History of a Home: Foreclosure in the Washington Park Neighborhood
Mentor 1
Simone Ferro
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
28-4-2017 1:30 PM
End Date
28-4-2017 4:00 PM
Description
For this research, we started with the overall idea of foreclosure in the Washington Park Neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The risks of foreclosed houses affects the people living in it, the people owning it, and the neighborhood that holds it. With this idea in mind, we hunted down a home that was foreclosed in Washington Park. We used this home as a case study to delve into the history of a specific home in order to raise awareness of the importance of each and every house in a neighborhood. Throughout the year, we spent numerous days at the Milwaukee Public Library looking through small microfiches of tax information to obtain a list of owners since the house was built in 1904. We then looked through City Directory after City Directory to make a list of every resident year by year. Just with a simple list of names, the impact of one home on so many lives was revealed. With this information we were able to find small details about some of the residents lives. Although we could not find everyone's story that lived in the house, it is the lack of this knowledge that makes the house so important because we will never be able to find the hidden secrets the walls hold. Only the home itself can hold that, making the house irreplaceable. However, with a single decision a neglected foreclosed home like this one can easily become a pile of wood, a plot of land. Once the home is destroyed the stories it holds will be destroyed as well. This is just a single home that occupies a single neighborhood, in a single city of the United States.
History of a Home: Foreclosure in the Washington Park Neighborhood
Union Wisconsin Room
For this research, we started with the overall idea of foreclosure in the Washington Park Neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The risks of foreclosed houses affects the people living in it, the people owning it, and the neighborhood that holds it. With this idea in mind, we hunted down a home that was foreclosed in Washington Park. We used this home as a case study to delve into the history of a specific home in order to raise awareness of the importance of each and every house in a neighborhood. Throughout the year, we spent numerous days at the Milwaukee Public Library looking through small microfiches of tax information to obtain a list of owners since the house was built in 1904. We then looked through City Directory after City Directory to make a list of every resident year by year. Just with a simple list of names, the impact of one home on so many lives was revealed. With this information we were able to find small details about some of the residents lives. Although we could not find everyone's story that lived in the house, it is the lack of this knowledge that makes the house so important because we will never be able to find the hidden secrets the walls hold. Only the home itself can hold that, making the house irreplaceable. However, with a single decision a neglected foreclosed home like this one can easily become a pile of wood, a plot of land. Once the home is destroyed the stories it holds will be destroyed as well. This is just a single home that occupies a single neighborhood, in a single city of the United States.
