text:
America's Misguided War on Lead Exposure in Children
Brian Donovan
03.21.2018
In August of 2013, Shecara Norris moved with her husband and five young children into a rented colonial house in East Columbus, Ohio. She was in her late 20s and pregnant with her sixth child. The house was in a crime-ridden area that Norris describes as the “heart of the hood,” but it also had a lot of appeal, with wood floors, a dining room with a fireplace, and plenty of room for her growing family. Her son Michael — who had been born earlier that year — was a healthy baby with a strong personality.
Shecara Norris with her son Michael, whose blood lead levels were once six times higher than a standard federal benchmark. Lowering that benchmark further, critics say, will make it harder for children like Michael to get the resources they need.
But around the time of his second birthday, doctors found lead in Michael’s blood. At 30 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL), his blood lead levels were six times over the amount that triggers case management recommendations by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State and local public health officials were notified, and Norris and her husband were told it wasn’t safe for Michael to remain in the house, though the family didn’t have the money to leave.
To Norris, the diagnosis initially came as a shock, though it seems less surprising in hindsight. The house dates back nearly a century, to a time when lead paint was used routinely. Inspectors would later find that nearly every room was contaminated with the toxic metal, as were the front porch and the yard where Michael and his brothers and sisters would play. Lead is much more dangerous to young children than adults, targeting developing nervous systems and progressively lowering intelligence with increasing doses. All the Norris children had lead in their blood, but Michael’s levels were by far the highest. After being sent to live with his godmother until the family could find a new place to stay, Michael soon became uncontrollable: He threw frequent temper tantrums and pulled at his hair obsessively “like he was trying to get something out of his head,” Norris recalled. “The doctors said lead messes with nerves in the brain and causes kids to have behavior issues and that’s what we thought was happening.”
An estimated 37 million houses and apartments in the United States are still coated in lead paint, and each time a child like Michael is found to be exposed, it can trigger an expansive and crucial protocol of intervention. Rules vary from city to city, state to state, but lead poisoning requires swift action that can, depending on the severity of a child’s exposure, involve a host of health department officials, case managers, primary care physicians, housing investigators, and other personnel. Homes and buildings suspected of being ground zero in the exposure must be inspected and remediated, parents and other caregivers need to be educated on what a child’s exposure means and how to deal with it, and depending on the precise blood lead level, the exposed child may need some combination of medical evaluation, treatment, nutritional assessment and dietary modification, and ongoing cognitive and developmental surveillance.
It’s a necessary battery to ensure the health and wellbeing of the most vulnerable, but it’s also expensive for many cash-strapped jurisdictions — particularly those in low-income areas, where lead exposures are most acute and resources are few.  And that’s precisely what has some scientists worried about a looming revision to the CDC’s benchmark childhood blood lead level figure, which is slated to be ratcheted downward in coming months. While seemingly in the best interest of children and their families, the move, critics argue, could make it harder for children like Michael to get the interventions that they need when they do get poisoned.
While not legally binding, local municipalities look to the CDC’s thresholds, which the agency has steadily lowered over time, when setting their own standards for lead responses. Today, the reference level sits at 5 mcg/dL of blood — a level at which, most experts agree, it is already impossible to predict or even detect neurological effects in any one child. The new reference level, to be adopted in the coming months, will be nudged still lower to 3.5 mcg/dL.
The revision makes some intuitive sense. No exposure to lead, however trivial, can be considered entirely safe. Still, critics say the move will also sweep hundreds of thousands of additional children into already overburdened case-management systems each year. Moreover, clinicians working with the most severely lead-exposed children say that federal funds for lead poisoning case management have repeatedly been slashed over the years, even as each new downward click in the minimum reference level draws thousands more children into local monitoring systems — usually from higher-income neighborhoods, and with little measurable benefit for long-term health.
In a report published last year, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimated that for every child like Michael in the U.S. that tests at levels well over 5 mcg/dL, nearly 7 would test between 2 and 4.9 mcg/dL, alluding to the potential magnitude of the increased caseload.
Lowering the reference level “trivializes the continuing problem of clinical childhood lead poisoning in the interiors of our major cities where blood lead concentrations in some patients are 10 times higher or more than the national average,” wrote Kim Dietrich, an epidemiologist at the University of Cincinnati and one of 16 experts sitting on a CDC panel that voted last year to make the change in the wake of widespread lead exposures in Flint, Michigan. Dietrich, who was the only member to oppose the revision, abstained from the vote, arguing that lowering the value will do little more than alarm parents. Most analytical laboratories can’t even measure down to 3.5 mcg/dL accurately, Dietrich said, so clinicians can’t be sure that reported values match up reliably with the amount of lead in a child’s body.
Dietrich’s position may seem heretical, but he is not alone in arguing that more thoughtful, systemic solutions to the nation’s lingering lead problem are needed — including not waiting for children like Michael to show up at the doctor’s office with elevated blood lead levels before taking action. Mary Jean Brown, former chief of the CDC’s Healthy Homes and Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch, and now an adjunct assistant professor at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, agreed. “Chasing down kids with 3.5 mcg/dL I think is a distraction from what the real priority should be, and that’s chasing down lead-contaminated housing,” she said.
For now, these arguments seem unlikely to forestall the new reference level, which the CDC and other experts say is widely misunderstood. “The new lower value means that more children will be identified as having lead exposure,” the agency said in announcing the new benchmark, “allowing parents, doctors, public health officials, and communities to take action earlier to reduce the child’s future exposure to lead.”
The revelation of Michael’s exposure is the end-product of a bizarre public policy that relies on children — too often those born to low-income families in aging housing stock — to locate homes that remain laced with toxic lead. Though a few cities and states have what are called “primary prevention” laws requiring property owners to address lead threats before young children arrive, the standard procedure is to wait for reports of elevated blood lead levels in children to surface, and then force cleanups in response. That’s called “secondary prevention,” and it plays out day after day in thousands of communities around the country.
Critics have long argued that such policies are profoundly unjust, conscripting these children and their families to essentially play canaries in the coal mine — unwitting sentries sent out to locate a hidden poison by breathing it in or ingesting it. And lead is indisputably a poison. Although children vary widely in their responses, and some tolerate high doses better than others, lead is capable of damaging every cell system it interacts with. Acutely poisoned children with levels over 80 mcg/dL will generally develop abdominal pain, seizures, anemia, and renal failure. Left untreated with chelating drugs that bind to lead and flush it from the body in urine, children can succumb to lethal brain swelling. Chelators won’t bring back normal intellectual abilities, however, and survivors of high-dose poisoning can wind up cognitively disabled, blind, or unable to walk.
CDC officials first defined the threshold for childhood lead poisoning in the 1960s as any amount in blood over 60 mcg/dL. (Today blood lead levels over 45 mcg/dL would result in hospitalization for chelation therapy). But in subsequent years, as research showed that far lower levels could impact IQ, speech, attention, and classroom performance even without inducing clinical symptoms, the CDC’s threshold fell incrementally. By 1976, when the average blood lead level of children in the United States was hovering at 15 mcg/dL, the maximum acceptable threshold was 40 mcg/dL. By 1991 — a year after leaded gasoline was banned, and long after leaded paint was banned in 1978 — the CDC reset the “level of concern” to 10 mcg/dL for children under six, and stuck with that for two decades.
According to Brown, the level of concern, which was more commonly called the “action level,” always had a fundamental problem. Because of how the guidelines were worded, many people assumed that blood lead levels below 10 mcg/dL were “safe.” But with each new year, scientists were finding that there really is no inconsequential amount of lead in a child’s body — although separating out the long-term risks of low-level lead exposure from the background noise of life in the modern age is exceedingly difficult. In aggregate sampling of large populations of exposed children, for example, all blood lead levels, no matter how small, have been linked to detectable reductions in average test scores. At the same time, that doesn’t mean individual children at the lowest exposure ranges, Brown said, “wouldn’t get into and be successful in college.”
Still, based in part on these new risk findings and persistent confusion over what an “action level” really meant, CDC officials decided to take a different tack in 2012. Instead of tying the standard to some presumed safety threshold, they adopted a statistical value that reflects how blood lead levels in American children are changing over time. They derived it from a representative sampling of 850 children between the ages of 1 and 5, each of them included in a larger national surveillance dataset. Gathered between 2007 and 2010, the data indicated that 97.5 percent of U.S. children had blood lead levels of 5 mcg/dL or lower, and this became the so-called reference level that still exists today. It was a way of characterizing the status quo and, by extension, shining a light on children whose blood lead levels deviated worryingly from that baseline.
The CDC’s plan was to revise the reference level every four years to keep it current with the latest blood lead surveillance data, and promote policies that would drive it down even more. The pending shift to 3.5 mcg/dL reflects how the blood lead levels in American children are still falling. Michael Kosnett, a medical toxicologist at the University of Colorado, Denver, and a member of the CDC’s advisory panel on lead, argued that the reference must be lowered accordingly so that parents will know when a child’s levels exceed the population benchmark. Then they can try to figure out what’s responsible for their kid’s exposure and eliminate it, he said.
And yet, this newer reference level concept has also confused the public, in part because the CDC recommends case management for children who test above it. Brown said the reference level is widely misconstrued as a diagnosis for lead poisoning, when it should actually be used “as a benchmark and signal about whether we’re moving in the right direction,” she said.
Media reports compound the confusion. In the wake of Flint, Michigan’s recent disaster with lead-contaminated drinking water, press reports have routinely described children with blood lead levels above 5 mcg/dL as being brain damaged. Jennifer Lowry, a pediatrician and toxicologist at Children’s Mercy Hospital, in Kansas City, Missouri, said this presents a real disservice. “It puts a stigma on these children that they shouldn’t have,” she said.
Lowry added that in her experience, most health care providers don’t understand what the reference level really represents either. “The education for what to do was non-existent,” she said of the 2012 change. Doctors assumed that 5 mcg/dL was the new action level, Lowry said, “and thought lead was suddenly more toxic than it was before.” After 2012, Lowry was pressured to do home inspections for kids who had crossed over 5 mcg/dL, “but the available resources never changed,” she said.
“We didn’t have enough when the action level was 10 mcg/dL,” she added.
That average childhood blood lead levels have declined so dramatically since the 1970s marks a public health victory attributed mostly to the ban on leaded gasoline, which historically was the dominant exposure source. Yet that same victory came with an environmental justice failure, in that America’s lead problem has since been shunted to low-income neighborhoods plagued by flaking lead paint. Black children in particular are more than twice as likely to have elevated blood lead levels as whites, and poor inner-city children are far more likely to wind up acutely poisoned than those with middle or upper-middle class backgrounds.
To bring that point home, Dietrich recently took me on a tour of what used to be a thriving, upscale neighborhood in downtown Cincinnati. Located in the city’s west end, the neighborhood was sliced in half by the construction of Interstate 75 during the 1950s and never fully recovered. This is where Dietrich spent years running a clinical trial with lead-exposed children exploring whether chelation therapy might improve their cognitive test scores. (It didn’t.)
The sun shone brightly as we walked past crumbling Florentine brownstones on a warm day in October. Many of the buildings were boarded up and abandoned, their ornate wooden trim rotting away under layers of old paint. With his retirement approaching, Dietrich seemed happy in his old haunts. A pair of local residents, both of them people of color, watched silently from a stoop across the road as Dietrich picked a paint chip off the sidewalk. “This chip is about 75 percent lead, and if I tasted it, it would be sweet,” he said. Then grinding the chip under his foot into the toxic powder of the sort that wafts through the neighborhood’s windows and doors, he looked around and added that every one of the homes on this block could poison dozens of kids over time. “It’s not one child, one house,” he said. “It’s one house and many children.”
After testing positive for lead exposure, many local children wind up across town to see Nicholas Newman. A pediatrician with the build of a long-distance athlete, Newman routinely bikes six miles to and from work at the Environmental Health and Lead Clinic at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The clinic, which Newman directs,  tends to hundreds of lead-exposed children every year — a small fraction of the estimated 535,000 kids who test over the reference level in the United States.
“There’s a very big difference between a kid with a level of 70 or 80 mcg/dL who can’t walk or use the toilet and is in bed babbling and not making sense, and a kid with a level of 7 mcg/dL who runs around acting normally,” Newman told me. Of the children with the very highest levels, Newman said, “those are all low-income kids.”
Newman emphasized that there isn’t any secret formula for reducing the effects of lead. But absent other risk factors that can also degrade a child’s neurological development, such as a poor diet and a lack of cognitive stimulation, he wrote in an email, lead’s low-level effects might not even be observable, though they may still be there. When treating children, however, Newman addresses threats he can do something about: He tries to prevent further exposure, encourages parents to read to their children and stimulate them intellectually, and to make sure they eat nutritious foods high in iron and vitamin C, since children who don’t get enough of these micronutrients tend to absorb more lead. A child’s cognitive performance can improve with these steps. Long-term prospects for the acutely poisoned children are dismal by comparison, however, and worsen as their exposure durations get longer. Studies link chronic lead poisoning with academic failure, as well as aggressive and possibly even criminal behavior, which are all endemic in Cincinnati’s poorer neighborhoods.
“Suddenly we had a lot more kids who needed case management, but only one-tenth of the support we had previously,” said Nick Newman, head of the Environmental Health and Lead Clinic at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
During a meeting at his office, Newman paused thoughtfully after questions, and then gave long answers that covered a lot of ground. He recalled that just after the CDC swapped the level of concern for the reference level in 2012, Congress slashed the agency’s budget for lead poisoning prevention control by more than 90 percent, from just over $29 million to just under $2 million. “So suddenly we had a lot more kids who needed case management but only one-tenth of the support we had previously,” he said. Roughly half the funding was later restored, Newman added, but caseloads at the clinic are still growing.
Cynthia McCarthy, a senior sanitarian who works for the city’s childhood lead poisoning prevention program, shared Newman’s concerns. McCarthy’s department coordinates visits with families after their children test over the reference level. She said her caseload tripled after the new CDC value was established in 2012, but without added funding for the rigorous inspections that could find exposure sources at home. With more money, such inspections might be offered to kids who test over 5 mcg/dL. But as it stands now, McCarthy said nurses can only give advice without sending an inspector to make sure a house is lead-safe.
Now, with an even lower reference level looming, Newman worries that caseloads could grow faster and strain resources to the brink. Such worries will likely be compounded if the Trump administration’s proposal to cut billions of dollars from programs that support healthy housing and lead pollution cleanup at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency comes to pass. Future prospects for the CDC’s lead poisoning prevention programs are unknown.
“We’ve gotten to a point where we don’t have enough to deal with the kids we already have,” Newman said. Adding more kids without a corresponding increase in funds to manage them, he said, “dilutes those resources further.”
Newman studied under Dietrich while he was working on a master’s degree in clinical and translational research at the University of Cincinnati. Both he and Dietrich are adamant that the media spotlight on Flint’s drinking water crisis, even as it revived public awareness of lead’s dangers, and of drinking water as yet another source of exposure, overlooked the larger reality of communities by the thousands facing far greater threats from flaking lead paint in antiquated housing.
To bolster the point, Dietrich referred to an investigation showing that more kids under six living in a single zip code from Grand Rapids, Michigan have blood lead levels over 5 mcg/dL than all the kids of the same age living in Flint’s seven zip codes combined. Released by the Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan, a community-based nonprofit group in Grand Rapids, the data affirmed that lead-contaminated homes — not lead-tainted water — were the primary source of those exposures.
Consistent with secondary prevention, most such homes come on the radar only when children test positive on a blood lead test. However, blood lead surveillance in the United States is sporadic, and many homes are never tested at all. And with high rates of rental turnover in low-income neighborhoods, incoming families can face the same lead threats as those who were the last to leave. Medicaid requires testing for children covered under that program at 1 and 2 years of age, and states also impose their own requirements. But in many states, fewer than half of all children are ever tested, underscoring the inadequacy of lead screening programs to identify problem homes.
Owners of pre-1978 housing are required by federal law to disclose lead hazards during real estate transactions, but the law also gives them an easy out: Owners can simply claim they’re unaware of lead paint on the property, and in most cases, that’s the box they check on the disclosure form because lead inspections occur so rarely, according to David Jacobs, chief scientist at the Columbia, Maryland-based National Center for Healthy Housing, a nonprofit policy and research organization that develops standards for lead inspection and remediation.
Unless state law compels them to, property owners have little incentive to test for lead, since finding it might lead to a costly remediation. What owners of older properties must do by law is provide incoming tenants or buyers with an EPA pamphlet describing how to protect families from lead. But that doesn’t always happen. If tenants file a complaint after their child’s blood test comes back positive, landlords are generally required to fix the problem. But Jacobs said that there is not always adequate case management or funding to make sure those fixes happen. Landlords also often drag their feet on repairs, he said, setting the stage for ugly disputes and the specter of homelessness for affected families.
Tenants who withhold rent in protest are sometimes evicted, and landlords might also antagonize their tenants until they move out voluntarily and then rent the dwelling to someone else. “We didn’t ask about lead — didn’t think about it,” Norris recalled. And no one brought it up when they met with the realtor before moving in, she said. After Michael and his siblings were exposed, Norris’s landlord applied for a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help pay the cost of remediating the property. But paperwork and red tape held the remediation up for months. Meanwhile, the Norris family was accountable for rent payments, even after they’d been told that their house wasn’t safe.
Jacobs acknowledges the importance of continuing secondary, after-the-fact prevention to respond to kids who have already been poisoned. But the country’s priorities have to shift towards preventing kids from being exposed to lead in the first place. “We will never test our way out of this,” Jacobs said.
The question is whether the alternative — enforced testing and remediation of remaining lead-filled housing stock — is feasible on a national scale. Federal officials aren’t inclined to take on such primary prevention measures, given the exorbitant projected costs. I recently spoke to Michelle Miller, deputy director of HUD’s Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control, which helps to fund state and local programs to eliminate threats from lead paint. Between 1993 and 2012, Miller’s office contributed $1.5 billion towards lead paint remediation, but even that reached just a small percentage of affected homes. The HUD office limped along with a budget of $145 million in 2017, while the price to address every one of the 37 million lead-contaminated homes in the United States “would be roughly $350 billion,” Miller said. Furthermore, she added, congressional officials have shown little political appetite for primary prevention, given the significant burdens it can impose on property owners.
Some states and local governments are exploring more proactive measures. Katrina Smith Korfmacher, an associate professor in environmental medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York, was part of a coalition to promote a primary prevention law for that city. Using existing blood lead screening data, screening maps generated in Rochester revealed neighborhoods where more than a third of the children had blood lead levels over 10 mcg/dL. Those are the types of neighborhoods and buildings that municipalities should prioritize for testing, Korfmacher said.
Rochester’s law requires property owners to obtain a certificate of occupancy deeming that their dwellings have been inspected for peeling paint and, in some areas, hazards from lead dust. Korfmacher acknowledged that the potential costs were a major concern before the lead law was passed in 2005, and could be for other communities as well — especially those with a weak housing market. Since 2000, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded around $30 million in grant funding to the city and the surrounding county to help Rochester’s property owners pay for necessary work. The city’s law has also allowed for temporary controls, such as recoating lead paint instead of permanently removing or encapsulating it. These controls may be cheaper than full lead abatement and protect against childhood exposures, although they need to be routinely checked to ensure they’re holding up. Over the last few decades, owing in large part to the local law, “our blood lead levels have come down more than twice as fast as those in other New York cities,” Korfmacher said. And contrary to dire predictions, those levels fell without breaking the bank.
Still, primary prevention strategies adopted by other cities haven’t always worked. The city of Cleveland, for instance, created a voluntary program 12 years ago allowing property owners to join a lead-safe registry if they addressed their lead paint problems proactively. Not a single one took the city up on its offer — indicating that the potential liability risk was not enough to justify the cost of certification — and the program has since been declared a failure. And even Rochester’s model doesn’t amount to a silver bullet that will work everywhere, Korfmacher emphasized. Identifying the most appropriate strategy for a given community “is the 10-million-dollar question,” she said. What seems to work for Rochester, Korfmacher said, “are community groups that watchdog the law, cooperation from the county, state, and federal agencies that support it, and a real commitment on the part of the city to implement it.
“The key element is partnership,” she said, “and really listening to the community.”
Brown said that in her view, health agencies are saddled with a medical model that doesn’t work for lead anymore. Prompted during the 1960s by activists like the Black Panthers, that model was lifesaving for acutely poisoned children who might have otherwise died without chelation therapy. But as the number of lethally poisoned children has dropped, she said, priorities need to focus on preventing intellectual impairments that don’t respond to any known interventions. Going out and saving poisoned kids was “more heroic and more glamorous” and easy for people — including congressional staffers — to understand, she said. By contrast, primary prevention, she said, deals in obscure probabilities. The idea of saying “OK, I reduce a child’s risk of repeating a grade in school by 20 percent,” Brown said, does not seem as “heroic.”
Newman agreed that policies on lead, as he explained it, should close loops when it comes to the perceived benefits of prevention. The only benefit to landlords who pay for the requisite upgrades, he said, may be that their young tenants “don’t fail math.” What property owners need, Newman said, are financial incentives such as tax deductions for lead abatement that close loops by providing more tangible returns on investment.
“We spent so many years trying to get all these kids tested,” he said, even though the point is to prevent exposure, and the source of that exposure is known.
“It’s the housing, stupid!” Newman exclaimed.
Newman said that sometimes he feels like he’s in a military hospital on the front lines, with “mud everywhere,” and compares lead policy makers to generals “in some palace, discussing in abstract ways how to win the war.”  He added that the people he works and interacts with in Ohio and Kentucky “are working hard and swimming upstream — and the current’s getting swifter.”
Meanwhile, Brown’s successor as chief of the CDC’s Healthy Homes and Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch, Adrienne Ettinger, insisted that the agency couldn’t simply “ignore the fact that there is no safe threshold” for lead and that in lowering the reference level, the agency was trying to “move the bar” on prevention forward. But she also acknowledged that lawmakers and officials at every level need to do a better job at prevention overall — particularly in areas where there are high-risk kids. “Lead is a complicated issue with lots of nuances,” she said. “It touches on everything: housing, health, medicine, science, laboratory issues, politics, economics, and education.” Ettinger emphasized that word choice really matters and that some media coverage leads to confusion when using the term ‘lead poisoning.’ “We don’t use that term unless it’s for a high-level exposure,” Ettinger said.
“We need to re-educate the public and do a better job explaining where we need to go in the future,” she added.
Shecara Norris, too, has made a mission of educating people about lead, speaking to her church and the Ohio Senate about a threat that she said barely registers with the local community. Her family moved twice since leaving the house where Michael and his siblings were exposed, but every new dwelling turned out to be lead contaminated as well. Meanwhile, Michael’s blood lead levels are down to 8 mcg/dL and he’s doing well in school — progress that Norris attributes in no small part to the child’s healthy diet, which doesn’t include sugar or fried foods, and is heavy in iron-rich green vegetables. Norris is deeply religious and emphasized her belief that prayer also played a pivotal role in Michael’s steady improvement. Still, the experience of her son’s lead poisoning remains painfully vivid. “It put such a hurt and stress on my family,” she said.
Charles Schmidt is a recipient of the National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society Journalism Award. His work has appeared in Science, Nature Biotechnology, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

author: Brian Donovan


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City Hall: Barrett Issues 5 Budget Vetoes  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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City Hall: Council Slaps Down Mayor’s Vetoes  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Data Wonk: Gap Grows Between MPS and Charter, Choice  » Urban Milwaukee
Bruce Thompson


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Transportation: County Bus System Plans Complete Redesign  » Urban Milwaukee
Graham Kilmer


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City Hall: Hamilton Ally May Run for His Seat  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Transportation: County Transit Changes Coming in 2019  » Urban Milwaukee
Graham Kilmer


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Experts Praise New State Superintendent  » Urban Milwaukee
Corri Hess, Wisconsin Public Radio

author: Corri Hess, Wisconsin Public Radio


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Eyes on Milwaukee: Who Wants The Modjeska Theatre?  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene

author: Jeramey Jannene


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Questions Surround Vaun Mayes’ Arrest  » Urban Milwaukee
Isiah Holmes, Wisconsin Examiner

author: Isiah Holmes, Wisconsin Examiner


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MKE County: County Officials Offer Antidote to Youth Prisons  » Urban Milwaukee
Dave Fidlin


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Now Serving: New Cafe Opening in Silver City  » Urban Milwaukee
Jennifer Rick


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Evers Funds Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility  » Urban Milwaukee
Gretchen Schuldt, Wisconsin Justice Initiative


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Eyes on Milwaukee: Villard Commons Makes Design Changes  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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MKE County: County “Creating a Hospital” for Its Jails?  » Urban Milwaukee
Graham Kilmer


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Vote For Best Group, People Helping City  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Eyes on Milwaukee: 520 New Affordable Apartments Planned  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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20th MANDI Awards Get Big Turnout  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Dining: Jamaican Place Planned for MLK Drive  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Eyes on Milwaukee: Tour Milwaukee’s Eco Neighborhood  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Eyes on Milwaukee: Committee Okays City Funds for Ikon Hotel  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Murphy’s Law: Average UWM Student Debt Rose 194%  » Urban Milwaukee
Bruce Murphy


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Eyes on Milwaukee: A Clarke Square Groundbreaking  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Visual Art: Thinking About America  » Urban Milwaukee
Catherine Jozwik


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MKE County: “Think Big!” Domes Task Force Is Told  » Urban Milwaukee
Graham Kilmer


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Public Shocked by ‘For Sale’ Signs in County Parks  » Urban Milwaukee
Graham Kilmer


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MKE County: Domes Task Force Recommends $66 Million Plan  » Urban Milwaukee
Graham Kilmer


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Photo Gallery: Good City Brewing Toasts New Location  » Urban Milwaukee
Jack Fennimore

author: Jack Fennimore


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Data Wonk: Measuring Poverty’s Impact in the City  » Urban Milwaukee
Bruce Thompson


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Eyes on Milwaukee: Campaign Will Fund South Side Futsal Courts  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Plats and Parcels: Strauss Closes Door on Milwaukee Move  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers Draws Praise for Work Addressing COVID-19  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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Library Will Lend Books Again  » Urban Milwaukee
Graham Kilmer


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Eyes on Milwaukee: 86 Homeowners Getting Property Tax Help  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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King Drive Cleanup Draws Hundreds  » Urban Milwaukee
Jeramey Jannene


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State Rules for School Voucher Applications Changed  » Urban Milwaukee
Madeline Fox, Wisconsin Public Radio

author: Madeline Fox, Wisconsin Public Radio


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UWM plans to become Hispanic-Serving Institution
UWM News
October 19, 2016
MILWAUKEE_The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee celebrated National Hispanic Heritage Month this October by unveiling a major new initiative to make UWM a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI).
Earning the HSI federal designation will help UWM expand services and support to its thriving population of Latino students, who make up around nine percent of its undergraduate population of 21,000. Institutions that achieve HSI status are eligible for funding to support student recruitment and retention, faculty development, community outreach and more.
“Our top priority is student success,” said UWM Chancellor Mark Mone. “Achieving HSI status is critically important to addressing the upcoming demographic changes of an increasingly diverse student population. Our efforts will benefit all students through a learning environment that prepares them for today’s world. We will simultaneously produce UWM graduates who understand their local communities and provide a pipeline of prepared and talented employees for our region.”
Demographic trends in Wisconsin indicate that HSI status is an achievable and relevant goal for UWM over the next decade. Latino students will soon represent Wisconsin’s fastest growing group of college bound students. For a college or university to achieve HSI status, at least 25 percent of its undergraduate students must be Latino.
“I can say that I am very excited that we’ve launched the Chancellor’s Committee for Hispanic Serving Initiatives, but in many ways this is no surprise,” said Alberto Maldonado, interim director of UWM’s Roberto Hernández Center. “Truly, this is a continuation of the work that started at UWM 46 years ago when Latino students knocked on the chancellor’s door and requested a university resource dedicated to their enrollment and success here.”
That university resource became the Roberto Hernández Center, one of the few full-time university-based centers in Wisconsin dedicated to the needs of Latino students. Located in UWM’s Bolton Hall, the center serves 75 UWM students daily and advises 800 yearly. The center is in the process of expanding its advising staff, will offer evening hours by student request during UWM midterm and finals week and will co-host the third annual Bilingual Open House (Casa Abierta) on Saturday, Jan. 28,2017.
The Chancellor’s Committee for Hispanic Serving Initiatives convenes bimonthly at UWM and comprises university administrators, faculty, staff and students.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Alberto Maldonado, (414) 229-1169, donpepe@uwm.edu
Recognized as one of the nation’s 115 top research universities, UW-Milwaukee provides a world-class education to 26,000 students from 81 countries. Its 14 schools and colleges include Wisconsin’s only schools of architecture, freshwater sciences and public health, and it is a leading educator of nurses and teachers. UW-Milwaukee partners with leading companies to conduct joint research, offer student internships and serve as an economic engine for southeastern Wisconsin. The Princeton Review named UW-Milwaukee a 2017 “Best Midwestern” university based on overall academic excellence and student reviews, as well as a top “Green College.”

created: October 19, 2016

author: UWM News


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Zilber School of Public Health wins 2019 Healthy Living Award
Content Author Unassigned
January 22, 2019
The UWM Zilber School of Public Health has been named as the recipient of the 2019 YMCA Healthy Living Award.
The award, presented on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, recognizes organizations that encapsulate King’s devotion to ensuring equality for all, by improving health and well-being across the board.
“We are humbled by this prestigious recognition of the Zilber School of Public Health. We accept this award with gratitude and a commitment to continue to strive to honor the spirit of the Y’s Healthy Living Award,” said Ronald Perez, interim dean of the Zilber School.
The Zilber School was honored at the YMCA’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Breakfast,  attended by over 600 civic, business, community and faith leaders.
Work in the Zilber School of Public Health includes improving health equity, social and environmental justice in both regional and national communities, advocacy for health-promoting policies and more. Faculty and students within the School of Public Health also conduct research initiatives in areas such as mental health, obesity and infant mortality through collaborations with local groups and individuals.
“Although we are a relatively new school, we’re already having a tremendous impact,” Renee Walker, associate professor of community and behavioral health promotion, says in a video accompanying the award. “Receiving the Healthy Living Award is a testament to that. Ultimately, that is why the School of Public Health exists, and why we do what we do. We want to make a difference in the lives of individuals, of families and of the communities we work with.”
The Zilber School of Public Health is one of two institutions being honored for their longstanding commitment in supporting health, wellness and inclusion.

created: January 22, 2019

author: Content Author Unassigned


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Omar Reda, M.D. Addresses Refugee Trauma in Series of Milwaukee Workshops - Wisconsin Muslim Journal
About The Author
Nov 29, 2019
In North American media, Muslims are primarily visible as deliverers of trauma through acts of terrorism. But many of the 70 million refugees worldwide who have flooded camps in Turkey, Jordan, and Bangladesh fleeing violence in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Burma are Muslims who are the victims of trauma and even attempted genocide.
Cities like Milwaukee are engulfed in their own trauma crisis, with gun violence impacting families for generations. Milwaukee is also beginning to confront the ways violence and displacement impact its immigrant and refugee communities.
Deborah A. Davis, a therapist who works withUWM’s Trauma Studies Association invited noted trauma specialist, Omar Reda, a Portland, Oregon psychiatrist,to hold a series of 10 workshops and talks in Milwaukee. Aurora Behavioral Health provided additional funding.  The Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition hosted two well-attended events at the Islamic Resource Center led by Dr. Reda.
Reda is the author of several books on healing refugee trauma from a culturally specific Islamic perspective, including On the Shoulders of the Prophet, the first volume in his Family Bonding series, and Untangled: A Go-To Guide for Caregivers of Traumatized Children, Families, and Communities.
The trauma and chaos caused by the overthrow of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Arab Spring revolution placed a permanent mark on Dr. Reda’s life. His grown nephew, a young father, was murdered by ISIS. And Reda himself had been forced to escape in 1999 when Gaddafi tried to have him arrested. He became an asylum seeker in England, where “the judge decided that I don’t meet the criteria because there is no evidence of torture on [my] body. So I said there is torture on my mind that you cannot see.”
Trauma, says Reda is “the invisible elephant in the room” in the Muslim community.
Dr. Reda works with the Muslim community in Portland at its mosques and community centers and has founded a series of programs and workshops to promote community psychosocial health and heal trauma. He also travels frequently to work with victims of trauma. Cox’s Bazar, where Dr. Reda conducts workshops for Rohingya refugees, is no longer a “refugee camp” but a settlement on the Bangladeshi coast, home to 900,000 refugees.
Dr. Reda calls his work Untangled because many families are tangled in a trauma story without even realizing it. “If there is a trauma story, they keep it a secret,” Dr. Reda said.“While parents are chasing the American dream, children go to bed with full stomachs and empty hearts.”
Reda’s approach aims to strengthen families and give young people hope by helping them to connect with each other. As we often hear, Islam is not about the individual, it is about connecting the individual to the community.“Our prophet was the best counselor,” Dr. Reda believes. “He sat down with people. He was especially attentive to children. If you are a harsh person, people will not come to you. The young companions felt safe around Muhammad (PBUH). They climbed on his shoulders.”
At the Wednesday afternoon session at the Islamic Resource Center, one woman concluded that, within the community, “the sisters are in good shape. But if you look around, you see only 3 men in the room” for a workshop on mental health and Islam.
Reda responded that “by the time men call me, the issue is usually very advanced. Things are quite complicated. It’s better if you ‘untangle’ early.” He recommends groups like the one he founded, the Sons of Adam youth group. His wife began a similar group for the Daughters of Eve. “Activities are helpful for engaging men,” Reda said, who views what the groups do as “coaching boys into men.”
“Most people are resilient,” Dr. Reda said. “They can recover with just community support.” Of course it helps that “Muslims are very close-knit, they stick together and have respect for elders.” But if more help is needed, the next level, he said, may be the “non-mental health clinical professionals,” for example yoga classes and meditation groups. “If you have limited resources, build community capacity. For support, you just need to be supportive and genuine.”
The good news, he said, is “I see more involvement on the part of men, including Syrian refugees.” However, “If we just invite them to our space, they will not come. So we go to them. We have a mobile access team. We go to their homes, and we invite them to a retreat at our camp or to a talk at the masjid. In Portland, the imams are open-minded and receptive,” Reda said.
Dr. Reda said that in Portland, “when I reached out to the imams, they said, ‘Where have you been? Because we are exhausted.’”
This surprised many in the audience.When founding the Milwaukee’s first Muslim culturally-specific domestic violence program Our Peaceful Home, Janan Najeeb said she found “only the younger imams” were interested in participating.
Reda suggested that older imams “may feel that their mediation, although not trained, is more effective [so] we approached them in a very calculated way. We talked to the imams about self-care. They are trying to hold the community together like glue.”And they needed support for themselves.
This seemed to strike many attendees as a valid approach. “We need to support leadership development skills for our imams,” one woman said. Another idea inspired by Dr. Reda that afternoon was that, as one participant said, “Women and youth have to be on the boards of our mosques. Give voice to new blood. Our kids have the [Muslim] identity, but they need to be active and they need to be involved.”
Portland has many workshops and programs for Muslims, both at mental health centers and community centers and at local masjids. The city even has a Yelp Page that lists the 10 Best Mosques.And while Milwaukee doesn’t have Dr. Reda, he complimented the city, saying it is “as progressive as Portland” because “you have such a welcoming space” like the Islamic Resource Center.

author: About The Author


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Rosa Parks honored with seat tribute by Milwaukee's public transit system
Joy Johnston, Cox Media Group National Content Desk


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In cities on the Great Lakes, water pipes are crumbling and poor people are paying the price | So Close, Yet So Costly | APM Reports
Maria Zamudio | Will Craft

author: Maria Zamudio | Will Craft


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AP Explains: Juneteenth celebrates end of slavery in the US | AP News
JESSE J. HOLLAND

author: JESSE J. HOLLAND


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Talgo looking to expand its Milwaukee operations - Milwaukee Business Journal
Jul 14, 2017


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Greater Milwaukee Foundation to get issues out 'On the Table' - Milwaukee Business Journal
Jul 27, 2017


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Flint finds replacing lead pipes isn’t easy. Even when state promises to pay | Bridge Michigan
May 24, 2024


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Michigan offers free dental care to poor kids; more than 400,000 don’t use it | Bridge Michigan
May 24, 2024


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Racial disparities in school suspensions | Brookings
Follow the authors

author: Follow the authors


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Community mural unveiled in Milwaukee south side neighborhood
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Posted:                         Aug  2, 2019  4:55 PM CDT

created: Posted:                         Aug  2, 2019  4:55 PM CDT


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Warming rooms open throughout the City of Milwaukee -- here's a list of locations
: Andy Devine
Posted:                         Dec  2, 2019  1:34 PM CDT

created: Posted:                         Dec  2, 2019  1:34 PM CDT

author: : Andy Devine


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    Milwaukee woman Tashonna Ward died after waiting for hours in Froedtert Hospital emergency room; X-ray showed enlarged heart - CBS News
Sophie Lewis
January 17, 2020 / 3:01 PM EST

created: January 17, 2020 / 3:01 PM EST

author: Sophie Lewis


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What research shows about police in schools - Chalkbeat
Matt Barnum | June 23, 2020, 10:00am UTC
June 23, 2020, 10:00am UTC


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To close school or tough out brutal weather? Chicago faces hard decision. - Chalkbeat
Cassie Walker Burke ,Yana KunichoffandAdeshina Emmanuel | January 28, 2019, 7:41pm UTC
January 28, 2019, 7:41pm UTC

created: January 28, 2019, 7:41pm UTC


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Black and brown men still being arrested for possession as marijuana legalization takes off - The Chicago Reporter

January 3, 2020
As hundreds of people waited in long lines for hours around Illinois on Wednesday to grab their first legal taste of recreational cannabis, a review of preliminary data suggests black and brown men in Cook County are still being disproportionately arrested for possessing low amounts of the now decriminalized substance.
While the Chicago Police Department and the mayor’s office have announced changes to the enforcement of marijuana laws, CPD records show young men of color still being arrested for possession even as the state’s attorney’s office has declined to prosecute.
“Prior to the passage of the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute most nonviolent cases of low-level cannabis possession (30g or less),” the office said in a statement Thursday. “As we do with all cases, we will continue to use our discretion on a case-by-case basis when proceeding on cannabis-related charges filed by law enforcement under the new law.”
At bond court Thursday afternoon, assistant state’s attorneys dismissed at least two cases of men of color under the age of 25 after they spent a night in jail. One case was for possession of 10 to 30 grams and the other for possession of 100 to 500 grams, according to court records.
A review of the Chicago Police Department arrest portal revealed dozens of people who had been arrested in December for charges that are now eligible for expungement if not combined with a violent crime.
Charges dismissed
Chicago police have a history of making petty arrests on charges that are ultimately dismissed, forcing defendants to spend time in the system while draining resources from Cook County’s clogged criminal courts, as highlighted in a 2013 Chicago Reporter investigation.
The Chicago Police Department, which did not respond to questions about drug enforcement moving forward, recently announced plans to shift enforcement to street level dealers aiming to undercut the legal market, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
On opening day, dispensaries around Chicago including the Herbal Care Center and Dispensary 33 had lines of hopeful smokers from opening at 6 a.m. to closing at 10 p.m. Wednesday. Some dispensaries reported glitches in their software. Others had to turn away customers before closing because they ran out of some marijuana products.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot praised the new industry, which has been criticized for lacking diversity and profiting mainly white business owners in the early days of legalization, as an opportunity for economic growth promising jobs particularly for “those that have borne the brunt of the War on Drugs” in a New Year’s Day statement on the legalization.
“Together, we will place Chicago and Illinois at the forefront of leveraging the cannabis industry to expand social equity, and create a legalization model the rest of the nation can follow,” Lightfoot’s statement said.
The Cannabis Business Association in Illinois reported more than $3 million in sales and more than 77,000 transactions on the first day. The average transaction was about $41, according to the organization’s Executive Director Pam Althoff.
Cresco Labs announced its five dispensaries served more than 3,000 customers and sold more than 9,000 products on New Year’s Day.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has also long touted that legalization “starts righting some historic wrongs” against minority communities impacted disproportionately by the war on drugs.
Another key aspect of the bill’s social equity measures is providing relief for those criminalized in the past for petty marijuana charges. In the last month, both the governor and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx have begun expunging thousands of low-level drug cases.
On New Year’s Eve, Pritzker issued more than 11,000 pardons for low-level cannabis convictions. The first wave in more than 770,000 non-violent cannabis offenses automatically eligible for expungement included cases involving possession of less than 30 grams, the amount you can now legally carry as long as purchased from a dispensary.

created: January 3, 2020


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Chicago traffic fatalities are down so far this year. Is it luck, or is the city’s ‘Vision Zero’ policy making a difference? – Chicago Tribune
Mary WisniewskiPUBLISHED: November 11, 2019 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: November 11, 2019 at 1:09 p.m
November 11, 2019 at 1:09 p.m.


text: Bloomberg - Are you a robot?


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Racism as a public health crisis: What Cleveland can learn from Milwaukee - cleveland.com
Mary Kilpatrick, cleveland.com
Published: Nov. 09, 2019, 12:19 p.m.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Milwaukee struggles with the very same issues that Cleveland does: infant mortality, lead poisoning and other challenges that significantly affect black children.
For every 1,000 black babies born in Milwaukee, 15.8 died before their first birthday, according to three-year averages released by the city in 2018. That’s three times the infant mortality rate among white babies in the same time period.
About 2,200 children under 6 in the city of Milwaukee tested positive for lead poisoning, according to 2018 numbers. About half were black.
It’s not just health disparities. Across Milwaukee County, officials found black residents historically faced more barriers in transportation, wealth, housing and nutrition.
So in May Milwaukee County declared racism a public health crisis. The city followed with its own declaration in July. Both commit that their government will advocate for policies that improve the health of people of color. It’s unclear what new approaches will emerge from these pledges, but the dedication to decreasing health disparities among people of color is clear.
Milwaukee leaders expanded on this message during a Cleveland summit Friday centered around racism and public health. 400 Years of Inequity: A Call to Action — organized by First Year Cleveland, a coalition dedicated to eliminating infant mortality, and the YWCA Greater Cleveland — marked the 400th anniversary of the first slaves arrival in North America.
The event on Friday drew about 500 people to Cleveland Public Auditorium, from states including Michigan and Wisconsin. One woman in the audience Friday said she was deeply moved by the summit’s message: It was the same way she felt after Barack Obama took office.
The two-day summit continues today, focusing on topics, including structural racism and its affect on economic policy and educational inequities.
“Racism is a public health crisis when you identify that there is a large population, of a particular, in this case race, that continues to be underserved over a long period of time, with no major change,” said Nicole Brookshire, executive director of the Milwaukee County office of African American Affairs, during an interview with cleveland.com.
Even with resources on the table to help with these gaps, Milwaukee County still found that they “haven’t made a change to really allow a level playing field for all races,” Brookshire said.
The county made the policy shift because it wanted a government that provided for all people equally. She believes other cities need to do the same.
The resolution commits that the county will advocate for policies that improve the lives of people of color. It also pledges that the county will continue its work to educate employees about the affects of racism. By the end of the year, its Office of African American Affairs will have trained 5,500 county employees at all levels to think about racial equity.
The county’s decision influenced the city to do the same, said Jeanette Kowalik, said Milwaukee Commissioner of Health.
“It was finally enabling us to address the elephant in the room of racism,” Kowalik said.
The city came up with its own plan to help ensure racial equity in its departments and hiring practices. It committed to advocating for policies that improve the health outcomes of people of color, and to tracking population trends to better understand who is affected by health disparities.
Getting people to recognize that racial inequity is a real problem in Milwaukee County has been heavy lift, said Brookshire. It involves institutional change, and changes in policies and procedures. Her office was formed only about two and a half years ago.
“Government has played a role in creating these inequities, so government needs to play a role in making solutions to eradicate them,” she said.
The movement is not about taking away opportunities from one group and give them to another. It’s about making things equal for all.
“The effort to drive racial equity is not to remove opportunities from any particular race. It’s to add value, so that we have access and opportunity for all races, to have a level playing field,” she said.
Racism to blame for deplorable African-American infant mortality rates, group says
Why Ohio’s infant mortality rate is so high
Rate of black infant deaths 6 times that of white deaths in Cuyahoga County in 2017: Saving the Smallest

author: Mary Kilpatrick, cleveland.com


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I’m a black man in a Covid-19 hotspot. I don’t have sympathy for people of color who refuse to social distance | CNN
Analysis by John Blake, CNN

author: Analysis by John Blake, CNN


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85 infants under age 1 have tested positive for coronavirus in one Texas county since March | CNN
Faith Karimi and Raja Razek, CNN

author: Faith Karimi and Raja Razek, CNN


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One Detroit |
May
26

created:
May
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text: ICE arrested 250 foreign students at fake university in metro Detroit


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K-12 Education: Discipline Disparities for Black Students, Boys, and Students with Disabilities | U.S. GAO
Tuesday, April 10, 2018

created: Tuesday, April 10, 2018


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Billions Invested in Clean Water: Port Milwaukee implements a range of methods to great success | Great Lakes Now
Melissa Walsh
July 15, 2019

author: Melissa Walsh


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Civil forfeiture: SC police seize millions, often from innocent people
Anna Lee
Updated
		11:08 pm UTC Apr. 22, 2020

created:
Updated
		11:08 pm UTC Apr. 22, 2020

author: Anna Lee


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The 10 Big US Cities Where Parents Work the Hardest
Bonnie Azoulay
2019-10-25T19:18:00Z

author: Bonnie Azoulay


text: Memorial for Quanita 'Tay' Jackson


text: Borsuk: City Year mentors are making an impact in Milwaukee's schools


text: Wisconsin prof says voters confused over ID law


text: 'Black Nativity' brings fresh, local look to Langston Hughes classic


text: Pete's Pops will open storefront for frozen pops on Milwaukee west side


text: Gloria's Cake Shop closes on Milwaukee's south side


text: African-Jamaican restaurant Irie Zulu is closed in Wauwatosa


text: Vincent High School has a barn and gardens; tour them at a fundraiser


text: Tandem restaurant's owner seeks help from cooks, servers after injury


text: Milwaukee Black Restaurant Week is back May 11, with curbside pickup


text: First Stage invites kids to get a free taste of acting classes


text: Growing Power has dissolved after decades of urban farming


text: El-Amin brothers cultivate entrepreneurship in Milwaukee central city


text: Ultimate Farm Collaborative is taking root at the former site of Growing Power


text: Bronzeville Collective grows from 30 days of free retail space


text: 2020 DNC: What Milwaukeeans can expect during the next year of prep


text: Milwaukee businesses vow to hire African American, Hispanic leaders


text: Artist Fatima Laster brings development to Milwaukee's north side


text: Milwaukee artists creating homes, studios to help revive Bronzeville


text: Milwaukee's Westlawn public housing redevelopment has positive impact


text: Federal tax breaks could boost Milwaukee development, gentrification


text: North side Milwaukee school to become apartments, condos in new plan


text: Black history museum could anchor project in Milwaukee's Bronzeville


text: Milwaukee's Capitol Drive library branch redevelopment begins planning


text: Syrian restaurant opening in Milwaukee by family that fled civil war


text: Milwaukee job training program to redevelop central city property


text: Milwaukee's Domes could be saved, repaired with historic tax credits


text: City financing proposed for planned Milwaukee central city hotel


text: Milwaukee King Drive co-working space development lands MEDC loan


text: New online publication gives voice to Wisconsin Muslims


text: Hip-Hop Week set for this summer after Milwaukee Common Council OK


text: Milwaukee city lead manager suspended for mismanagement


text: City attorney denies tasing of Sterling Brown violated his rights


text: McDonald House Charities looking to fund mobile healing clinic


text: Trauma: Milwaukee violence prevention leader joins fight of epidemic


text: 2-year-old Noelani Robinson found dead in Minnesota, Milwaukee police believe


text: Infant mortality: Milwaukee regains federal grant but friction follows


text: Victims of human trafficking gave testimony of threats, dangerous job conditions, exploitation


text: Milwaukee police arrest suspect in Mexican Fiesta threats


text: State panel urged to bounce two candidates for Milwaukee County exec


text: Blog Recap: Coronavirus updates from around Wisconsin on Thursday


text: Milwaukee homicide rate soars with 'bullets flying everywhere'


text: 'Community briefings' set for Blueprint for Peace, Milwaukee's violence prevention plan


text: Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales outlines department changes


text: Milwaukee's violent August: Here's what some in community are doing


text: Milwaukee gun violence: Youth Council calls for weekend 'ceasefire'


text: Milwaukee police leader promoted despite sexual harassment complaints


text: Milwaukee crime: How 2 visual artists are working to stem gun violence


text: Chief Morales says MPD won't target undocumented immigrants


text: UW-Madison pledges free tuition for families that earn $56,000 or less


text: 7 hours and 1 'go to hell': Tempers flare at MPS budget meeting


text: Wisconsin's achievement gap is our tragic claim to fame


text: Here's how to snag that free tuition at MATC


text: Milwaukee's Urban Ecology Center is Milwaukee's science classroom


text: 5 ideas to reduce school transfers and improve education


text: MPS schools with arts programs lead in achievement


text: African-American immersion school embodies Black Lives Matter themes


text: Carmen unable to replicate success of south side school so far


text: Carmen charter schools founder Patricia Hoben to step down as CEO


text: Former MPS board president Michael Bond guilty in bribery scheme


text: Racial disparities in prostate cancer, and how to help stop them.


text: UWM study links Milwaukee gun violence to high lead levels in early childhood


text: Kids in Crisis: Therapists find success going into schools


text: More groups that bought city-owned homes face questions about their nonprofit status


text: Milwaukee aldermen vote to ban city contractors from carrying guns


text: Red Cross to expand new fire response policy in Milwaukee


text: Medical examiner: Half of infant deaths in Milwaukee County in 2017 related to unsafe sleep


text: MATC students ask County Board to save bus route serving two campuses


text: Barrett unveils housing plan: 10 years, 10,000 new or improved households


text: Large HIV, syphilis cluster in teens, adults found in Milwaukee


text: New study measures impact of domestic violence services in Milwaukee


text: Milwaukee's Garden Homes has a new plan for housing, safety and jobs


text: Decision time quickly approaching for future of Mitchell Park Domes


text: Mayor Tom Barrett names Jeanette Kowalik to lead troubled Health Department


text: Winter farmers market will return to Mitchell Park Domes annex


text: Milwaukee continues trauma focus with presentation from Joy DeGruy


text: Organic therapy helping veterans heal


text: Can Milwaukee become 'the most trauma-informed city in the country?'


text: Milwaukee creates Board of health to rebuild agency after lead crisis


text: America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee gets fundraising boost


text: Pilot program for doulas to improve infant mortality passes committee


text: Two Milwaukee people sue police over arrests after Sherman Park unrest


text: Milwaukee renters can now see a landlord's eviction record


text: Day of Love fundraiser and block party to heal Milwaukee


text: Firefighters respond to Milwaukee playground equipment on fire


text: What you need to know before the energy moratorium starts Nov. 1


text: Coronavirus: Milwaukee health officials prepare for the worst


text: Milwaukee plans for 2020 DNC facing unknowns about coronavirus


text: David Crowley sworn in as next Milwaukee County executive


text: UWM study calls Milwaukee 'epitome of a 21st century racial regime'


text: Transgender surgery: Wisconsin Medicaid will now cover needed surgery


text: Wisconsin Senate sets work requirement for food stamps


text: Gov. Scott Walker hints at state action on Milwaukee Public Schools


text: No body cameras in six Wisconsin prisons despite state law


text: Mystery deepens over missing Milwaukee Health Department documents


text: Milwaukee scales back sexually transmitted infection testing


text: Milwaukee mayor wants Health Department to return to full STI testing


text: Milwaukee council confirms Jeanette Kowalik as health commissioner


text: Milwaukee lead crisis: Mayor Tom Barrett vetoes inspector general plan


text: Wisconsin lame-duck lawsuit: Judge eliminates early voting limits


text: Tony Evers proposes millions on lead pipes, more dental access


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5 Milwaukee Leaders Talk Candidly About Race
BY Barbara Miner
November 23, 2016
Age 68 // Executive Director, Dominican Center
Sister Patricia Rogers has spent her life as an intermediary between blacks and whites, going back to 1963 when, as a 15-year-old student, she was part of a lawsuit desegregating the schools in Fort Smith, Ark.
Today, the nun is one of a handful of African Americans in her Dominican order. She lives at the convent at Dominican High School in Whitefish Bay, and each workday she heads to 25th and Locust in the Amani neighborhood. She is executive director of the Dominican Center, a nonprofit providing adult education and neighborhood improvement programs, from housing to community relations with police.
Sister Patricia didn’t come to her vocation easily. It took a nightmare that she now sees as a message from God. At the time, she was a layperson teaching math at a Dominican school in Chicago. She saw the sisters’ good intentions but felt they lacked cultural understanding of their students.
“I started praying to God, ‘Please, send a black sister to help these people,’” she recalls.
In the nightmare, her kitchen stove was on fire, something needed to be done, and she heard a question: “What about Patricia Rogers?” When she awoke, she looked in the phone book for other Patricia Rogers (there were five). But she knew she was the person. She became a novice, starting her life in the order.
From that fateful night, by way of Sinsinawa, Wis. (the motherhouse for Sinsinawa Dominicans), Montgomery, Ala., St. Louis, New Orleans and Chicago, Sister Patricia came to Milwaukee six years ago to work with the Dominican Center.
In Her Own Words:
How do we, as Catholics, address the issue of racism in Milwaukee? Yes, the church is doing good things. But do we really know the people we are trying to help? That’s the challenge.
People often think that if they serve in a meal program, or help build a house, that’s enough. But is it? Are you really interacting with people, spending time with them, having honest conversations? Until you are able to have an argument with someone who is not of your own race, you haven’t really gotten to know that person.
We live in a city that is perhaps the worst place for African Americans to grow up. Whether we are Catholic or not, if we are Christian at all, that is not the first thing I would want known about my city. I would want to try to find out what I can do. It’s a cop-out to say, “I don’t live near black people, I don’t hang out with black people, so therefore I am neutral.” As a Christian, it’s impossible to be neutral.
Let’s talk about Black Lives Matter. Some think that people are saying only black people matter. No. Black people are asking, “Do we, as a people, matter?” Of course all lives matter. But do we really believe that all lives matter, given the way black people are being treated, and have been treated over the years?
People of color are very aware that we need white people. But are white people aware that they need us? That we matter?
Age 49 // Co-Founder, Safe Zone
It’s 4 p.m. and Shawn Moore puts on his yellow Safe Zone T-shirt. For the next five hours, Moore and four other members of the Safe Zone Initiative walk the neighborhood surrounding 27th Street and Capitol Drive. Their goal: to stop trouble before it happens or, if a dispute has already started, to ease the tensions.
“I’m the person that, before the guns are drawn, the neighborhood calls me,” Moore explains. He carries a cell phone answering a Safe Zone hotline 24-7.
The publicly funded, two-year-old Safe Zone Initiative operates in the Garden Homes and Franklin Heights neighborhoods, this year from June through December. Under the concept that “it takes a village,” Safe Zone members are NeighborHOOD Ambassadors — “Helping Others Obtain Direction.” They are the neighborhood’s eyes, ears and heart.
Moore knows the streets better than he might admit. He came of age when de-industrialization started wreaking havoc on the city’s economy, and as a teenager he joined the “24 boys,” a gang centered at 24th and Capitol. He was in and out of legal trouble, with the most serious charge for bad checks.
When he was 32, Moore went to prison, serving almost six years. After his release, his future was uncertain. But he knew two things. He wanted a better life for his 7-year-old son, and he wanted to help rebuild the Garden Homes neighborhood that was there for him as a child. “This community,” he says, “it loved me, it fed
me, it clothed me.”
Moore is confident that during the winter months he’ll find work, perhaps as a union/community organizer or in the service sector. His main concern is for the six sons in his blended family, ranging in age from 10 to 25 years old: “I fear for my sons, and for everyone’s sons, that one day I will get a knock on my door and someone tells me my son’s life has been taken for no reason.”
In His Own Words:
The night Sylville Smith was shot, I got a call from a friend who told me to get to Sherman Park right away. People were mad and he worried there might be a riot.
When you see the anger, the pain, the frustration not just in Milwaukee but around the country, it was only a matter of time before something like Sherman Park happened. But Milwaukee should be grateful. It could have been a lot worse if you hadn’t had grassroots men and women immediately trying to calm things down, before the pastors came, before the cameras.
Could we have prevented the fires from taking place? No. Can you stop a tsunami with a bag of sand?
It’s unfortunate, but what happened in Sherman Park needed to happen. It took that mini-riot, that uproar, for people outside the community to see things need to change.
Yes, there are social services agencies in the neighborhood. But too often, it’s just a job and at 4, 5 or 6 o’clock, the staff go home and the agencies close. In the summer, life is just beginning at 5 o’clock.
Milwaukee’s epidemic of hopelessness did not pop up overnight, and it’s not going to magically disappear. But one thing I know. The solution won’t be found in some program cooked up in some office downtown, based off statistical data by someone who doesn’t know the community. The answer is to start including people from the community in the decisions that affect them.
Age 31 // Youth Mentor and DJ
As a black man who grew up in the central city, Tyrone Miller had made it. With a degree from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, he was working as a computer engineer at GE Healthcare.
But six years ago, as part of a GE volunteer day for employees, Miller was helping to rebuild a library at an inner-city school. One of the kids there asked if he’d be coming back. “Of course,” Miller replied, even though he knew another volunteer day hadn’t been scheduled.
Miller realized his job was out of sync with his true passion: music and working with kids. He quit GE.
Miller now is best known as DJ Bizzon, one of Milwaukee’s top DJs. He is also a youth mentor, using music to teach skills such as self-confidence and perseverance. Every Monday from 4-8 p.m. at the Jazz Gallery in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, he gives free DJ lessons to youth 12-19 years old. He also advises the DJ club at Reagan High School.
Hip-hop is not a music genre, Miller emphasizes, but a culture that includes DJing, MCing, break-dancing, graffiti art and, most importantly, acquiring deep knowledge
of history and culture. With its origins in the streets of the Bronx, N.Y., hip-hop is a tool to give voice to the voiceless.
Today, Miller works from gig to gig – not the most reliable way to earn a steady living. That’s OK with him. “My goal is to wake up every day and do something that matters to me and helps other people. I’m lucky that my passion can pay my bills.”
In His Own Words:
You want to learn? Turn off the media, get off the internet, put this magazine down and go support the African-American community.
If you like coffee, go to Coffee Makes You Black on Teutonia Avenue. If you like smoothies, go to the Juice Kitchen on North Avenue. If you like music, go to a hip-hop show. If you like books, read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Be part of the solution.
People need to get away from the white default and understand what change looks like. If I went to the doctor’s office and I saw 10 white doctors, that would be considered normal. If I saw 10 black doctors, now that would be a change. If you’re serious about confronting racism, you’ll realize the word “normal” should not mean “white.”
It’s also important to start at home. What are you teaching your kids? How do you deal with racism on television or with your relatives? If Uncle Mike says something racist at your holiday dinner, do you brush it off by saying, ”Oh, that’s just Uncle Mike.”
Yes, it might make you uncomfortable to say something. But if you’re not uncomfortable, maybe you’re not doing much. If you’re not willing to jeopardize a relationship with a racist associate or random friend, you need to look in the mirror and check who you really are.
What are you willing to sacrifice? Because blacks sacrifice damn near every day — sometimes our dignity, sometimes our dreams and sometimes our lives.
Age 39 // Co-Founder, Urban Underground
Like many African Americans, Sharlen Moore’s family came to Milwaukee to live the American Dream. Arriving more than 30 years ago from Jamaica, her father found work at the former Peck Foods meatpacking plant in the Menomonee River Valley. It was a thankless, bloody job, but it paid well. Her mother worked at the now-demolished St. Mary’s Nursing Home at 35th and Center streets.
Moore’s parents moved to the Sherman Park neighborhood, first renting and later, in that iconic fulfillment of the American Dream, buying a home. Today, the 39-year-old Moore, her husband Reggie and their three children share the duplex with her parents. To her, the neighborhood is one big family. It is her past, present and future.
Moore’s passion is developing youth leadership. She co-founded Urban Underground in 2000 with her husband, Reggie, who now heads the city’s Office of Violence Prevention. At the time, cruising along Capitol Drive was a favorite nighttime activity for youngsters in the area, creating tensions with residents. Urban Underground organized discussions to hear from young people. Two decades later, they are still listening.
Programs have evolved, but the issues have not fundamentally changed: health, education, criminal justice, public safety. The school-to-prison pipeline has been a key concern. Last June, Urban Underground helped end a controversial police program in Milwaukee Public Schools classrooms that, Moore argued, taught youth to fear the police.
In one of the now-discontinued program’s skits, a police officer pretended to pull out his gun, warned he might shoot if a student runs, and then yelled: “Bang, bang, bang.”
In Her Own Words:
Too many people are looking for superheroes to solve the problems. As we tell the young people we work with, “You are the superheroes. You are the ones who can make the changes.”
Milwaukee Magazine readers need to get involved. I know that’s a cliché, but it’s true. It needs to be based on your interests, whether that be sports, music, food, whatever. And because Milwaukee is so segregated, you need to go beyond your comfort zone.
A lot of times, we want to integrate by having black people move into predominantly white neighborhoods, or work with white organizations. Why not the other way around? Why is the burden always on black people to integrate?
I would love for white folks to understand what people of color go through on a daily basis, and that it’s not just about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, especially when you don’t have bootstraps. We need to create a way for whites to understand what it means to be black and living in the City of Milwaukee.
It took us a long time to get here, and it’s going to take time to get better. Until we create more equitable communities where people of various backgrounds can live together in a safe and healthy neighborhood, we are not going to get where we need to go.
I love my city. I see these stories on the disparities — incarceration, education, infant mortality. And I go, “Hey, this is Milwaukee. This is Wisconsin. We can do better.”
Age 47 // Associate Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
From a young age Robert Smith was told to be “a gentleman and a scholar.” What might be surprising is how Smith came by that counsel: from a two-time convicted felon who also happened to be his father, James.
Smith’s early memories of his father are mostly of visiting him in prison. After James Smith was released, when Smith was in his teens, he worked for the city of Indianapolis as a garbageman for 20 years before he passed away. “Thank God for city jobs,” Smith says about his father’s final years.
It wasn’t until Smith was working on his master’s degree at Central Michigan University that he understood his father’s advice. An African American professor of his was one of the most polite men Smith had ever met. He also was the most radical professor on campus. He wouldn’t lecture in anger, but he was blunt and let the facts speak for themselves. “I realized,” Smith says, “that this man was a gentleman and a scholar. And that’s what I wanted to be.’”
Smith graduated from Purdue University and received his PhD from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. His 10-page curriculum vitae speaks to his focus on the intersection of race and law. But his most important lessons are grounded in his youth: growing up in poverty, his father in jail, learning how to navigate around police. As for his soft-spoken, calm demeanor, it’s partly from his father’s advice.
“But as a black man,” Smith adds, “it’s part of survival. You learn
not to be outwardly hostile or angry. You learn the performance.”
In His Own Words:
When I came to Milwaukee, I underestimated its racial politics and landscape – the rigid, unspoken boundaries between neighborhoods and between city and suburb.
I like to walk to work and I found a home on the East Side. I had to learn the connotations. That for black people, you live in a white, exclusive neighborhood near the university – a part of the city that’s been off-limits for most African Americans.
As a black person, I’ve also learned not to like Milwaukee’s suburbs. I live on Maryland Avenue and Newberry, one of the most beautiful boulevards in the city. Shorewood is just a few blocks away, and it doesn’t look any different from my neighborhood. I don’t mean to pick on Shorewood, but there’s an arrogance, a smugness, a going out of one’s way to identify with this small, overwhelmingly white community rather than with Milwaukee. It’s absurd. But it’s not accidental.
We live in a legal climate where blacks have to prove they’ve been mistreated based on race. So if you’re not overtly denying black people access to better neighborhoods, jobs or schools, you can smugly proclaim you’re not racist. Yet often it is very intentional – it’s just not easily proved.
Racial politics aside, Milwaukee is a gem of a Midwestern city: an incredible lake, wonderful parks, beautiful historic homes. I’m amazed there isn’t more of a commitment to make Milwaukee more cosmopolitan, to let the eclectic nature of the city breathe and expand. And more gastropubs ain’t going to do it. 
Barbara Miner is a regular contributor.

created: November 23, 2016

author: BY Barbara Miner


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8 of the Best Running Routes in Milwaukee
BY Archer Parquette
July 15, 2019
Sometimes there’s nothing better than the feeling of your feet pounding against the pavement, your legs pumping, your chest heaving with each breath as you run through the streets. I can’t imagine when that would actually be, but I have to imagine for someone somewhere that is sometimes the case. For many of us, running is a necessary part of fighting the hopeless battle against slowing metabolism, for others its a endorphin-producing pleasure. Whatever your motivation, here are some of the best spots for a jaunt through Milwaukee.
Starting at Clybourn St., you can run alongside the Milwaukee River northward all the way to Humboldt Ave. for a roughly two mile run. It’s one of the only places you can run in the heart of the city without getting in everyone’s way and having to juke out passing cars like an NFL tailback. The only drawback is an occasional fish stench rising up from the mysterious waters, but otherwise this is a top-notch quick run.
If you’re looking to hit a quick mile without getting too far out of the city, haul yourself over to Washington Park. They have a big old pond outside of the Urban Ecology Center that provides a centerpiece for your run. The park is larger than just the pond, which makes this a malleable trail, if you feel like pushing yourself a bit and run another mile (maybe “Eye of the Tiger” just came on your headphones).
Oak Leaf Trail is a massive city-wide trail with a vast and fascinating ecological history sure to fascinate the urban-planning lover in all of this. But this article is about running, so forget all that history. For this 5k, start the trail at Veterans Park and run northward along the lake-shore, past Bradford Beach, all the way to Lake Park and the North Point Lighthouse. You’ll get in a scenic run that would make Zip Morgan proud.
Surprise surprise, the Oak Leaf Trail strikes again—this time in Wauwatosa. This 5k gets you a little bit out of the city and into Hoyt Park, alongside the Menomonee River. The Oak Leaf Trail continues its massive loop through this forested park, which provides a shady, pleasant place for a short or long run, depending on your mood.
A trail that pays tribute to the great Brewer and loops around a Lakeshore inlet, down through the city and through wooded areas. It’s a multi-faceted city trail that’ll get you a heart-pumping mid-distance run with enough visual variety to keep you entertained.
Man, Oak Leaf Trail really dominates this city. You even head southward to St. Francis, and you still run into the Oak Leaf Trail. This time the trail cuts through grant park right along the lake all the way up to Milwaukee. You can cut off at Sheridan Park for a roughly 5-6 mile run or keep going as long as you want.
Waukesha—what a place. It has all the wauks. It has all the eshas. It has it all, including a nice trail that runs woods, glens, and huge quarries. This is a big and scenic route that will provide all you need for your long run. The total trail about 16 miles long, so you can easily work in a half-marathon or double it back and go for the full-shebang.
The Lapham Peak Unit of Kettle Moraine offers a wide variety of potential trails, which loop into each other and allow for a long journey through the wilderness. Ascend your way up to the peak, down and around and all around, and soon enough you’ll have run a full marathon.

author: BY Archer Parquette


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Can Alderman Ashanti Hamilton Rise to the Challenge?
BY Erik Gunn
April 6, 2017
In 1990, Ashanti Hamilton ran away from home. He decided the house he’d been sharing with more than a dozen people, some of them family members, some of them drug addicts, was too chaotic a place for him to stay. “There wasn’t enough room for a high school kid who was full of himself and wanted to be an adult,” says the 43-year-old alderman who now represents a district on the North Side. A friend’s stepmother took him in and “opened up her home when I was a senior in high school, out on the street, just trying to find a place to lay my head,” he says. That’s what his drug-ridden neighborhood close to the intersection of First and Burleigh streets was like: “People outside of your immediate family became your extended family,” he says. “You helped each other to survive.
“I think part of that is really how I operate today: You recognize that the work you do requires a large tent.”
A year ago, Hamilton stitched together a tent big enough for a half-dozen African- American council members – and three white South Siders – to elect him Common Council president in an upset that toppled incumbent Ald. Mike Murphy, a council veteran. But more than once since then, their tent has looked ready to blow away. This past summer, the council’s public safety committee, headed by Hamilton’s pick for chair, tough-on-crime Ald. Bob Donovan, fired off a draft plan calling for more cops, more jail and “boot camps” for potential juvenile offenders.
The timing struck a nerve: Unrest had just erupted in the Sherman Park neighborhood, and the public reaction was withering. A hasty rewrite prioritized policy-community engagement instead, and Hamilton further insisted that future installments address such issues as “resident engagement” and job creation.
In November, the South Siders and Hamilton again collided when Donovan, Mark Borkowski, Tony Zielinski and José Pérez called on Police Chief Edward Flynn to add more patrols to their side of the city. Hours later, Hamilton countered with his own press release charging that the four had acted “irresponsibly” and “ignored their responsibility to represent the public safety concerns of the entire city.”
Although the November spat seemed to spell the end of a North Side-South Side alliance, Donovan and Hamilton both claim that everything’s just fine. “We met shortly after that, and I think ironed things out,” Donovan says. They followed the meeting with another that included Flynn.
“We have a very good relationship, and I can only see it improving,” Donovan says of Hamilton, who argues that the scuffle provided a civics lesson for the city. “I think everybody needed to see and hear the messy side of politics,” he says.
Not everyone agrees. Local Republican operative Craig Peterson says he’s “disappointed” with Hamilton’s performance, and the council president “demonstrated a lack of political acumen” in November when he came out against his own allies. The alderman has racked up “many, many missed opportunities,” Peterson says, to advance an agenda of “righting the problems in the central city.”
Peterson has advised Donovan and Borkowski (who once called him “my Svengali”) and played some role in Hamilton’s election to council president, although Hamilton dismisses Peterson’s involvement and insists he first sought the backing of South Side members independent of any strategy by the operative.
Mayor Tom Barrett tends to avoid internal council politics and says he has “a solid working relationship” with Hamilton. “He brings a lot of energy to the position.”
Another City Hall insider acknowledges there’s been “more drama” surrounding the council as of late, but Hamilton insists you can have disagreements and still get things done. He points to the eventual consensus reached on the city’s crime-fighting plan and new city agreements to raise wages and elevate resident hiring standards for the new Bucks arena, among other achievements.
Hamilton says an urge to bring about change from the inside turned him away from his previous career in law and onto working as an aide in the late 1990s for then-Ald. Marvin Pratt, whom Hamilton succeeded. Hamilton demurs on the subject of running for mayor as Pratt did, predicting a wide-open field if Barrett retires. And anyway, he says, “Four years is a long time.”
“People want me to climb out on a limb a little bit more,” he says. But he’s gone far enough, he thinks. “I can hear the creak on the limb a little bit better than most.” ◆
Tune in to WUWM’s (FM 89.7) “Lake Effect” April 7 at 10 a.m. to hear more about the story.

author: BY Erik Gunn