Milwaukee receives over $260K to help fix more foreclosed homes

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- The city of Milwaukee on Wednesday, January 8th received a big check to help fix more foreclosed homes.

The city's Housing Foreclosure Initiative got more than $260,000 from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.

The city of Milwaukee and North Shore Bank recently launched the program. It gives families who want to buy foreclosed homes money that can be used for reconstruction, counseling on buying and rehabbing a home and help hiring and overseeing contractors.

"By having this partnership with North Shore Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, what we are able to do is we are able to start making that connection and allowing people who want to have piece of the American dream, they want to have a piece of the rock as we call it in terms of owning their own home -- we are making it much more readily available for them to do that," Mayor Tom Barrett said.

Right now, the city owns more than 1,300 residential foreclosed homes, and two-thirds of them are vacant.