I have a unique perspective on urban
blight I have fought it and I have
caused it I’ve been immersed in it and
I’ve studied it from afar today I’m
gonna talk to you a bit about my journey
and how my past and present were shaped
by my physical environment growing up as
a child we move frequently my mother’s
drug habit often got in the way of her
ability to pay rent and my earliest
memories include being told to turn off
the lights and pretend not to be home as
the landlord pounded at our door to
collect his rent aware of our
machinations he’d often hurled invective
at us through the door and I can still
vividly recall the anger I felt as he
threatened to put all of our belongings
out on the street
and the fear that filled my heart
knowing that his threats were all too
real these experiences colored how I
came to view my environment the
properties in neighborhoods we lived in
were transient spaces that I had no
vested interest in or obligations to
this disconnection manifested itself in
numerous ways including acts of
delinquency and property vandalism many
years later the table’s returned when a
group of young people broke into a
property I was renovating causing
thousands of dollars worth of damage one
of the suspects was apprehended and I
was asked to compose a victim’s
statement to be read at a sentencing I
implored the court to sentence the young
man to work with me to feel the sense of
satisfaction that comes from building
something of significance plus I knew it
would serve as a permanent deterrent for
nobody who has worked tirelessly to
bring a property back to life would
mindlessly destroy one just for fun
unfortunately the judge decided that a
three-month sentence was the more
appropriate outcome in that case at a
very young age I felt a sense of
responsibility to contribute to our
household to ensure that we had food to
eat and a place to sleep
it was during a stint in juvenile
detention that I came to learn how much
more lucrative the opportunities weren’t
selling drugs versus the petty larceny I
had been involved with up to that moment
when I was released I immediately set
out upon that path and by the time I was
18 years old I had a network of drug
houses across the city my relationship
to my environment was unchanged
properties and neighborhoods were
transient spaces that I had no vested
interest in or obligations to it didn’t
take long for my actions to catch up
with me and I soon found myself
sentenced to prison for 10 and a half
years for the distribution of drugs it
was there that I began to reevaluate my
relationship with my community and the
role that I needed to play within it
I’ll save the details of that
transformation for another talk but
suffice to say that when I was released
I had a keen sense of connection to my
community when the time came many years
later to purchase my first home I chose
a fledgling community in the central
city that had seen a bit of a resurgence
in homeownership over the previous few
years unfortunately for me
shortly after I settled in the
foreclosure crisis hit in the
devastation to my neighborhood was swift
and severe neighbors moved out blight
moved in and vandals wasted little time
in looting the properties of anything of
value animated by a sense of
responsibility to my neighbors who
remained in an obligation to fight for
the progress that had been achieved
rather than move out I doubled down and
I purchased a home that had been both
foreclosed and vandalized with no formal
training and home improvement I consumed
countless YouTube videos and consulted
with dozens of home depot staff members
on how to perform certain tasks and
though I was a novice in all of the
respective trades I care deeply about
what I was doing when the project was
complete I found a family eager to rent
the unit and when the neighbor on the
other side of me went in the foreclosure
there was no longer any hesitation on my
part in submitting an offer in time I
would attract outside capital
expanding the third-party management
growing to over 200 units of affordable
housing and some on Milwaukee’s poorest
zip codes I was elected to represent my
trade industry as its president and
helped lobby for systemic change by
working on several pieces of significant
legislation inspired with a sense of
possibility from these events and
desiring to have an impact that was
national rather than local I applied and
was accepted to the Woodrow Wilson
School at Princeton University where I
studied public policy and urban
development when I share my story the
question of replicability often comes up
is it possible for someone today in
similar circumstances is mine to follow
the same path that I did to success and
though I would be the first to
acknowledge the role of luck in any of
my achievements it’s clear that there
existed then and still exists now a set
of systemic factors that facilitated my
success you see central city housing is
one of the few industries where being
from the wrong side of the tracks gives
you a competitive advantage in one of
the most important aspects of any
business information being from the
community created a type of information
asymmetry where I had access to better
and more timely information than my
competitors when I started having such
limited capital it was imperative that
every investment I made created enough
value that it allowed for subsequent
investment this meant not only did I
have to acquire the right property at
the right price but I had to get it
renovated and rented as quickly as
possible
so let me give you a real-life example
on how this played out I purchased a
home in my neighborhood that was
actively being used to distribute drugs
now closing down a drug house is
probably more difficult than you might
imagine calling the city and the police
can take months not to mention the
damage that’s actually done to the
property when they raided it was an
outcome I just
could not financially afford to sustain
so through neighborhood contacts I found
out who was actually running this house
and it wasn’t the person on the lease
nor was it the person at the house on a
regular basis so when I noticed their
car in front of the property I knocked
at the door and explained who I was I
told them that I had just been summoned
to the police station and told that this
house was being used to sell drugs I
told them that I was shown a picture of
every person standing in front of me and
informed that the house was gonna be
raided in three days they asked a bunch
of questions what what did the police
officers look like did they know their
names what time were they gonna raid the
property and then they thanked me for my
time two days later that property was
vacated 45 days later I had it renovated
and rented entirely changing the tenor
of that block by removing the drug house
[Applause]
now I could have shared countless
stories that highlighted the competitive
advantage I had with regards to
information but I think this one gets to
the heart of the matter
life in our central cities are governed
by a different set of norms and those
that understanding can navigate them are
among the best equipped among us to
serve and improve them another advantage
I had was low opportunity costs I was
motivated hard-working bright I was the
person you see in front of you today
just 20 pounds lighter with a full head
of hair but as a convicted felon with
limited capital financial social or
otherwise there were a few alternate
outlets for my entrepreneurial interests
I was happy to give up every evening and
weekend and holiday to work on
properties because for me it was the
highest and best use of my time
we have municipalities across this
country that have properties they cannot
give away and we have millions of young
people in their prime doing very little
with their time and talents when I got
started I had no formal training in home
construction and really knew nothing
about real estate in general but I did
have some transferable skills from a
previous life that aided in my success
product marketing cost containment
customer retention
these were all issues I had to navigate
when I sold drugs and so does everyone
else who’s involved in those activities
what’s unique about my situation is I
was able to align my talents with
positive neighborhood outcomes and
created opportunities for myself our
country would be well served if we
helped many other people make that same
connection now I’ve spoken a bit about
the opportunities but I’d be remiss if I
didn’t at least speak to some of the
challenges we face as we seek to
activate opportunity and blighted
communities
low-income communities are overtaxed
I think this graph does a fairly good
job and highlighting the extent of the
problem the red lines represent the most
expensive properties in the City of
Milwaukee and they show a trend that’s
probably fairly intuitive to all of us
the dotted red line represents the
assessed value of these properties and
as you can see it trends quite closely
if not slightly below the corresponding
market values represented by the solid
red line the blue lines represent the
least expensive properties in the city
and as you can imagine they’re located
in the poorest neighborhoods these lines
tell a trend that is not intuitive and
should be quite unsettling for all of us
the dotted blue line represents the
assessed value of these properties and
it diverges sharply from the
corresponding market values which are
represented by the solid blue line in
short the least expensive properties
those located in the most vulnerable
communities pay significantly more in
property taxes than the market value of
their homes suggest let me show this to
you in another way this is a geospatial
heat map analysis of the City of
Milwaukee by median income by
neighborhood the blue represents
low-income communities and the red
represents affluent communities let’s
just oppose this with a heat map of
property assessments blue represents
over assessed properties and red
represents under assessed properties and
when I say under assessed what I mean is
that the amount that they pay in
property taxes their assessed value is
significantly less than the subsequent
market value of these properties this is
essentially every homeowners dream to
pay less in taxes than what they’re
actually supposed to pay but it’s clear
by looking at these graphs that this
condition is really a dream only for
those with the resources to afford it
there’s significant overlap between poor
communities and over taxation and
affluence and under taxation now that
the reasons for this are manifold but
the most salient factor is that the time
cost and
city required to successfully file a
property assessment appeal serve as
barriers to those without the resources
when I started this talk I told you that
I had a unique perspective on urban
blight where some see challenges I see
opportunities it’s not lost on me that
the abundance of opportunities that I
enjoy right now comes directly from a
community that’s often defined by its
scarcity one of the many inspirational
books I read while I was in prison was
Colin Powell’s memoir and in it he
admonished those who are given the short
end of the stick to sharpen it and turn
it into a useful tool imagine for a
moment if we change the dominant
narrative from helping people escape
blighted communities to activating
opportunities within them what would it
do to those communities and more
importantly what would it do for the
people inside of them if you take one
thing away from this talk I hope it’s
this while on may be an outlier I am NOT
exceptional I am a person who threw a
few lucky breaks and a lot of
determination was able to turn his
disadvantages into tools of opportunity
and I believe let me be a bit more
decisive in my language unequivocally I
know it is in our country’s best
interest to help many other people do
the same thing thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
blight I have fought it and I have
caused it I’ve been immersed in it and
I’ve studied it from afar today I’m
gonna talk to you a bit about my journey
and how my past and present were shaped
by my physical environment growing up as
a child we move frequently my mother’s
drug habit often got in the way of her
ability to pay rent and my earliest
memories include being told to turn off
the lights and pretend not to be home as
the landlord pounded at our door to
collect his rent aware of our
machinations he’d often hurled invective
at us through the door and I can still
vividly recall the anger I felt as he
threatened to put all of our belongings
out on the street
and the fear that filled my heart
knowing that his threats were all too
real these experiences colored how I
came to view my environment the
properties in neighborhoods we lived in
were transient spaces that I had no
vested interest in or obligations to
this disconnection manifested itself in
numerous ways including acts of
delinquency and property vandalism many
years later the table’s returned when a
group of young people broke into a
property I was renovating causing
thousands of dollars worth of damage one
of the suspects was apprehended and I
was asked to compose a victim’s
statement to be read at a sentencing I
implored the court to sentence the young
man to work with me to feel the sense of
satisfaction that comes from building
something of significance plus I knew it
would serve as a permanent deterrent for
nobody who has worked tirelessly to
bring a property back to life would
mindlessly destroy one just for fun
unfortunately the judge decided that a
three-month sentence was the more
appropriate outcome in that case at a
very young age I felt a sense of
responsibility to contribute to our
household to ensure that we had food to
eat and a place to sleep
it was during a stint in juvenile
detention that I came to learn how much
more lucrative the opportunities weren’t
selling drugs versus the petty larceny I
had been involved with up to that moment
when I was released I immediately set
out upon that path and by the time I was
18 years old I had a network of drug
houses across the city my relationship
to my environment was unchanged
properties and neighborhoods were
transient spaces that I had no vested
interest in or obligations to it didn’t
take long for my actions to catch up
with me and I soon found myself
sentenced to prison for 10 and a half
years for the distribution of drugs it
was there that I began to reevaluate my
relationship with my community and the
role that I needed to play within it
I’ll save the details of that
transformation for another talk but
suffice to say that when I was released
I had a keen sense of connection to my
community when the time came many years
later to purchase my first home I chose
a fledgling community in the central
city that had seen a bit of a resurgence
in homeownership over the previous few
years unfortunately for me
shortly after I settled in the
foreclosure crisis hit in the
devastation to my neighborhood was swift
and severe neighbors moved out blight
moved in and vandals wasted little time
in looting the properties of anything of
value animated by a sense of
responsibility to my neighbors who
remained in an obligation to fight for
the progress that had been achieved
rather than move out I doubled down and
I purchased a home that had been both
foreclosed and vandalized with no formal
training and home improvement I consumed
countless YouTube videos and consulted
with dozens of home depot staff members
on how to perform certain tasks and
though I was a novice in all of the
respective trades I care deeply about
what I was doing when the project was
complete I found a family eager to rent
the unit and when the neighbor on the
other side of me went in the foreclosure
there was no longer any hesitation on my
part in submitting an offer in time I
would attract outside capital
expanding the third-party management
growing to over 200 units of affordable
housing and some on Milwaukee’s poorest
zip codes I was elected to represent my
trade industry as its president and
helped lobby for systemic change by
working on several pieces of significant
legislation inspired with a sense of
possibility from these events and
desiring to have an impact that was
national rather than local I applied and
was accepted to the Woodrow Wilson
School at Princeton University where I
studied public policy and urban
development when I share my story the
question of replicability often comes up
is it possible for someone today in
similar circumstances is mine to follow
the same path that I did to success and
though I would be the first to
acknowledge the role of luck in any of
my achievements it’s clear that there
existed then and still exists now a set
of systemic factors that facilitated my
success you see central city housing is
one of the few industries where being
from the wrong side of the tracks gives
you a competitive advantage in one of
the most important aspects of any
business information being from the
community created a type of information
asymmetry where I had access to better
and more timely information than my
competitors when I started having such
limited capital it was imperative that
every investment I made created enough
value that it allowed for subsequent
investment this meant not only did I
have to acquire the right property at
the right price but I had to get it
renovated and rented as quickly as
possible
so let me give you a real-life example
on how this played out I purchased a
home in my neighborhood that was
actively being used to distribute drugs
now closing down a drug house is
probably more difficult than you might
imagine calling the city and the police
can take months not to mention the
damage that’s actually done to the
property when they raided it was an
outcome I just
could not financially afford to sustain
so through neighborhood contacts I found
out who was actually running this house
and it wasn’t the person on the lease
nor was it the person at the house on a
regular basis so when I noticed their
car in front of the property I knocked
at the door and explained who I was I
told them that I had just been summoned
to the police station and told that this
house was being used to sell drugs I
told them that I was shown a picture of
every person standing in front of me and
informed that the house was gonna be
raided in three days they asked a bunch
of questions what what did the police
officers look like did they know their
names what time were they gonna raid the
property and then they thanked me for my
time two days later that property was
vacated 45 days later I had it renovated
and rented entirely changing the tenor
of that block by removing the drug house
[Applause]
now I could have shared countless
stories that highlighted the competitive
advantage I had with regards to
information but I think this one gets to
the heart of the matter
life in our central cities are governed
by a different set of norms and those
that understanding can navigate them are
among the best equipped among us to
serve and improve them another advantage
I had was low opportunity costs I was
motivated hard-working bright I was the
person you see in front of you today
just 20 pounds lighter with a full head
of hair but as a convicted felon with
limited capital financial social or
otherwise there were a few alternate
outlets for my entrepreneurial interests
I was happy to give up every evening and
weekend and holiday to work on
properties because for me it was the
highest and best use of my time
we have municipalities across this
country that have properties they cannot
give away and we have millions of young
people in their prime doing very little
with their time and talents when I got
started I had no formal training in home
construction and really knew nothing
about real estate in general but I did
have some transferable skills from a
previous life that aided in my success
product marketing cost containment
customer retention
these were all issues I had to navigate
when I sold drugs and so does everyone
else who’s involved in those activities
what’s unique about my situation is I
was able to align my talents with
positive neighborhood outcomes and
created opportunities for myself our
country would be well served if we
helped many other people make that same
connection now I’ve spoken a bit about
the opportunities but I’d be remiss if I
didn’t at least speak to some of the
challenges we face as we seek to
activate opportunity and blighted
communities
low-income communities are overtaxed
I think this graph does a fairly good
job and highlighting the extent of the
problem the red lines represent the most
expensive properties in the City of
Milwaukee and they show a trend that’s
probably fairly intuitive to all of us
the dotted red line represents the
assessed value of these properties and
as you can see it trends quite closely
if not slightly below the corresponding
market values represented by the solid
red line the blue lines represent the
least expensive properties in the city
and as you can imagine they’re located
in the poorest neighborhoods these lines
tell a trend that is not intuitive and
should be quite unsettling for all of us
the dotted blue line represents the
assessed value of these properties and
it diverges sharply from the
corresponding market values which are
represented by the solid blue line in
short the least expensive properties
those located in the most vulnerable
communities pay significantly more in
property taxes than the market value of
their homes suggest let me show this to
you in another way this is a geospatial
heat map analysis of the City of
Milwaukee by median income by
neighborhood the blue represents
low-income communities and the red
represents affluent communities let’s
just oppose this with a heat map of
property assessments blue represents
over assessed properties and red
represents under assessed properties and
when I say under assessed what I mean is
that the amount that they pay in
property taxes their assessed value is
significantly less than the subsequent
market value of these properties this is
essentially every homeowners dream to
pay less in taxes than what they’re
actually supposed to pay but it’s clear
by looking at these graphs that this
condition is really a dream only for
those with the resources to afford it
there’s significant overlap between poor
communities and over taxation and
affluence and under taxation now that
the reasons for this are manifold but
the most salient factor is that the time
cost and
city required to successfully file a
property assessment appeal serve as
barriers to those without the resources
when I started this talk I told you that
I had a unique perspective on urban
blight where some see challenges I see
opportunities it’s not lost on me that
the abundance of opportunities that I
enjoy right now comes directly from a
community that’s often defined by its
scarcity one of the many inspirational
books I read while I was in prison was
Colin Powell’s memoir and in it he
admonished those who are given the short
end of the stick to sharpen it and turn
it into a useful tool imagine for a
moment if we change the dominant
narrative from helping people escape
blighted communities to activating
opportunities within them what would it
do to those communities and more
importantly what would it do for the
people inside of them if you take one
thing away from this talk I hope it’s
this while on may be an outlier I am NOT
exceptional I am a person who threw a
few lucky breaks and a lot of
determination was able to turn his
disadvantages into tools of opportunity
and I believe let me be a bit more
decisive in my language unequivocally I
know it is in our country’s best
interest to help many other people do
the same thing thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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