Neighborhood Development

It was two years ago that members of the grass-roots advocacy group Common Ground were researching foreclosed properties in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood. They discovered that a major holder of the mortgages was Nationstar and digging deeper, found that Nationstar was a subsidiary of Fortress Investment Group, a company founded by Milwaukee Bucks owner Wes Edens, who was demanding a huge tax subsidy for a new arena.

Not all Milwaukeeans gave the new owners a hug. Last year, Southeastern Wisconsin Common Ground — a fine coalition of churches, synagogues, mosques and community groups — surveyed the city’s pitted fields and dilapidated recreation centers and proposed that an arena bond issue should include money for Milwaukee’s playing fields. The group also pushed for a public referendum.

"In the recent Pharr City Commission election, Valley Interfaith leaders knew the races were likely to be close. They calculated that if they turned out their supporters and members, particularly in south Pharr, they could impact the election and thus have leverage on which policies get implemented.”

After the global financial crisis hit in 2007, the small business that Mr Bey set up after his final jail stint ran into trouble. “I found myself falling backwards very quickly [and] drugs came back into my life.”