[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 7 (Wednesday, February 2, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY'S COMMUNITY REVIVAL PROJECT

                                 ______


                             HON. TOBY ROTH

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 2, 1994

  On page 1 of the February 1, 1994, edition of the Wall Street 
Journal, Marquette University's community revival project proves to be 
a model of university and intercity community cooperative involvement. 
As a Marquette alumnus, I am extremely proud of Marquette's innovative 
response to the deterioration of downtown Milwaukee.
  Drugs, gangs, prostitution, and widespread crime have flooded our 
cities. Instead of building walls around ourselves and letting 
criminals rule our lives, we must deal with urban problems--like 
Marquette University did--head on.
  Marquette's campus circle project joined residents, local businesses, 
community churches, and other neighborhood groups in an effort to not 
only revitalize the area, but recapture a sense of community. Working 
with the city, Marquette secured a mini area precinct staffed with 50 
additional officers and major crime has decreased by 34 percent.
  This is the kind of resourceful thinking our country needs to deal 
with our domestic agenda. We must insist that drug dealers, rapists, 
and other criminals are off the streets. They cannot be permitted to 
take over our communities. I commend Marquette President Father Albert 
DiUlio and the Marquette community for their quest for a safe and 
secure neighborhood.

              [From the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, 1994]

     Marquette University Leads Urban Revival of Blighted Environs

                          (By Joseph N. Boyce)

       Milwaukee.--When the Rev. Albert DiUlio arrived at 
     Marquette University as president in 1990, he faced a 
     disturbing prospect: Marquette and its 11,000 students might 
     have to wall themselves in for their own safety.
       Gangs, drug dealers and prostitutes had moved into Avenues 
     West, a 100-square-block area near downtown that has been 
     home to the Jesuit university for 113 years. Fear and 
     violence moved in with them. ``We were having drive-by and 
     stand-by shootings,'' says Virginia Johnson, a community 
     activist.
       But instead of building a wall around the university, 
     Father DiUlio has led Marquette in rebuilding the community. 
     ``I could see where we were going. I could see the economic 
     consequences. And I could see the economic potential of 
     reversing the decline,'' he says.
       Marquette's situation exemplified a town-and-gown dilemma 
     confronting many urban colleges and universities. Built near 
     city centers on once-prime acreage, they now are encircled by 
     neighborhoods mired in crime, decay and human misery. 
     Security concerns often compete with education for attention 
     and financial resources.
       Some institutions have bailed out of the cities. In the 
     wake of the Watts riots in South Central Los Angeles, 
     Pepperdine left the area for Malibu, Calif., in 1972. 
     Marquette's former medical school moved to a suburb in the 
     1960s.
       But now, many urban schools are no longer trying to put 
     distance between themselves and their troubled surroundings. 
     Instead, all over the country, institutions have been getting 
     more involved in attacking problems in their home turf.


                              pitching in

       The University of Southern California has become involved 
     in providing counseling, tutoring and college preparatory 
     classes for children in South Central Los Angeles. Yale has 
     agreed to invest $50 million in improvement projects in New 
     Haven, Conn.; while more than half of its students are 
     volunteering in local social service programs. And Illinois 
     Institute of Technology is getting more involved in community 
     revitalization efforts on Chicago's South Side. It is 
     different ``from the 1960s and 1970s, when the school was 
     trying to put in a buffer'' between itself and the community, 
     says Leroy Kennedy, IIT's vice president for community 
     relations. ``You can only run so far.''
       In Milwaukee, Marquette has been steadily increasing its 
     presence in the Avenues West community. Through urban renewal 
     and other acquisitions, the campus has grown to 80 acres, 
     from 26 acres in 1965.
       In the neighborhoods around the university, crime had been 
     steadily rising over the years, and occasionally spilled onto 
     campus. Three students became homicide victims between 1985 
     and 1991; two of the killings occurred near the school.
       Then Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested in July 1991 for multiple 
     murders and cannibalism. His apartment, where some of the 
     victims' remains were found, was just 10 blocks from 
     Marquette. Maps accompanying Dahmer stories often used the 
     campus as a reference point.


                             fewer freshman

       Attendance at evening campus events fell. Graduate students 
     sought housing elsewhere. Freshman enrollment, 2,113 in 1989, 
     plunged to 1,685 in 1993. If Marquette was to stay in the 
     community, Father DiUlio saw just two options: ``We could 
     wall ourselves in or we could weave ourselves in.''
       Doing the latter meant melding with a neighborhood spiced 
     with racial and ethnic diversity but soured by poverty and 
     neglect. It was a place that had become ``older rather than 
     younger, poorer rather than richer,'' says the 50-year-old 
     Father DiUlio, a Marquette student in the early 1960s.
       In 1990, most of the 16,000 or so residents in Avenues West 
     had incomes below poverty level, according to census data. 
     About 60% of the buildings contained 20 or more rental units, 
     and only 4.2% of housing units were owner-occupied. Much of 
     the property was owned by absentee landlords who let it fall 
     into disrepair or ceded it to drug dealers.
       In casting Marquette's lot with Avenues west, Father DiUlio 
     decided to take a ``comprehensive approach'' that would go 
     beyond simply restoring property. ``You can't just say you're 
     interested in student housing,'' he says. And it would take 
     more than altruism to win support of Marquette's trustees, he 
     reasoned. ``To sell this to the board, it had to be in rock-
     solid, understandable business terms.''
       His emphasis on the pragmatic persuaded trustees in late 
     1991 to commit $9 million in university funds. Hearing of the 
     president's plans, a wealthy widow and longtime Milwaukee 
     resident donated $8.2 million anonymously. Another anonymous 
     donor gave $500,000.
       Although he had a business background, Father DiUlio knew 
     little about real estate. He hired an alumnus, Patrick 
     LeSage, 50, a former real estate developer and entrepreneur.
       Mr. LeSage and a small staff began working from a 1988 
     study assessing the community's needs and commissioned by 
     Avenues West Association, a civic group. They formed two 
     nonprofit corporations, one for residential and the other for 
     commercial real estate.
       Then several local organizations were recruited as 
     partners, including the Avenues West Association; Aurora 
     Health Care System, which runs Sinai Samaritan Medical 
     Center, the area's last remaining hospital; and Ameritech of 
     Wisconsin, which has facilities in the area with more than 
     300 employees. Aurora, with 1,400 employees at Sinai Medical, 
     has promised $4.1 million in land, cash and services. ``We 
     decided that, instead of crying in our beer about the 
     neighborhood, we've got to do something about it,'' says 
     Aurora's president, Ed Howe.
       In December 1991, Marquette and its partners launched 
     Campus Circle Project. Its aim was to buy residential and 
     commercial properties, including several bars catering to the 
     bottle-in-a-paper-bag crowd, fix them up and lease them. 
     Priorities were to clean up crime, upgrade the real estate 
     and keep housing affordable, while retaining the community's 
     ethnic and economic diversity.
       But many residents reacted with suspicion. ``It has not 
     been Marquette's history to work in the community,'' says 
     Joyce Henry, who runs a halfway house for homeless people. 
     ``Their community--yes. The rest of the community--no.''
       Father DiUlio concedes that, previously, beyond offering 
     some health and legal services. Marquette ``simple did not do 
     anything in the neighborhood.''
       To gain support, Marquette formed Neighborhood Circle, made 
     up of representatives of local businesses, churches, 
     community groups and some residents, to help in planning and 
     to keep people informed. They held scores of meetings with 
     organizations, landlords, tenants and city officials. When 
     initial turnout was poor, they began serving food at 
     meetings. ``We went on a road show,'' says Mr. LeSage.


                       the community's skepticism

       Ms. Johnson, the community activist, who owns a tax 
     preparation and accounting service, attended one of the early 
     gatherings and spoke out forcefully on behalf of low-income 
     residents. ``She `Uzied' us,'' recalls Sandra Hintz, vice 
     president of Campus Circle, who was there to hear the 
     criticism.
       Ms. Johnson says her concern then was that Marquette ``had 
     this fancy plan [that] was like an elegant box with nothing 
     but a card inside.''
       Attitudes softened as Campus Circle bought one apartment 
     house after another, renovating some units and temporarily 
     boarding up others that required extensive overhaul. In one 
     structure with 60 apartments, more than two-thirds had been 
     damaged by fire or used for drug activity. (It has been sold 
     to be converted to low-income housing for the elderly.)
       Whenever possible, occupants were allowed to remain in 
     their buildings, but some were located in the neighborhood. 
     Students and non-students were moved into some of the same 
     buildings.
       Tenants suspected of drug dealing were sent a message that 
     they weren't wanted, as the new owners hired security guards 
     to patrol properties and enforced lease clauses banning 
     misuse of premises. Other landlords in the area were notified 
     of the evictions. ``No loitering'' and ``no trespassing'' 
     signs began appearing in apartment-house lobbies, and tenants 
     and visitors were admonished against drinking or making loud 
     noises outside the buildings.
       Some community leaders have criticized the approach as 
     heavy-handed. ``They have what appear to be valid community 
     goals, but the process is questionable,'' says MacCanon 
     Brown, a longtime advocate for the poor and homeless in 
     Avenues West. She has repeatedly at meetings and in the press 
     charged the project with insensitivity toward the poor. 
     ``Campus Circle is better than what we had, but the people 
     I'm in the network with are primarily the poor, who have 
     watched Marquette for many years and know they have been a 
     bad citizen,'' she says.


                             a rough start

       Some renters griped that the new landlords took too long to 
     complete repairs. One former tenant, Dennis Hodorowski, 45, 
     says his treatment by Campus Circle amounted to 
     ``harassment,'' after he was told he was behind in his rent. 
     ``They gave me five days notice [of eviction] but they 
     couldn't find where I had a missing payment,'' he says.
       Campus Circle staffers attribute some of the problems to 
     outside contractors hired to provide security and management 
     services. They say some erroneous eviction notices were sent 
     because of bookkeeping problems caused by the change in 
     ownership to Campus Circle. ``We acquired a lot of 
     properties'' in a short period of time, says Art Murchinson, 
     manager of tenant relations. ``They had had absentee 
     landlords that didn't care about the neighborhood or the 
     buildings and allowed any and everybody to move into them 
     without any type of screening process.''
       The confusion subsided when Campus Circle itself began 
     managing the properties and providing security, screened 
     tenant applicants more closely, installed new locks and other 
     protection devices and helped form tenant councils.
       It also began renovating the small business district near 
     campus, buying nine of the 15 taverns. All but three of the 
     nine bars have been closed, and five have been demolished or 
     are scheduled to be. Residents responding to a questionnaire 
     said a supermarket was a top priority. Although the 
     neighborhoods' demographics have been a turnoff for major 
     supermarket chains, Campus Circle is trying to woo a store 
     ``way above anything the neighborhood has had,'' says Father 
     DiUlio.


                             on the rebound

       It would be part of Campus Town, Campus Circle's $30 
     million makeover of business and apartment buildings near 
     Marquette. When completed this fall, Campus Town will have 
     152 apartments, an athletic center and 89,000 square feet of 
     commercial space, including a Blockbuster Video store that is 
     already open.
       All of this activity has attracted some developers into the 
     neighborhood separate from Marquette's efforts. Last August, 
     a builder completed a 179-unit apartment complex adjacent to 
     Campus Town.
       The view from the community now is that things are looking 
     up. ``I saw the downslide and now I think we're on the 
     rebound'' says Tom Wiseman, owner of Brett Funeral home and a 
     businessman in the area since 1968.
       Campus Circle now owns and manages 1,113 units in 137 
     properties that include residential and commercial buildings 
     and vacant lots. It has spent $25 million to buy property, $3 
     million on housing rehabilitation and $26 million on Campus 
     Town. Among residents who had to be relocated because of 
     redevelopment, 74% remain in the community.
       Campus Town financing was aided by a $4.17 million low-
     interest loan from the city of Milwaukee, tied to future 
     property-tax revenue from the project. The city also has 
     agreed to spend $750,000 to improve the area's streets. 
     ``This project is uplifting, not just for this neighborhood 
     but for other parts of the city,'' says Mayor John Norquist. 
     ``I see it as a model.''


                           a need for bridges

       So do other urban universities that have come to take a 
     look, including Loyola in Chicago, the University of 
     Cincinnati, Illinois Institute of Technology and the 
     University of Southern California. ``I think there is a real 
     need to reach out, to develop those sorts of bridges between 
     the communities that surround us,'' says Marshall Goodman, an 
     associate dean at the University of Cincinnati.
       At Marquette, the outreach has gone beyond rebuilding the 
     cityscape. Some Marquette students tutor neighborhood 
     children. In addition, the university has received $650,000 
     from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for 
     programs in crime prevention and landlord-tenant relations.
       The battle against crime in the community isn't won, but it 
     is making significant gains. Mayor Norquist set up a police 
     mini-precinct in the area staffed with 50 officers. The 
     police cracked down on an ``open drug market'' along several 
     blocks, says Lt. Robert Surdyk. ``Some of my officers even 
     wrote suspected dealers pedestrian tickets for obstructing 
     traffic. They'd stand out in the street and sell to passing 
     cars.'' He adds that in the first half of 1993, more than 200 
     prostitution citations were issued.
       Through last September, major crime in Avenues West was 
     down 34% from a year before. Lt. Surdyk says many complaints 
     now have to do with ``quality of life'' issues such as loud 
     radios, illegal parking and loitering. Said Virginia Johnson 
     recently: ``I haven't heard a gunshot in two weeks.''
  

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