/make-milwaukee-muneer-bahauddeen/