July 1, 2025 • 41 mins
When Father Dennis Lewis was assigned to St. Michael’s parish in Milwaukee, he discovered a growing number of Hmong and Laotians seeking refuge from the Vietnam War. Many were subjected to a terrible slumlord and so Father decided to start a homebuying ministry that helped coach them through the process. 33 years later, Acts Housing has helped 4,000 low-income families purchase homes!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
To become a homeowner is a lot of hard work,
especially for a family that doesn't have credit or has
some credit challenges, has low income. Owning your own home
and being successful with it is a ton of work,
and we can't do that work for you. It's about
the family being willing to put in that hard work,
and then it acts we're a coach because then at
the end they've achieved something amazing. They don't need us
(00:24):
at all. But even better than that is when they
help that next family member buy a home without us.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a high school football
coach in inner City Memphis. And the last part, somehow
it led to an oscar for the film about our team.
That movie is called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems
(00:56):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
in nice suits and big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of
normal folks. Guys, that is us, just you and me,
seeing in the area of need and deciding, hey, maybe
I can help. That's what Michael Gosman, the voice you
(01:17):
just heard, has done. Michael is the head of AXE Housing,
which has helped over four thousand low income families purchase
homes to an incredible empowerment model that I hope will
spread across the country and candidly, I'm dying to bring
it to my hometown, Memphis. I cannot wait for you
(01:38):
to meet Michael. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors. Michael Gosman from the Beer Place, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
(02:01):
what's up.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Absolutely thrilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Thrilled to have you. When when did you get in?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I got him last night. Yeah, a little late. I
got in about eight thirty, but it was not too
late for me to explore just a little bit because
it's my first time in Memphis, so I had to
take advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
What'd you get to see?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I got to see some live music, so I walked
over to Bill. Yeah, no, I went to the what's
it called City Cafe?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh? Yeah, there was there was live music at Blue City.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
There was. Yeah, it was Mine Morris.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Moose Blonde, Willie Morse and Willie Morris.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I think, yeah, that's all it was. I mean, it
was so cool and I wasn't hungry, and I still
ordered some food because I had a buddy who's like,
you got to try the greens They're so good. Yeah, yeah,
no I did. I couldn't go that deep. It was
like ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You got to come back tomorrow, now, I mean, you
got to come back soon and draw the ribs.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But we did get them at your favorite hotel too.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Finally, you stayed at the Bay.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Body what a place. See see, it's very cool. And
please don't tell the hotel that they had a little
soap that's carved like a dock.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I stole everybody does everybody does well. I wish
you had more time to enjoy our city. You're not
far from the National Civil Rights Museum, Bill Street and
the music. You know, we are the home of the blues.
We are the home of the rock and roll and
Elvis and Cherry Lee Lewis and Aretha Franklin and Isaac
(03:24):
Hayes and you know Roy Orbison. So much of that
is still ingrained in our gritty, GrITT and grind Memphis fabric.
And I love it when somebody from Milwaukee comes and
only spends five five hours here but has a smile
on their face. We got a lot to offers, for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I got to come back. Yeah, I hope you.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I hope you do. Michael is the president and CEO
of AXE Housing based in Milwaukee, and honestly, Michael, I
want to come You want you to come back, and
I'm dead serious about this. I want to introduce you
to our city and our county mayor, and I want
them to engage with you because I think AS is
(04:07):
the answer to so much of what ails so many
of our urban areas. I think you guys have I'm
really as I've read all of the information that Alex
gave me on you and your organization, I just kept thinking,
oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, why hasn't this been
(04:29):
done before? Oh my gosh. So I can't wait to
dive in. And I am dead serious. I invite you back.
I really hope you'll take me up on it. Spend
a couple of days into're a city, and let me
introduce you to some people in Memphis, because I think
what we're about to find out about what you and
AX does. We need what you do, as do many
(04:51):
other cities so let's get into it, and we're going
to get to where you are, but could you just
first tell us kind of the founding story of Acts
and how it evolved before you ever even showed up,
when you were just a twinkle in your mommy's eyes.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So AXE was founded more than thirty years ago, and
it really came from a rather simple premise, which was
the priest at Saint Michael's Parish on twenty fourth in
Cherry in the city of Milwaukee. He was getting frustrated
that he was trying to build a strong congregation there
and there was some struggles. So the neighborhood around the
(05:28):
church wasn't doing too well.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I've been to Milwaukee once actually for a birds game.
Give us what twenty fourth in Cherry is kind of
topographically to the city geographically.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, so we're talking about a neighborhood community. It's like
a mile and a half from our central downtown district,
and so it is city, so it is very central,
but it feels a world apart from actually being in
our downtown, which now is a fairly thriving place. So
(06:00):
it was a neighborhood that was had a lot of crime,
had fairly expensive rents, even though the quality of the
homes and the apartments that people were renting were quite low,
and the church was struggling because they'd had an influx
of refugees from Southeast Asia. So actually a large among
population individuals who'd helped the US during the Vietnam War.
(06:22):
They got resettled by Catholic charities, and many of them
wound up renting apartments right in this area around the church.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So let's talk about that a little bit. We're talking
the seventies. Yeah, the end of the Vietnam War. So
these are Southeast Asians, primarily from Laos.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, so Laotian people. Typically they had spent then years,
many many many years living in refugee camps and Thailand
before they actually came to the United States.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But they had to do the refugee camps, right because
described their involvement with the United States military and Vietnam
and why they were refugees in the first place.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah. So I'll use one of my colleagues's former colleagues
as sort of husband as an example. I mean, he
was a key partner, you know, he was working as
a part of one of one of the units and
had a real belief that democracy was important. Also, you know,
developed strong relationships with some members of the military, and
(07:27):
yet you know, the war ends and and sort of
life is upended, and so they wind up being refugees
for a long, extended period of time. And I know
for some, for some that was a period of years,
for some it was much much much longer, until eventually
some of them were able to because of their service
to the United States, were actually able to move to
the United States, and many of them settled in Wisconsin.
(07:48):
A lot of them settled in Minnesota and some other
parts of the country, typically in partnership with the Catholic Church.
So it was through Catholic charities and in Wisconsin that
many of them got settled.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I think it's important for our listeners to remember or
be aware of. Oftentimes these refugees are here because they
assisted us in some war theater where they assisted the CIA.
Great may if I'm wrong, but they're just the CIA
and we lost or we left, and now that people
(08:24):
in control were our enemies, which are now their enemies,
and then they get persecuted. Was that the case with
these folks?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, And my understanding of the life and the refugee camps,
which is where they were, you know, in the aftermath
the wars that that was that was not a great place,
that was not a great place to be. And so
you know, obviously you'd like to think that we as
a country can do right by people and if they've
really gone on a limb to try and support us,
that then we can offer them something in return. By
the way, these tend to be like the hardest working,
(08:54):
most incredible, democracy minded individuals. They buy into our culture completely.
So and I.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Can't help but think, and again we're talking about the
founding and the seventies and get there. But I can't
help but think that these are were our generation Afghan interpreters,
same type people people who have assisted our military and
(09:24):
Afghan war. And then when we had our disastrous pull out,
were left there and then the Taliban were hunting them down,
killing them, persecuting them, jailing them for assisting us against them.
And when we left Afghanistan and we left them, what
are they to do? And so that's what these people are.
They're just the Laotian folks. What are they called their
(09:47):
mun they're among people. They are from laos Hmong, Okay,
the among people from laos that fought and helped and
advised and interpreted and gave are Cia and our military
information and fought alongside us for the for to try
to for democracy's sake. And when we lost and we left,
(10:11):
they're screwed, right, Yeah, Okay, so that's who we're talking
about who end up somehow getting here through the Catholic Church.
But now they're these guys.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
In America, right, and they're you know, they're sort of
plopped down and the church did the best they could,
but they're they're a part of this congregation. They don't
necessarily speak the language yet. But this was a group
of incredibly hard working people. And so the church actually,
you know, it was growing because you've got all these
Mung families who now are a part of the church.
It's a really special place. The church still i think
(10:44):
says Eastern Mass and seven languages as part of.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
The service, kidding because it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
In addition to the Mung families, now there's there's Burmese
families and there's multiple Bermese dialects. There's Hispanic families, there's
white families, there's black families. It's a really cool place.
There aren't many places in the country that worship and
such a diverse, you know, such a diverse group of
people come together to worship. It's it's very cool. But
the priest who was leading the congregation at that time
was seeing that here's these people. They're so hard working,
(11:09):
but you know, they're renting homes from often slum lords.
And even though they were, you know, doing the best
they could and they were all working, the amount of
money they had left over at the end of the
month was extremely small. And he wanted them to put
down roots and become a part of the church long term.
He didn't want them every single year, every few months
need to move because you know, the homes weren't being kept,
or because the landlords were trying to jack up the rent.
(11:33):
And so we said, well, what if we could help
them actually buy homes. What if you know, these these
are responsible, working people, but they didn't know about our culture,
they didn't know about the home buying process, and so
it was clear that and they didn't have a lot
of money, and they didn't have a lot of money,
and they were tended to be debt averse, so even
the idea of a mortgage wasn't necessarily something that you know,
(11:53):
was intuitive to them or something they were comfortable with.
So it wasn't going to be an easy process. But
he said, these are the types of peace we want
owning homes in our city, right, right, We wouldn't want
want them to be temporarily here. We want them to
put down roots and be a part of building you know,
a great, a great neighborhood. And so he was. He
was smart enough. The priest, Father Dennis Lewis, he's still
(12:13):
he's still around, amazing visionary leaders still in the Milwaukee community.
And but he was smart enough to know he couldn't
do everything. So he needed a partner. He needed someone
who could actually operationalize this, right because Father Dennis is
mostly going to be, you know, performing his pastoral duties.
He can't be running this housing program. And so he
went he went to the mayor of Milwaukee at the
(12:34):
time and said, I need some help hold it.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
That's government and church working together.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I know, right, this is blasphemy. This story is going
to blow your mind. It's it's a fascinating one. And
I'm gonna maybe not share the names of all the
individuals are involved.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
To protect come on to share them let's go. But
go ahead, I got you. And the priest reaching this
is still seventies.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Well this is this is actually late eighties. Okay, this
is late eighties.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
But he's got that. Okay, seventies. The people calm. Now
it's a decade of it. His church is growing with him.
He sees a need and he reaches the mayor exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And the mayor at the time was rather forward thinking.
He sort of bought into this vision and he had
the i think, the intelligence to realize that while this
was a great idea, it didn't need to be a
city program. That you know, if we tried to make
it a city program, it might not be as successful
as if there was some way to sort of make
it its own thing.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Partner started to love you, mayor or this mayor back then.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So he made an offer. This is the story. I've
heard this story many many times. He made an offer
to the priest and he said, so, okay, go down
to the Department of City Development and see see if
there's anyone there that you think could really help you
with this. And so the priest goes to the Department
of City Development a father Dennis, and he looks around
and this is his perception. He sees a bunch of
(13:50):
mostly men wearing sort of business shirts. You know, they
had like, you know, pencils in their pocket, and they've
got very neat desks, and they just don't seem like
the type of person to him who's going to be
able to really come into the community that he's a
part of and make an impact. And there's one desk
that's just a mess it's just you know, it's it's messy.
(14:13):
And he's visited now a few times. He never sees
anyone there. He's like, well, who sits there. It's like, well,
that's that's a guy named John Worm. You know, yeah,
he works, he works here, but he's he's always in
the community. He's always got some some you know, special
projects he's working on. You know, we don't see him
that much. And father Dennis said, that's my guy, and
so he started partnering with this John Worm, the city employee,
(14:35):
and and the two of them, you know, we're the
leaders of the organization and they're the reason that the
work we do today helping families transition from renters to
owners is happening, is flourishing at a huge scale just
from those sort of humble, humble beginnings.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
we're thinking about launching a few low chapters of the
Army this year. To dive more into it, check out
our recent shop Talk episode titled experimenting with Local Chapters,
and if you're interested in potentially leading a chapter in
(15:13):
your community, email Army at normal folks dot us and
Alex would love to connect with you. We'll be right back. Okay,
So at the beginning, you got a priest, you got
(15:37):
a mayor's blessings, and you got messy worm. Mm hmm, boy,
this sounds like a recipe for success if you ever
came up with right now, what was their idea then?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah? So the idea was, we need to make the
real estate market work for these these refugee families. So
how do we do that. We need to figure out
how to first of all, get them to a place
where they can get financing. So there's going to be
some work with them to establish credit. We're going to
need to talk to them about the importance of that.
This wasn't an issue of credit repair. These were individuals
(16:11):
who you know, had just zero They just had zero
credit right, So how do we help them start to
build some credit, and then how do we develop the
relationships with banks that we're going to need so that
when we have a good loan, that we're able to
navigate that with the family. Because these families, you know,
some spoke some English, some spoke very little English. You know,
they were still adapting to living in this country, and
(16:34):
they weren't going to be able to navigate the banking
system on their own.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But I hear this, and I'm still thinking these largely
have to be middle income at best to lower income folks,
although maybe everybody in the family's working and cumulatively they're
making enough money to get along, but they're basically barely
paying rent and getting along. The idea of a two
hundred thousand dollars house seems a little difficult. But they
(17:02):
also figured out a way that the city could take
non performing assets and get them on the tax rolls,
which is also incredibly bright and interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, and this wasn't the age of the two hundred
thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Homes, okay, even eighty back.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Then, this was this was the time of the dollar homes.
You know, there was such distress in the neighborhood around
the church, that there were a lot of deeply distressed homes,
and there were opportunities for these families to actually purchase homes,
sometimes for a dollar, sometimes for one thousand dollars. Put ten, fifteen,
twenty thousand dollars into these homes, and actually that was
(17:43):
enough for them to be decent, safe, and code compliant
in a lot of instances.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Okay, but this is what I just when I read
this part. I'm telling you, bro, this is when I
just went crazy. You've got homes that have been foreclosed
on or abandoned and that the city is really now
responsible for because they're gone there. Nobody's paid the taxes
(18:08):
and they're just sitting there. It's a plot of property
with the bones of a house still sitting there and
nobody to pay the taxes, and it ends up being
on the assessor's rolls, the city or county assessors roles
of properties. And every once in a while they have
tax sales, and tax seals come up and slum lords
(18:29):
come and by them and put them very littlest amount
of work that can in them and rent them. That
happens all day, every day in cities, all the country. Yes,
all right, So what the city is saying is, if
you can get your people to learn how to buy homes,
will open up the roles of these properties that we're
(18:55):
getting absolutely no tax revenue for, and we'll sell them
at almost nothing. If these people come in, fix them up,
pay a note, and therefore start paying property taxes. So
when I caught when I read that, it's like, hold it.
This is a win win. You're getting people in ownership,
you're getting people out of out of renting, and you're
(19:18):
getting dilapidated properties fixed up, and the city is now
getting tax revenue on properties that have that are nothing
but a drag on the city's balance sheet. Is that
is that it?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I wish I could say it as well as you
just said it. That's exactly that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Put worm and a priest came up with this in
nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, it's pretty I mean, it's pretty amazing that they
had the vision to put this, to put this thing together.
So that's what happened, That's that's exactly it. And it
was what if we could help them get loans, what
if we could what if we could coach them through
the rehab of the homes because these families often were
very handy, but didn't know about our building codes, didn't
know about when permits needed to be pulled they need.
(20:00):
It's sort of a guide make sure they don't get
ripped off when they're contracting for the services that they
were getting. And it was really the two of them
at the start, and they were really smart. The way
they went about this was incredible. You know, they were
struggling early on to attract enough families for the sort
of dollar homes that were available. And they got a
(20:21):
call from a woman named Baliah among refugee wanting to
buy one of the homes, but she she already owned
a home. She wanted to buy it as an investment property.
And they said, okay, Bliah, you've missed.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
One of the greatest parts about Lilia how she learned
to speak English. Watching Wonder Woman and Star Trek. I
read that. I'm like, okay, I really that's how she
learned to speak English. According to what I've.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Read, she's I mean, one of the more She's someone
who whatever she decided to do in this world, she
was going to be wildly successful. She is so tenacious,
so hard working, so she hears a no from John Warren,
but she wants to buy a house, and he says,
this house isn't for you, Bilia. We're trying to help
new families buy homes. You already own a home. So
she decides to start letting people know about these homes.
(21:08):
And so there's an event.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So is it a foreclosed house?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Is that foreclosed homes? Foreclosed homes available for a dollar
at that time tax sale? Yes, And so even though
she has no ability to buy the home, she brings
six seven families out just for this one opportunity, because
she knows what a good opportunity it is, and she
wants to share that with her community. And so John
(21:32):
sees that she's brought, you know, a lot more people
to this home than he's ever getting. When when he's
trying to recruit and he says, what are you doing
for work right now? And you know, she explains to
him that she's got sort of a part time job
that she's doing. She's raising her kids, her husband's also working.
And he says, have you ever thought about being a
real estate agent?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Really?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And she says, no, you know, I can't read English
that well, I don't know anything about the practice of
real estate, and he said, what you just did getting
seven families to this house who wanted to buy this home,
that if you can do that, I will help you
get your real estate license. I'll help you understand the
real estate practice because you have what it takes to
be very successful representing this community. And Bileo wound up
(22:14):
becoming one of I think the first woman Southeast Asian
women in southeastern Wisconsin to get her real estate license,
and over what wound up being a twenty five year
ish career at ACTS before she retired, she wound up
helping something like six or seven hundred families, the vast
majority of whom were Southeast Asian families, purchase homes in
(22:36):
the city because of her work.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Okay, Dave, we're still at the beginning. We haven't even
gotten to what you're doing now. But if you go
to Shelby County is our county. If you go to
the Shelby County Assessor's Office property list right now online,
(22:58):
I think it's seventeen thousand properties in this county that
are in some level of process of taxes admin k foreclosure.
When I say foreclosure, not by banks because many times
they're eighty seventy sixty eighty nine year old homes, but
(23:19):
they've been abandoned. Nobody's pay taxes on them, and they're
just sitting there on the city's rolls or the county's rolls,
and they're producing absolutely no revenue for the city. And
actually the city's kind of responsible taking care of them
because they've had to take possession of them. Right. Meanwhile,
forty percent of the people inside the city of Memphis rent,
(23:42):
So you have all these homes that the city would
love to get any tax revenue on and get off
the rolls and get fixed up so you don't have
blight in some of these lower income communities. And you
have all these people paying rent, oftentimes the slumlords, or
at the very least paying for nothing and not building
(24:03):
any American dream ownership. This seems like the fix. And
you got worm and a priest and now believe the
Southeast Asian person actually doing this in Milwaukee. How many
(24:28):
homes I mean, first year, second year, you know, how
to grow? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
So, interestingly enough, at the start, the idea was really
just around the real estate peace and so they had
realtors that they were hiring sort of real estate professionals
to represent the families, and they didn't have a formal
education program for the families, but they had this vision.
They had some realtors who took a real interest in
supporting the community, and they pretty quickly were able to
(24:55):
do you know, maybe a few dozen homes a year,
which is prettyificant volume. And then over time there became
an awareness of you know, Okay, having the agents is
really important. We need families to represent. We need people
to represent the families make sure they're getting a good deal,
but we also need designated support. If they're fixing up
(25:15):
a distressed home, that's really hard. So we need to
make sure that families have some support in that work,
because especially if you've never owned a home before taking
on a massive rehab project, hiring out all your own contractors,
knowing the order of operations, making sure, yeah, you got
to do the roof before you start worrying about the kitchen, Like,
let's make sure that you're doing things in a smart
(25:37):
way to be successful and make good investments in the home.
And so over time we sort of have been able
to layer in some of that additional support in a
more formal way to make sure that First of all,
we can get to significant volume because the idea behind
our program is that neighborhoods do better when families have
the opportunity to own the homes they live in. And
(25:57):
if we can create more communities where there are large
numbers of homeowners, you know, the schools are going to
be better, communities are going to be safer, families are
going to be healthier, and it's a good platform then
for these families to figure out what's next. Right you
accomplish this thing, you buy a home, you experience that
pride of home ownership. You've done something really hard. Well,
(26:18):
then maybe you're ready to take a step in your
educational journey or in your journey towards a more meaningful career.
Maybe it gives you more ability to finance your kids'
education or to give them some opportunities. And so as
we've been able to sort of continue to invest in
these strategies and make sure that families have the right support,
we've seen that home ownership can flourish in a city
(26:39):
like Milwaukee, and we think that we've learned some things
that can certainly benefit a lot of other cities around
the country. And from what you're saying it sounds like maybe,
you know, Memphis White might be one of those places.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I'm bringing your butt down here. We'll be right back.
(27:09):
So back to chronologically how this happened. In ninety two,
father Dennis and John Worm said were onto something, yep,
and so they founded what's it called.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
AXE Housing And they didn't even they didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Even applied churches teaching self empowerment.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, so that was the initial name. That was the
name we were incorporated under. And it was it was
the two of them, it was some other church leaders
from the area who saw what they were doing and said,
we want this for you know, the neighborhoods around our
churches too. And they didn't even have like a five
oh one C three designation. They weren't even an official nonprofit.
They just started doing it right. They weren't worried about
(27:54):
sort of what what paperwork might need to be formed.
It was about, this is work that needs to happen,
let's let's start doing it.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I read I think it's on a website somewhere. I
don't know where Alex found it. But they clarified their
vision putting people in charge of their own lives. AX
was not interested in more affordable rental housing. The organization
wanted documents to become owners as soon as possible, so
as went to work. And when I when I when
(28:26):
I read that, I also read about the father's attitude
toward if we can get people to own, that means
they invest in the communities and the communities improved. Talk
to us about that.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, so clearly there's a value to the individual family
through ownership. You know, often there's a savings. They actually
spend less owning the home than they were paying in rent.
They're building equity. But you know, key to Father Dennis's
vision wasn't just that that one family would be successful.
It was that the example that they would set for
the block, for the neighborhood, the fact that there would
(29:05):
be more families on the block who'd feel like they
have this ownership interest. It would mean that the neighborhoods
would get safer, people would be looking out for each other.
It would mean that there'd be much less moving around,
which is a huge challenge for the church and for
the neighborhood. Now, if you've got families on a block
that are moving all the time, you're not building that
sort of network of support much more likely than to
(29:27):
attract nuisance, attract crime, have things maybe fester that otherwise
a longstanding homeowner wouldn't stand for. And so they really
focused on the area right around the church and figured
if they could get multiple homeowners on every block, that
that could not only improve the lives of the families
who are the new homeowners, but improve the lives of
the renters too, right, and also give them renters an
(29:50):
example of maybe home ownership something that you could strive for,
you could achieve.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, you know, it makes sense. If I'm living on
a street and I'm renting a house and it's not
it's just a place that I stay because I pay
a monthly rent and there's a polish crap on a
curb then bothering me that bad. It's not my power
crap and it's not my curb. But when I own it,
if there's a power crap on my curb, I'm going
(30:15):
to find out who's dumping it. I'm going to get
it cleaned up, because now you're messing on my thing.
So when you instill ownership in a community, you instill
a sense of community bride and things start changing.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
That's exactly right, and I've we've seen it firsthand in Milwaukee.
I've seen it firsthand. I was talking with a homeowner.
I do some walking tours sometimes in areas where we've
had sort of the greatest impact, and I was talking
to a long standing homeowner. I didn't know they were
an AX alumnus. I just was walking on the start
talking to them, ask them how they bought their home,
and they wound up being an AXE homeowner. And while
(30:49):
we're talking, there's a car that's just sort of parked
on the block and the person in the car dumps
some trash out and I didn't see it happened. My
back was to the car. But the gentleman I was
I was talking to, said, hey, give me a second.
He goes, he knocks on the window and he talked
to the guy who dumped the trash and he said, hey,
don't do that. Don't bring that here. Right. And I'm
(31:10):
not saying that's.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
The greatest story I've ever heard. That is perfect, is awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And you know a renter could could do that too,
but way less likely. Right, this is someone who's had
a long standing stake in that block, and more likely
that they're because of that position, going to feel confident
to set some good some good norms for what goes
on in that block and what doesn't.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
The more I hear about this, here's something else that
Alex said that I'd like you to comment on. Most
solutions are top down solutions. They don't deal with people.
They think if we just build enough, that's going to
fix things. But they don't necessarily solve the problem because
that doesn't help families provide for themselves. And what we're
(31:55):
doing at Access, we're starting from the bottom up. We
start with the family.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, so the for Acts, it always started with the
individual family. So although the hope was that neighborhoods would
improve and that we would start this ownership ethic that
could be could be contagious. It was all about if
we can help one family improve their lives, if we
can work hand in hand with them, help them navigate
(32:19):
our home buying process, we're setting they're going to be
set up for success. And it's not about providing home
ownership to a family. And this is a real key
distinction and something that I really always like to make clear.
To become a homeowner is a lot of hard work,
especially for a family that doesn't have credit or has
some credit challenges, has low income. Getting ready to become
(32:42):
a homeowner, owning your own home and being successful with
it is a ton of work, and we can't do
that work for you. It's about the family being willing
to put in that hard work and then it acts.
We're a coach, right, That's how we see ourselves. We
see ourselves as how do we provide the families. We're
not on the field. They're the ones in the field,
they're the ones who are doing all this hard work.
(33:03):
But we want a position for them for success. We
want to help them understand the key habits that they're
going to need to invest in if they're going to
be successful. We get to cheer them on when they're
able to, you know, clear off debt and make strides
towards home ownership, and when they're falling short, we get
to at times give them a little you know, kicking
(33:23):
the butt, right, like, hey, we know you can do this,
and you know, based on what we've seen over the
last couple of months, is home ownership no longer something
that you're passionate about? Is it no longer something that
is a priority for you to be able to provide
for your kids. So sometimes we've got to do some
of that too, But it's about the family stepping up
and doing this really hard work because then at the
(33:44):
end they've achieved something amazing. And the coolest thing is
then they typically they don't need us at all. It's
not like they're coming back to us every time something
goes on at the house. Even more than that, pretty
often their next family member who buys a home, sometimes
they refer that family member to us, and that's that's
really cool. That's an honor when someone refers someone to
(34:06):
us and says that we can help them. But even
better than that is when they helped that next family
member buy a home without us, they don't even need
us anymore. And we don't always.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Hear that story into how things work, which is.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Beautiful exactly, and and so we don't always capture those stories.
But on my walks sometimes, you know, I on this
this very same block, I shared the story of the trash.
There was a gentleman and he had the nicest house
in the block, and he just had done a ton
of work on it. It was really impressed, and so
I saw him outside the house, and so I just
introduced myself to him, and I asked him if he
(34:41):
heard of Axe Housing and he said, heard of you.
Of course, I bought my first house with you, So
you know, he bought his first house. And I don't
know if this was house number two or number three,
but he kept, you know, his family had greater needs.
He'd done well enough. He was able to sort of
move up, move on to that next house, but we
didn't help him with transaction two or transaction three. He'd
(35:02):
learned through the process. He was now able to access
the home buying marketplace successfully by himself with confidence. That's
the best case scenario.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
If you don't care about that from a if you
don't care about that from a social point of view,
you should care about that just pragmatically, because you took
a renter who was really contributing very little to the
tax space, and you created a guy now who has
(35:32):
fault and rehabbed two or three homes and stepped himself
up in the tax space to continue to be a
greater contributor to your society pragmatically. If you don't even
care about the social sciety, pragmatically that is that is
how cities grow. And if you believe that we're only
(36:00):
as strong as the weakest link in the chain, and
you strengthen that weakest link. Think what that does if
you had that's one story. If you have ten thousand
of those, think of how your city changes. It's phenomenal.
So somehow I want to I really want to know
(36:21):
how you did this. Somehow throughs you worked out a
deal with the city. I may be screwing this up.
Straighten me out that properties valued less than twenty five
thousand that were on the city's foreclosure listing for more
than thirty days could be purchased for one thousand dollars.
Then those that have been on the listing for more
(36:41):
than sixty days can purchase for a dollar. And certainly
their inspection costs and things have to be done to
the house to get it livable. But the point is, somehow,
the priest worm somebody got somebody at the city to say, yeah,
it makes more sense to get these off the rolls
(37:03):
and fixed up for blight for tax purposes. Who and
how did that go? Because that, to me is kind
of a public private agreement that serves everybody well. But
is that correct that properties valued at less than twenty
five thousand dollars that were on the city's roles for
more than thirty days could be birth for a thousand bucks,
(37:24):
sixty days for a dollar. How did that all happen?
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, So, I really think ACTS has always been i
would say, a strong partner to the City of Milwaukee.
And because of the early success we had helping families
purchase and fix up these distressed homes, it encouraged the
city to try and expand the partnership. How do we
create more pathways for home ownership? And what the city
(37:49):
was seeing was that when homes were taken through tax foreclosure,
typically one of two things was happening. And this is
really in the aftermath of like the two thousand and
eight foreclosure crisis that they started to have, you know,
massively more inventory, and one of two things happened. Either
the home sold quickly to an investor, and I'll put
investor in quotes, because most of the individuals who are
(38:12):
buying those homes, many of them, you know, they aren't
from our community, they don't live in Milwaukee, and they're
seeing dollar signs, right, They're seeing dollar signs. They're hoping
that they can you know, just not do any repairs,
hopefully put someone who's desperate in the apartment or in
the home, charge a bunch of rent, and then you know,
(38:33):
ultimately those homes pretty frequently they get lost because because
they're not maintaining them and they're just trying to create
as much short term sort of rental income as they can.
So the city saw a lot of that activity happening,
which they saw is very negative. Or some of the
more just stressed homes, they would just sit forever. And
the longer a home sits vacant, the worse it gets
(38:55):
and the least and then it becomes less likely that
it can be reclaimed because a lot of the homes,
once they've sat for years, you know, they really do
need to be torn down. By the way, if the
city owns the property, that's twenty twenty five thousand dollars
maybe depending on the size of the home, for the
city just to tear it down, and then you've got
a vacant lot. And in most of Milwaukee's neighborhoods, unfortunately,
(39:18):
there is not a sufficient market for brand new construction.
You wind up spending a lot more to build a
new home than you can sell that home. For and
so the vacant lots are a big problem because long
term it means they just sit there. There's a vacant lot.
It's not good for the block, it's not good for
the neighborhood, and it's very bad for the city's tax base.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And the grass doesn't get cut and it looks like
a hell and that makes the community feel bad.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And so so the city was pretty proactive about wanting
to partner with us and others to see how can
we get more of these homes into owner occupied state.
And as a result, especially in that you know two
thousand and eight to maybe twenty and fifteen period when
there were so many tax foreclosures, we were literally able
to help more than a thousand families purchase and fix
(40:03):
up formally foreclosed properties.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Which are a thousand homes now on the tax rolls
hanging into the city's revenue buys and a thousand families
taking ownership and community a thousand a thousand.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, we've helped more over our thirty year history. It's
more than a thousand families have purchased these these foreclosed homes,
and the vast majority that was in that period right
after two thousand and eight when there was just so much,
so much unfortunate inventory, and I just think it was
really smart in the city's part. You can look at
it two ways. You can look at these tax foreclosures
(40:39):
as a liability, and of course they are. The city
needs to maintain them. They're not bringing in revenue, but
the City of Milwaukee to a large degree, decided to
look at it as a significant opportunity to promote home ownership.
And how often are we going to have this situation
where our city owns so many homes. If we can
get a large person manage of those to actually be
(41:01):
owner occupied instead of being absentee investors, that's a good
investment in the future stability of our city.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Michael Gosman,
and you don't want to miss part two that's now
available to listen to you together, guys, we can change
this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in
part two.
To become a homeowner is a lot of hard work,
especially for a family that doesn't have credit or has
some credit challenges, has low income. Owning your own home
and being successful with it is a ton of work,
and we can't do that work for you. It's about
the family being willing to put in that hard work,
and then it acts we're a coach because then at
the end they've achieved something amazing. They don't need us
(00:24):
at all. But even better than that is when they
help that next family member buy a home without us.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a high school football
coach in inner City Memphis. And the last part, somehow
it led to an oscar for the film about our team.
That movie is called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems
(00:56):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
in nice suits and big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of
normal folks. Guys, that is us, just you and me,
seeing in the area of need and deciding, hey, maybe
I can help. That's what Michael Gosman, the voice you
(01:17):
just heard, has done. Michael is the head of AXE Housing,
which has helped over four thousand low income families purchase
homes to an incredible empowerment model that I hope will
spread across the country and candidly, I'm dying to bring
it to my hometown, Memphis. I cannot wait for you
(01:38):
to meet Michael. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors. Michael Gosman from the Beer Place, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
(02:01):
what's up.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Absolutely thrilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Thrilled to have you. When when did you get in?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I got him last night. Yeah, a little late. I
got in about eight thirty, but it was not too
late for me to explore just a little bit because
it's my first time in Memphis, so I had to
take advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
What'd you get to see?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I got to see some live music, so I walked
over to Bill. Yeah, no, I went to the what's
it called City Cafe?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh? Yeah, there was there was live music at Blue City.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
There was. Yeah, it was Mine Morris.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Moose Blonde, Willie Morse and Willie Morris.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I think, yeah, that's all it was. I mean, it
was so cool and I wasn't hungry, and I still
ordered some food because I had a buddy who's like,
you got to try the greens They're so good. Yeah, yeah,
no I did. I couldn't go that deep. It was
like ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You got to come back tomorrow, now, I mean, you
got to come back soon and draw the ribs.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But we did get them at your favorite hotel too.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Finally, you stayed at the Bay.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Body what a place. See see, it's very cool. And
please don't tell the hotel that they had a little
soap that's carved like a dock.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I stole everybody does everybody does well. I wish
you had more time to enjoy our city. You're not
far from the National Civil Rights Museum, Bill Street and
the music. You know, we are the home of the blues.
We are the home of the rock and roll and
Elvis and Cherry Lee Lewis and Aretha Franklin and Isaac
(03:24):
Hayes and you know Roy Orbison. So much of that
is still ingrained in our gritty, GrITT and grind Memphis fabric.
And I love it when somebody from Milwaukee comes and
only spends five five hours here but has a smile
on their face. We got a lot to offers, for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I got to come back. Yeah, I hope you.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I hope you do. Michael is the president and CEO
of AXE Housing based in Milwaukee, and honestly, Michael, I
want to come You want you to come back, and
I'm dead serious about this. I want to introduce you
to our city and our county mayor, and I want
them to engage with you because I think AS is
(04:07):
the answer to so much of what ails so many
of our urban areas. I think you guys have I'm
really as I've read all of the information that Alex
gave me on you and your organization, I just kept thinking,
oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, why hasn't this been
(04:29):
done before? Oh my gosh. So I can't wait to
dive in. And I am dead serious. I invite you back.
I really hope you'll take me up on it. Spend
a couple of days into're a city, and let me
introduce you to some people in Memphis, because I think
what we're about to find out about what you and
AX does. We need what you do, as do many
(04:51):
other cities so let's get into it, and we're going
to get to where you are, but could you just
first tell us kind of the founding story of Acts
and how it evolved before you ever even showed up,
when you were just a twinkle in your mommy's eyes.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So AXE was founded more than thirty years ago, and
it really came from a rather simple premise, which was
the priest at Saint Michael's Parish on twenty fourth in
Cherry in the city of Milwaukee. He was getting frustrated
that he was trying to build a strong congregation there
and there was some struggles. So the neighborhood around the
(05:28):
church wasn't doing too well.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I've been to Milwaukee once actually for a birds game.
Give us what twenty fourth in Cherry is kind of
topographically to the city geographically.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, so we're talking about a neighborhood community. It's like
a mile and a half from our central downtown district,
and so it is city, so it is very central,
but it feels a world apart from actually being in
our downtown, which now is a fairly thriving place. So
(06:00):
it was a neighborhood that was had a lot of crime,
had fairly expensive rents, even though the quality of the
homes and the apartments that people were renting were quite low,
and the church was struggling because they'd had an influx
of refugees from Southeast Asia. So actually a large among
population individuals who'd helped the US during the Vietnam War.
(06:22):
They got resettled by Catholic charities, and many of them
wound up renting apartments right in this area around the church.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
So let's talk about that a little bit. We're talking
the seventies. Yeah, the end of the Vietnam War. So
these are Southeast Asians, primarily from Laos.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, so Laotian people. Typically they had spent then years,
many many many years living in refugee camps and Thailand
before they actually came to the United States.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But they had to do the refugee camps, right because
described their involvement with the United States military and Vietnam
and why they were refugees in the first place.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah. So I'll use one of my colleagues's former colleagues
as sort of husband as an example. I mean, he
was a key partner, you know, he was working as
a part of one of one of the units and
had a real belief that democracy was important. Also, you know,
developed strong relationships with some members of the military, and
(07:27):
yet you know, the war ends and and sort of
life is upended, and so they wind up being refugees
for a long, extended period of time. And I know
for some, for some that was a period of years,
for some it was much much much longer, until eventually
some of them were able to because of their service
to the United States, were actually able to move to
the United States, and many of them settled in Wisconsin.
(07:48):
A lot of them settled in Minnesota and some other
parts of the country, typically in partnership with the Catholic Church.
So it was through Catholic charities and in Wisconsin that
many of them got settled.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I think it's important for our listeners to remember or
be aware of. Oftentimes these refugees are here because they
assisted us in some war theater where they assisted the CIA.
Great may if I'm wrong, but they're just the CIA
and we lost or we left, and now that people
(08:24):
in control were our enemies, which are now their enemies,
and then they get persecuted. Was that the case with
these folks?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, And my understanding of the life and the refugee camps,
which is where they were, you know, in the aftermath
the wars that that was that was not a great place,
that was not a great place to be. And so
you know, obviously you'd like to think that we as
a country can do right by people and if they've
really gone on a limb to try and support us,
that then we can offer them something in return. By
the way, these tend to be like the hardest working,
(08:54):
most incredible, democracy minded individuals. They buy into our culture completely.
So and I.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Can't help but think, and again we're talking about the
founding and the seventies and get there. But I can't
help but think that these are were our generation Afghan interpreters,
same type people people who have assisted our military and
(09:24):
Afghan war. And then when we had our disastrous pull out,
were left there and then the Taliban were hunting them down,
killing them, persecuting them, jailing them for assisting us against them.
And when we left Afghanistan and we left them, what
are they to do? And so that's what these people are.
They're just the Laotian folks. What are they called their
(09:47):
mun they're among people. They are from laos Hmong, Okay,
the among people from laos that fought and helped and
advised and interpreted and gave are Cia and our military
information and fought alongside us for the for to try
to for democracy's sake. And when we lost and we left,
(10:11):
they're screwed, right, Yeah, Okay, so that's who we're talking
about who end up somehow getting here through the Catholic Church.
But now they're these guys.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
In America, right, and they're you know, they're sort of
plopped down and the church did the best they could,
but they're they're a part of this congregation. They don't
necessarily speak the language yet. But this was a group
of incredibly hard working people. And so the church actually,
you know, it was growing because you've got all these
Mung families who now are a part of the church.
It's a really special place. The church still i think
(10:44):
says Eastern Mass and seven languages as part of.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
The service, kidding because it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
In addition to the Mung families, now there's there's Burmese
families and there's multiple Bermese dialects. There's Hispanic families, there's
white families, there's black families. It's a really cool place.
There aren't many places in the country that worship and
such a diverse, you know, such a diverse group of
people come together to worship. It's it's very cool. But
the priest who was leading the congregation at that time
was seeing that here's these people. They're so hard working,
(11:09):
but you know, they're renting homes from often slum lords.
And even though they were, you know, doing the best
they could and they were all working, the amount of
money they had left over at the end of the
month was extremely small. And he wanted them to put
down roots and become a part of the church long term.
He didn't want them every single year, every few months
need to move because you know, the homes weren't being kept,
or because the landlords were trying to jack up the rent.
(11:33):
And so we said, well, what if we could help
them actually buy homes. What if you know, these these
are responsible, working people, but they didn't know about our culture,
they didn't know about the home buying process, and so
it was clear that and they didn't have a lot
of money, and they didn't have a lot of money,
and they were tended to be debt averse, so even
the idea of a mortgage wasn't necessarily something that you know,
(11:53):
was intuitive to them or something they were comfortable with.
So it wasn't going to be an easy process. But
he said, these are the types of peace we want
owning homes in our city, right, right, We wouldn't want
want them to be temporarily here. We want them to
put down roots and be a part of building you know,
a great, a great neighborhood. And so he was. He
was smart enough. The priest, Father Dennis Lewis, he's still
(12:13):
he's still around, amazing visionary leaders still in the Milwaukee community.
And but he was smart enough to know he couldn't
do everything. So he needed a partner. He needed someone
who could actually operationalize this, right because Father Dennis is
mostly going to be, you know, performing his pastoral duties.
He can't be running this housing program. And so he
went he went to the mayor of Milwaukee at the
(12:34):
time and said, I need some help hold it.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
That's government and church working together.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I know, right, this is blasphemy. This story is going
to blow your mind. It's it's a fascinating one. And
I'm gonna maybe not share the names of all the
individuals are involved.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
To protect come on to share them let's go. But
go ahead, I got you. And the priest reaching this
is still seventies.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Well this is this is actually late eighties. Okay, this
is late eighties.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
But he's got that. Okay, seventies. The people calm. Now
it's a decade of it. His church is growing with him.
He sees a need and he reaches the mayor exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And the mayor at the time was rather forward thinking.
He sort of bought into this vision and he had
the i think, the intelligence to realize that while this
was a great idea, it didn't need to be a
city program. That you know, if we tried to make
it a city program, it might not be as successful
as if there was some way to sort of make
it its own thing.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Partner started to love you, mayor or this mayor back then.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So he made an offer. This is the story. I've
heard this story many many times. He made an offer
to the priest and he said, so, okay, go down
to the Department of City Development and see see if
there's anyone there that you think could really help you
with this. And so the priest goes to the Department
of City Development a father Dennis, and he looks around
and this is his perception. He sees a bunch of
(13:50):
mostly men wearing sort of business shirts. You know, they
had like, you know, pencils in their pocket, and they've
got very neat desks, and they just don't seem like
the type of person to him who's going to be
able to really come into the community that he's a
part of and make an impact. And there's one desk
that's just a mess it's just you know, it's it's messy.
(14:13):
And he's visited now a few times. He never sees
anyone there. He's like, well, who sits there. It's like, well,
that's that's a guy named John Worm. You know, yeah,
he works, he works here, but he's he's always in
the community. He's always got some some you know, special
projects he's working on. You know, we don't see him
that much. And father Dennis said, that's my guy, and
so he started partnering with this John Worm, the city employee,
(14:35):
and and the two of them, you know, we're the
leaders of the organization and they're the reason that the
work we do today helping families transition from renters to
owners is happening, is flourishing at a huge scale just
from those sort of humble, humble beginnings.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
we're thinking about launching a few low chapters of the
Army this year. To dive more into it, check out
our recent shop Talk episode titled experimenting with Local Chapters,
and if you're interested in potentially leading a chapter in
(15:13):
your community, email Army at normal folks dot us and
Alex would love to connect with you. We'll be right back. Okay,
So at the beginning, you got a priest, you got
(15:37):
a mayor's blessings, and you got messy worm. Mm hmm, boy,
this sounds like a recipe for success if you ever
came up with right now, what was their idea then?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah? So the idea was, we need to make the
real estate market work for these these refugee families. So
how do we do that. We need to figure out
how to first of all, get them to a place
where they can get financing. So there's going to be
some work with them to establish credit. We're going to
need to talk to them about the importance of that.
This wasn't an issue of credit repair. These were individuals
(16:11):
who you know, had just zero They just had zero
credit right, So how do we help them start to
build some credit, and then how do we develop the
relationships with banks that we're going to need so that
when we have a good loan, that we're able to
navigate that with the family. Because these families, you know,
some spoke some English, some spoke very little English. You know,
they were still adapting to living in this country, and
(16:34):
they weren't going to be able to navigate the banking
system on their own.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But I hear this, and I'm still thinking these largely
have to be middle income at best to lower income folks,
although maybe everybody in the family's working and cumulatively they're
making enough money to get along, but they're basically barely
paying rent and getting along. The idea of a two
hundred thousand dollars house seems a little difficult. But they
(17:02):
also figured out a way that the city could take
non performing assets and get them on the tax rolls,
which is also incredibly bright and interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, and this wasn't the age of the two hundred
thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Homes, okay, even eighty back.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Then, this was this was the time of the dollar homes.
You know, there was such distress in the neighborhood around
the church, that there were a lot of deeply distressed homes,
and there were opportunities for these families to actually purchase homes,
sometimes for a dollar, sometimes for one thousand dollars. Put ten, fifteen,
twenty thousand dollars into these homes, and actually that was
(17:43):
enough for them to be decent, safe, and code compliant
in a lot of instances.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Okay, but this is what I just when I read
this part. I'm telling you, bro, this is when I
just went crazy. You've got homes that have been foreclosed
on or abandoned and that the city is really now
responsible for because they're gone there. Nobody's paid the taxes
(18:08):
and they're just sitting there. It's a plot of property
with the bones of a house still sitting there and
nobody to pay the taxes, and it ends up being
on the assessor's rolls, the city or county assessors roles
of properties. And every once in a while they have
tax sales, and tax seals come up and slum lords
(18:29):
come and by them and put them very littlest amount
of work that can in them and rent them. That
happens all day, every day in cities, all the country. Yes,
all right, So what the city is saying is, if
you can get your people to learn how to buy homes,
will open up the roles of these properties that we're
(18:55):
getting absolutely no tax revenue for, and we'll sell them
at almost nothing. If these people come in, fix them up,
pay a note, and therefore start paying property taxes. So
when I caught when I read that, it's like, hold it.
This is a win win. You're getting people in ownership,
you're getting people out of out of renting, and you're
(19:18):
getting dilapidated properties fixed up, and the city is now
getting tax revenue on properties that have that are nothing
but a drag on the city's balance sheet. Is that
is that it?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I wish I could say it as well as you
just said it. That's exactly that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Put worm and a priest came up with this in
nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, it's pretty I mean, it's pretty amazing that they
had the vision to put this, to put this thing together.
So that's what happened, That's that's exactly it. And it
was what if we could help them get loans, what
if we could what if we could coach them through
the rehab of the homes because these families often were
very handy, but didn't know about our building codes, didn't
know about when permits needed to be pulled they need.
(20:00):
It's sort of a guide make sure they don't get
ripped off when they're contracting for the services that they
were getting. And it was really the two of them
at the start, and they were really smart. The way
they went about this was incredible. You know, they were
struggling early on to attract enough families for the sort
of dollar homes that were available. And they got a
(20:21):
call from a woman named Baliah among refugee wanting to
buy one of the homes, but she she already owned
a home. She wanted to buy it as an investment property.
And they said, okay, Bliah, you've missed.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
One of the greatest parts about Lilia how she learned
to speak English. Watching Wonder Woman and Star Trek. I
read that. I'm like, okay, I really that's how she
learned to speak English. According to what I've.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Read, she's I mean, one of the more She's someone
who whatever she decided to do in this world, she
was going to be wildly successful. She is so tenacious,
so hard working, so she hears a no from John Warren,
but she wants to buy a house, and he says,
this house isn't for you, Bilia. We're trying to help
new families buy homes. You already own a home. So
she decides to start letting people know about these homes.
(21:08):
And so there's an event.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So is it a foreclosed house?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Is that foreclosed homes? Foreclosed homes available for a dollar
at that time tax sale? Yes, And so even though
she has no ability to buy the home, she brings
six seven families out just for this one opportunity, because
she knows what a good opportunity it is, and she
wants to share that with her community. And so John
(21:32):
sees that she's brought, you know, a lot more people
to this home than he's ever getting. When when he's
trying to recruit and he says, what are you doing
for work right now? And you know, she explains to
him that she's got sort of a part time job
that she's doing. She's raising her kids, her husband's also working.
And he says, have you ever thought about being a
real estate agent?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Really?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And she says, no, you know, I can't read English
that well, I don't know anything about the practice of
real estate, and he said, what you just did getting
seven families to this house who wanted to buy this home,
that if you can do that, I will help you
get your real estate license. I'll help you understand the
real estate practice because you have what it takes to
be very successful representing this community. And Bileo wound up
(22:14):
becoming one of I think the first woman Southeast Asian
women in southeastern Wisconsin to get her real estate license,
and over what wound up being a twenty five year
ish career at ACTS before she retired, she wound up
helping something like six or seven hundred families, the vast
majority of whom were Southeast Asian families, purchase homes in
(22:36):
the city because of her work.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Okay, Dave, we're still at the beginning. We haven't even
gotten to what you're doing now. But if you go
to Shelby County is our county. If you go to
the Shelby County Assessor's Office property list right now online,
(22:58):
I think it's seventeen thousand properties in this county that
are in some level of process of taxes admin k foreclosure.
When I say foreclosure, not by banks because many times
they're eighty seventy sixty eighty nine year old homes, but
(23:19):
they've been abandoned. Nobody's pay taxes on them, and they're
just sitting there on the city's rolls or the county's rolls,
and they're producing absolutely no revenue for the city. And
actually the city's kind of responsible taking care of them
because they've had to take possession of them. Right. Meanwhile,
forty percent of the people inside the city of Memphis rent,
(23:42):
So you have all these homes that the city would
love to get any tax revenue on and get off
the rolls and get fixed up so you don't have
blight in some of these lower income communities. And you
have all these people paying rent, oftentimes the slumlords, or
at the very least paying for nothing and not building
(24:03):
any American dream ownership. This seems like the fix. And
you got worm and a priest and now believe the
Southeast Asian person actually doing this in Milwaukee. How many
(24:28):
homes I mean, first year, second year, you know, how
to grow? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
So, interestingly enough, at the start, the idea was really
just around the real estate peace and so they had
realtors that they were hiring sort of real estate professionals
to represent the families, and they didn't have a formal
education program for the families, but they had this vision.
They had some realtors who took a real interest in
supporting the community, and they pretty quickly were able to
(24:55):
do you know, maybe a few dozen homes a year,
which is prettyificant volume. And then over time there became
an awareness of you know, Okay, having the agents is
really important. We need families to represent. We need people
to represent the families make sure they're getting a good deal,
but we also need designated support. If they're fixing up
(25:15):
a distressed home, that's really hard. So we need to
make sure that families have some support in that work,
because especially if you've never owned a home before taking
on a massive rehab project, hiring out all your own contractors,
knowing the order of operations, making sure, yeah, you got
to do the roof before you start worrying about the kitchen, Like,
let's make sure that you're doing things in a smart
(25:37):
way to be successful and make good investments in the home.
And so over time we sort of have been able
to layer in some of that additional support in a
more formal way to make sure that First of all,
we can get to significant volume because the idea behind
our program is that neighborhoods do better when families have
the opportunity to own the homes they live in. And
(25:57):
if we can create more communities where there are large
numbers of homeowners, you know, the schools are going to
be better, communities are going to be safer, families are
going to be healthier, and it's a good platform then
for these families to figure out what's next. Right you
accomplish this thing, you buy a home, you experience that
pride of home ownership. You've done something really hard. Well,
(26:18):
then maybe you're ready to take a step in your
educational journey or in your journey towards a more meaningful career.
Maybe it gives you more ability to finance your kids'
education or to give them some opportunities. And so as
we've been able to sort of continue to invest in
these strategies and make sure that families have the right support,
we've seen that home ownership can flourish in a city
(26:39):
like Milwaukee, and we think that we've learned some things
that can certainly benefit a lot of other cities around
the country. And from what you're saying it sounds like maybe,
you know, Memphis White might be one of those places.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I'm bringing your butt down here. We'll be right back.
(27:09):
So back to chronologically how this happened. In ninety two,
father Dennis and John Worm said were onto something, yep,
and so they founded what's it called.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
AXE Housing And they didn't even they didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Even applied churches teaching self empowerment.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, so that was the initial name. That was the
name we were incorporated under. And it was it was
the two of them, it was some other church leaders
from the area who saw what they were doing and said,
we want this for you know, the neighborhoods around our
churches too. And they didn't even have like a five
oh one C three designation. They weren't even an official nonprofit.
They just started doing it right. They weren't worried about
(27:54):
sort of what what paperwork might need to be formed.
It was about, this is work that needs to happen,
let's let's start doing it.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I read I think it's on a website somewhere. I
don't know where Alex found it. But they clarified their
vision putting people in charge of their own lives. AX
was not interested in more affordable rental housing. The organization
wanted documents to become owners as soon as possible, so
as went to work. And when I when I when
(28:26):
I read that, I also read about the father's attitude
toward if we can get people to own, that means
they invest in the communities and the communities improved. Talk
to us about that.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, so clearly there's a value to the individual family
through ownership. You know, often there's a savings. They actually
spend less owning the home than they were paying in rent.
They're building equity. But you know, key to Father Dennis's
vision wasn't just that that one family would be successful.
It was that the example that they would set for
the block, for the neighborhood, the fact that there would
(29:05):
be more families on the block who'd feel like they
have this ownership interest. It would mean that the neighborhoods
would get safer, people would be looking out for each other.
It would mean that there'd be much less moving around,
which is a huge challenge for the church and for
the neighborhood. Now, if you've got families on a block
that are moving all the time, you're not building that
sort of network of support much more likely than to
(29:27):
attract nuisance, attract crime, have things maybe fester that otherwise
a longstanding homeowner wouldn't stand for. And so they really
focused on the area right around the church and figured
if they could get multiple homeowners on every block, that
that could not only improve the lives of the families
who are the new homeowners, but improve the lives of
the renters too, right, and also give them renters an
(29:50):
example of maybe home ownership something that you could strive for,
you could achieve.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, you know, it makes sense. If I'm living on
a street and I'm renting a house and it's not
it's just a place that I stay because I pay
a monthly rent and there's a polish crap on a
curb then bothering me that bad. It's not my power
crap and it's not my curb. But when I own it,
if there's a power crap on my curb, I'm going
(30:15):
to find out who's dumping it. I'm going to get
it cleaned up, because now you're messing on my thing.
So when you instill ownership in a community, you instill
a sense of community bride and things start changing.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
That's exactly right, and I've we've seen it firsthand in Milwaukee.
I've seen it firsthand. I was talking with a homeowner.
I do some walking tours sometimes in areas where we've
had sort of the greatest impact, and I was talking
to a long standing homeowner. I didn't know they were
an AX alumnus. I just was walking on the start
talking to them, ask them how they bought their home,
and they wound up being an AXE homeowner. And while
(30:49):
we're talking, there's a car that's just sort of parked
on the block and the person in the car dumps
some trash out and I didn't see it happened. My
back was to the car. But the gentleman I was
I was talking to, said, hey, give me a second.
He goes, he knocks on the window and he talked
to the guy who dumped the trash and he said, hey,
don't do that. Don't bring that here. Right. And I'm
(31:10):
not saying that's.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
The greatest story I've ever heard. That is perfect, is awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And you know a renter could could do that too,
but way less likely. Right, this is someone who's had
a long standing stake in that block, and more likely
that they're because of that position, going to feel confident
to set some good some good norms for what goes
on in that block and what doesn't.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
The more I hear about this, here's something else that
Alex said that I'd like you to comment on. Most
solutions are top down solutions. They don't deal with people.
They think if we just build enough, that's going to
fix things. But they don't necessarily solve the problem because
that doesn't help families provide for themselves. And what we're
(31:55):
doing at Access, we're starting from the bottom up. We
start with the family.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, so the for Acts, it always started with the
individual family. So although the hope was that neighborhoods would
improve and that we would start this ownership ethic that
could be could be contagious. It was all about if
we can help one family improve their lives, if we
can work hand in hand with them, help them navigate
(32:19):
our home buying process, we're setting they're going to be
set up for success. And it's not about providing home
ownership to a family. And this is a real key
distinction and something that I really always like to make clear.
To become a homeowner is a lot of hard work,
especially for a family that doesn't have credit or has
some credit challenges, has low income. Getting ready to become
(32:42):
a homeowner, owning your own home and being successful with
it is a ton of work, and we can't do
that work for you. It's about the family being willing
to put in that hard work and then it acts.
We're a coach, right, That's how we see ourselves. We
see ourselves as how do we provide the families. We're
not on the field. They're the ones in the field,
they're the ones who are doing all this hard work.
(33:03):
But we want a position for them for success. We
want to help them understand the key habits that they're
going to need to invest in if they're going to
be successful. We get to cheer them on when they're
able to, you know, clear off debt and make strides
towards home ownership, and when they're falling short, we get
to at times give them a little you know, kicking
(33:23):
the butt, right, like, hey, we know you can do this,
and you know, based on what we've seen over the
last couple of months, is home ownership no longer something
that you're passionate about? Is it no longer something that
is a priority for you to be able to provide
for your kids. So sometimes we've got to do some
of that too, But it's about the family stepping up
and doing this really hard work because then at the
(33:44):
end they've achieved something amazing. And the coolest thing is
then they typically they don't need us at all. It's
not like they're coming back to us every time something
goes on at the house. Even more than that, pretty
often their next family member who buys a home, sometimes
they refer that family member to us, and that's that's
really cool. That's an honor when someone refers someone to
(34:06):
us and says that we can help them. But even
better than that is when they helped that next family
member buy a home without us, they don't even need
us anymore. And we don't always.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Hear that story into how things work, which is.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Beautiful exactly, and and so we don't always capture those stories.
But on my walks sometimes, you know, I on this
this very same block, I shared the story of the trash.
There was a gentleman and he had the nicest house
in the block, and he just had done a ton
of work on it. It was really impressed, and so
I saw him outside the house, and so I just
introduced myself to him, and I asked him if he
(34:41):
heard of Axe Housing and he said, heard of you.
Of course, I bought my first house with you, So
you know, he bought his first house. And I don't
know if this was house number two or number three,
but he kept, you know, his family had greater needs.
He'd done well enough. He was able to sort of
move up, move on to that next house, but we
didn't help him with transaction two or transaction three. He'd
(35:02):
learned through the process. He was now able to access
the home buying marketplace successfully by himself with confidence. That's
the best case scenario.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
If you don't care about that from a if you
don't care about that from a social point of view,
you should care about that just pragmatically, because you took
a renter who was really contributing very little to the
tax space, and you created a guy now who has
(35:32):
fault and rehabbed two or three homes and stepped himself
up in the tax space to continue to be a
greater contributor to your society pragmatically. If you don't even
care about the social sciety, pragmatically that is that is
how cities grow. And if you believe that we're only
(36:00):
as strong as the weakest link in the chain, and
you strengthen that weakest link. Think what that does if
you had that's one story. If you have ten thousand
of those, think of how your city changes. It's phenomenal.
So somehow I want to I really want to know
(36:21):
how you did this. Somehow throughs you worked out a
deal with the city. I may be screwing this up.
Straighten me out that properties valued less than twenty five
thousand that were on the city's foreclosure listing for more
than thirty days could be purchased for one thousand dollars.
Then those that have been on the listing for more
(36:41):
than sixty days can purchase for a dollar. And certainly
their inspection costs and things have to be done to
the house to get it livable. But the point is, somehow,
the priest worm somebody got somebody at the city to say, yeah,
it makes more sense to get these off the rolls
(37:03):
and fixed up for blight for tax purposes. Who and
how did that go? Because that, to me is kind
of a public private agreement that serves everybody well. But
is that correct that properties valued at less than twenty
five thousand dollars that were on the city's roles for
more than thirty days could be birth for a thousand bucks,
(37:24):
sixty days for a dollar. How did that all happen?
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, So, I really think ACTS has always been i
would say, a strong partner to the City of Milwaukee.
And because of the early success we had helping families
purchase and fix up these distressed homes, it encouraged the
city to try and expand the partnership. How do we
create more pathways for home ownership? And what the city
(37:49):
was seeing was that when homes were taken through tax foreclosure,
typically one of two things was happening. And this is
really in the aftermath of like the two thousand and
eight foreclosure crisis that they started to have, you know,
massively more inventory, and one of two things happened. Either
the home sold quickly to an investor, and I'll put
investor in quotes, because most of the individuals who are
(38:12):
buying those homes, many of them, you know, they aren't
from our community, they don't live in Milwaukee, and they're
seeing dollar signs, right, They're seeing dollar signs. They're hoping
that they can you know, just not do any repairs,
hopefully put someone who's desperate in the apartment or in
the home, charge a bunch of rent, and then you know,
(38:33):
ultimately those homes pretty frequently they get lost because because
they're not maintaining them and they're just trying to create
as much short term sort of rental income as they can.
So the city saw a lot of that activity happening,
which they saw is very negative. Or some of the
more just stressed homes, they would just sit forever. And
the longer a home sits vacant, the worse it gets
(38:55):
and the least and then it becomes less likely that
it can be reclaimed because a lot of the homes,
once they've sat for years, you know, they really do
need to be torn down. By the way, if the
city owns the property, that's twenty twenty five thousand dollars
maybe depending on the size of the home, for the
city just to tear it down, and then you've got
a vacant lot. And in most of Milwaukee's neighborhoods, unfortunately,
(39:18):
there is not a sufficient market for brand new construction.
You wind up spending a lot more to build a
new home than you can sell that home. For and
so the vacant lots are a big problem because long
term it means they just sit there. There's a vacant lot.
It's not good for the block, it's not good for
the neighborhood, and it's very bad for the city's tax base.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And the grass doesn't get cut and it looks like
a hell and that makes the community feel bad.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And so so the city was pretty proactive about wanting
to partner with us and others to see how can
we get more of these homes into owner occupied state.
And as a result, especially in that you know two
thousand and eight to maybe twenty and fifteen period when
there were so many tax foreclosures, we were literally able
to help more than a thousand families purchase and fix
(40:03):
up formally foreclosed properties.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Which are a thousand homes now on the tax rolls
hanging into the city's revenue buys and a thousand families
taking ownership and community a thousand a thousand.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, we've helped more over our thirty year history. It's
more than a thousand families have purchased these these foreclosed homes,
and the vast majority that was in that period right
after two thousand and eight when there was just so much,
so much unfortunate inventory, and I just think it was
really smart in the city's part. You can look at
it two ways. You can look at these tax foreclosures
(40:39):
as a liability, and of course they are. The city
needs to maintain them. They're not bringing in revenue, but
the City of Milwaukee to a large degree, decided to
look at it as a significant opportunity to promote home ownership.
And how often are we going to have this situation
where our city owns so many homes. If we can
get a large person manage of those to actually be
(41:01):
owner occupied instead of being absentee investors, that's a good
investment in the future stability of our city.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Michael Gosman,
and you don't want to miss part two that's now
available to listen to you together, guys, we can change
this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in
part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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