Residents
The near North Side of Milwaukee from the air, block after block of houses running down to the downtown skyline.

About Strong Blocks

We buy homes in Milwaukee and hold them for neighbors to own.

The problem we are working on

Plenty of people in Milwaukee pay rent every month and could handle a mortgage payment. What they cannot do yet is get the loan.

Usually it is debts. Sometimes it is savings. These are fixable, but fixing them takes time, and while you are fixing them you still need somewhere to live.

Renting does not move you closer. You pay someone else's mortgage for two years and end up exactly where you started.

What we are up against

If you rent on the north side you already know this part. You pay real money, often more than a mortgage on the same house would cost, for a house nobody is taking care of. The furnace goes out and it takes three weeks. You call and nobody calls back. You stop calling.

That is not bad luck. It is a business model. Buy cheap, spend as little as possible, avoid real repairs, collect rent, use eviction as a management tool, then sell to the next operator and leave. The house gets weaker. The block gets weaker. Families start over.

We are usually operating next door to this, and sometimes we are buying the house it already ruined. We think turnover based exploitation should be named, made expensive, and pushed out of Milwaukee. Until that happens, the useful thing we can do is put a real alternative on the same block, where people can see the difference from their own front window.

To be clear about who we are not talking about: plenty of landlords do rental housing well, and plenty of long term renters are the best thing happening on their block. Rental housing is not the problem. Extraction is.

Read our full model

How our model works

We are a real estate company, not a charity. The model has to work financially or it cannot help anybody for long.

  • We own the homes and hold them while a family gets ready.
  • We stay responsible for the building. Repairs, maintenance, taxes, and insurance are ours while you rent.
  • The price is set before you move in. You are not bidding against anyone.
  • Our surplus depends on families succeeding. When a family buys, the model worked. When a family moves out we lose money, because we have to turn the house around and start again. A surplus is only earned after we have paid the operating bills, a professional management team, and repairs and capital work as they come up. There is no version of this where move outs are the profitable path.

What we promise, and what we do not

Where we work

Our homes are on Milwaukee's north side. We work block by block, and we pick blocks two ways. Sometimes we take on the toughest house on a block that is already stable, because one bad house drags down everything around it. Other times we take on several homes on a harder block at once, because one good house alone will not hold.

Either way the goal is to back up the people already doing right by that block. They are usually already there, and sometimes outnumbered.

See homes on these blocks

Neighbors who own their homes

Darryl, Dana, Jevita, and Michael all came into this program as renters. All four bought the house they were living in.

Who else we work with

We work most often with these four. Two are nonprofits that do home buyer counseling and can help you find grants. Two are lenders, and with each of them there is a person who knows this program.

You are not required to use any of them. You can use any lender or counselor you want, and if you already have an account somewhere, that is a good place to start. Our help is something we offer, not something you owe us. These are independent organizations and they set their own fees.

However you buy, we always encourage first time buyers to complete counseling first. It is the step that most often turns a maybe into a mortgage.

For City staff, lenders, investors, and partners

We have written up the model in full: where it fits alongside direct sale and subsidized ownership, why the term is 21 months, and the five guardrails that separate a real held for homeownership model from a weak imitation.

Read our model

Beyond that, call 414-236-4113.

Equal housing

Strong Blocks is an equal housing opportunity provider. We do not make decisions about applicants based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, national origin, or any other protected characteristic. We do not tell any family where they should live.