This is a charter for HomeWorks: Bronzeville, a cultural development project located within the Bronzeville Cultural and Entertainment District in Milwaukee, within Wisconsin and traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland. Initiated in 2016, we seek to cultivate Bronzeville by concentrating on properties that surround America's Black Holocust Museum in the Harambee neighborhood portion of the district. We honor the museum as a beacon for change and an archive of pertinent history for this community. Through an arts and cultural development focus, we rehabilitate residential and commercial properties, enhance public green space, engage neighbors and visitors, and encourage sustainable growth for artists and the district. At the foundation of our communal impact lies the development of an artist housing cluster where each owner-occupied property is a container for a professional artist’s live-work practice, that incubates entrepreneurial culture and youth development in Bronzeville.

HomeWorks: Bronzeville is co-directed by Mikal Floyd-Pruitt of I Am Milwaukee, Vedale Hill of Jazale’s Art Studio and Sara Daleiden of MKE<->LAX. Additional collaborators include the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Preservation Fund, Thurman Grant Architect, CopyWrite Magazine, Toki & Associates, Darren Hill, Jeff Lamar Brown, Gray Development Group, Food4All, Strong Blocks and other cultural leaders from the district and the city. Our project is guided by City leadership including Alderwoman Milele Coggs, the Bronzeville Advisory Committee, the Department of City Development and the Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation in connection with the City’s Bronzeville Redevelopment Plan, the Bronzeville Artist Housing Report and the Art and Resource Community Hub (ARCH) Loan Program.

Current and potential neighborhood partners include America’s Black Holocaust Museum, Black and White Barbershop, Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation (WWBIC), Urban Economic Development Association (UEDA), P3 Development, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Small Development Counts, KG Development Group, Associated Bank, Harambee Community Association, Martin Luther King Economic Development Corporation (MLK EDC), Bradley Contractors, Marketplace BID, DreamBuilders, MKE Black, Bronzeville Collective MKE, Tiffany Miller, Dasha Kelly Hamilton and Kima Hamilton, Still Waters Collective, Della Wells, Emmanuel “Manny Vibe$” Grant, Monica Miller, Kellen “Klassik” Abston, Healthy Words, AZYHA Fine Arts Gallery, BMO Harris, Halyard Park Neighborhood Association, Historic King Drive Business Improvement District (MLK BID), Bader Foundation, Forward Community Investments, Milwaukee Urban League, Brewers Hill Neighborhood Association, Community First, ACTS Housing, NEWaukee, Employ Milwaukee, MATA Community Media, Running Rebels, CUPED Development, Friends of Bronzeville, Riverworks Development Corporation and BID, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and other local and national arts and cultural leaders interested in African-American cultural developments in U.S. American urban contexts and related native lands.

Using the core values of love, well-being, safety, generosity, sustainability, respect, sovereignty, reciprocity, advocacy and equity, we will collaborate to:

• Encourage neighbor engagement from residences and businesses in our arts and cultural programming and neighborhood stakeholder activities.

• Image Bronzeville as an arts, culture and creative entrepreneurship hub for African-American culture in connection with other U.S. American culture.

• Focus on healthy, sustainable living in everything we generate.

• Advocate for community sustaining development practices including economic growth, aesthetic up-keep, and cultural consciousness.

• Strive to provide sustainable properties for existing neighbors without displacement, and healthy living conditions if a move of a neighbor is deemed necessary.

• Support practices of neighborhood development while recognizing the social and cultural implications of gentrification.

• Encourage quality design and art, while understanding aesthetic differences and welcoming communal critique.

• Invest in public space that is interconnected, green, pleasant, and plentiful with an array of art experiences.

• Activate blocks for safety and connection for all neighbors.

• Acknowledge and compensate labor for artists and other creative entrepreneurs.

• Prioritize an intergenerational environment based in mentorship, with a focus on young adults from 16-30.

• Offer regular healthy meals and conversation with neighbors to stay abreast of each other’s interests.

• Support artists and other creative entrepreneurs to own property for living and working as a long-term investment in the neighborhood.

• Curate and support a network of innovative, professional artists and other creative entrepreneurs.

• Create and broaden an arts market in Bronzeville as a center for the region.

• Offer a cultural destination for local, national and international visitors.

• Generate a balance of local and inter/national investment.

• Prioritize African-American cultural representation while balancing with other cultural representation among new property owners.

• Focus on the financial health of this initiative and its collaborators, with wealth generation potential for all residents and business owners.

• Generate a shared financial resource to weather financial strain with neighbors and to avoid displacement.

• Co-produce a learning community around cultural development for a disinvested neighborhood with significant growth underway.

• Generate a model for healthy property management for renters and other affiliates.

We will measure our accomplishments by:

• Completion of customized live-work owner-occupied properties with artist or creative property owners which will be rehabilitated from City foreclosures and vacant lots, and contribute to the City’s tax base starting in 2019. (Current properties include 322-340 West Meinecke Avenue and 2408 North Vel R Phillips Avenue.)

• Identification of additional properties and artist or creative property owners to reach a goal of influencing 10-15 rehabilitated properties in the project focus area.

• Manageable property loans for artist property owners with a rent-to-own option, orientation to property ownership responsibilities and sustainable financial planning.

• Attract at least five art and creative entrepreneurship businesses to own and occupy rehabilitated properties and explore sustainable business support.

• Sign a customized agreement with each artist property owner that defines occupation of the property as a live-work space for a minimum of five years, offers annual public programming and neighbor engagement activities based in creative practices.

• Year-round, arts-focused, sanctioned public programs on the interior and exterior of the properties in alignment with existing initiatives.

• Development of a green space network of public and private properties based on art experiences.

• Expressive surveys and interviews with neighbors and visitors through our public programs and audio-visual storybuilding documentation.

• Distribution of meaningful public relations materials about artists and Bronzeville regionally, nationally and internationally in print and online, noting press articles and dialogue threads on social media.

• Mentoring and compensation for young adults living in or near the neighborhood during design-build process as well as public program and public relations production.

• Neighborhood leadership network aligned with existing leaders and groups along with new property owners with a regular gathering schedule to review collaboration.

• Endowment for ongoing programming and projects based in arts and neighbor engagement, as well as to support long-term property ownership and equitable development in the district.

• Active participation in City or private development initiatives for Bronzeville.

We have actively worked with Alderwoman Milele Coggs, Rhonda Manuel, other City staff and the Bronzeville Advisory Committee on the City of Milwaukee’s Bronzeville Cultural and Entertainment District Redevelopment Initiative (from Garfield Street to Center Street, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to 7th Street). Through this initiative, we supported the City in defining and approving the landmark Art and Resource Community Hub (ARCH) Loan Program and will continue to refine the program throughout production of the initial cluster of properties. We additionally offered advice to the City in relationship to the National League of Cities Equitable Economic Development Fellowship and the Streetcar Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Study. We are excited about our HomeWorks: Bronzeville initiative’s relationship to the North Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive commercial corridors, which are stimulating new arts, culture and business investment. Anchors in this cluster are Pete’s Farmer’s Market, Gee’s Clippers, and the redevelopment of the Historic Garfield School Cultural Campus with The Griot apartment complex that now is home to America’s Black Holocaust Museum. We served as advisors to this campus and the museum’s re-emergence over many years. Our project is connected with the MKE United: Greater Downtown Action Agenda led by the City of Milwaukee, the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Milwaukee Urban League, and other civic leadership who align with our interests. We seek to be aligned with the over $524 billion investment in new Downtown development one mile South including the Bucks new Fiserv Forum sports arena, the entertainment district, and the streetcar line which is slated to connect with Bronzeville.

By the 1930s, the number of African-American owned businesses in the original Bronzeville exceeded all other areas of the City. In the late 1960’s a portion of Walnut Street was demolished to make room for a freeway. Despite this loss, the memory of Bronzeville remains strong in Milwaukee. The Bronzeville Cultural and Entertainment District is a City of Milwaukee redevelopment initiative inspired by Milwaukee’s original Bronzeville District of the early to mid 1900s. The primary African-American economic and social hub of its time, Bronzeville brought many ethnicities together to celebrate African-American culture, highlighting jazz, blues and the arts. Those living in Bronzeville recall a bustling economic landscape with restaurants, retail and nightclubs such as Metropole Club and the Moon Glow featuring performances by such pioneers as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Nat “King” Cole, to mention a few. This 21st Century Bronzeville initiative is revitalizing our area of Milwaukee where African-American culture has been a mainstay.

Bronzeville is re-emerging as the vibrant cultural and entertainment district that it once was, and is healing from the significant disinvestment and separation of recent decades. The neighborhood has grown with foreclosures, vacant properties and absentee property owners. 92% of the population is African-American with 40% aged 24 or under, and 61% is low income. Safety for neighbors and visitors is a significant concern for those in the area. HomeWorks: Bronzeville serves as a catalyst for revitalization with our focus on neighborhood stabilization, rehabilitation of vacant properties, entrepreneurial development for youth and adults, and arts and cultural programming. This project is also in alignment with the City’s 2005 Bronzeville Arts and Cultural District Amendment to the North 7th Street - West Garfield Avenue Redevelopment Project Area Plan and the 2015 Bronzeville Artist Housing Report. The Bronzeville District is slated to offer compelling opportunities for locals and tourists by bringing together history, art, commerce, community and culture rooted in this rich urban tradition.

All of our communications offer an opportunity to increase our trust with each other during a complex and sensitive collaborative project and increase public understanding of our neighborhood development project. We share the understanding that all our communications with each other and with the public will be polite, clear, concise, timely, and compassionate. Where our actions or decisions will be delayed, we will communicate with those affected and indicate a new estimated time for completion. We will facilitate meetings independently and collectively as needed. We will strive to communicate with each other rhythmically.

Where possible, external communications including press or funder inquiries will be funneled through Vedale Hill and Sara Daleiden as the Project spokespersons, who will identify Project interviewees and provide media as needed. They will issue press releases to the media and respond to any subsequent inquiries. All project documents and internal data are to be confidential unless approved by Vedale and Sara for release.

HomeWorks: Bronzeville will be acknowledged as follows in all public relations materials, applications and other relevant documents as released by any of the collaborators. Collaborators will keep each other updated in use of this acknowledgment.

HomeWorks: Bronzeville is co-directed by Mikal Floyd-Pruitt of I Am Milwaukee, Vedale Hill of Jazale’s Art Studio and Sara Daleiden of MKE<->LAX. Additional collaborators include the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Preservation Fund, Thurman Grant Architect, CopyWrite Magazine, Toki & Associates, Darren Hill, Jeff Lamar Brown, Gray Development Group, Food4All, Strong Blocks and other cultural leaders from the district and the city. Our project is guided by City leadership including Alderwoman Milele Coggs, the Bronzeville Advisory Committee, the Department of City Development and the Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation in connection with the City’s Bronzeville Redevelopment Plan, the Bronzeville Artist Housing Report and the Art and Resource Community Hub (ARCH) Loan Program.