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Mediate Milwaukee helps advance housing stability through a civil, respectful process for resolving housing-related disputes. The organization was established in 2009 as part of the City of Milwaukee’s response to the foreclosure crisis and became a formal nonprofit in 2012, providing mediation services to help homeowners stabilize their housing and financial situation.
In 2017 the organization began to offer eviction prevention services in Milwaukee County and worked with local partners in 2018-2020 to establish the Milwaukee Rental Housing Resource Center, contributing to efforts that strengthened Milwaukee’s rental housing system over the past five years.
In 2024, Mediate Milwaukee began working in collaboration with the Milwaukee Justice Center Eviction Diversion Initiative to offer court-based mediation services for landlords and tenants. By 2026 Mediate Milwaukee’s tenant-landlord services transitioned to become a program of the Milwaukee Justice Center.
History
In early 2007, as Milwaukee’s foreclosure crisis emerged, Marquette University Law School partnered with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Urban Economic Development Association to form a task force of government officials, lenders, and consumer advocates. In 2008, Mayor Tom Barrett launched the Milwaukee Foreclosure Partnership Initiative (MFPI), strengthening a city-led response to the crisis.
Marquette University Law School administered the program until early 2012, during which time it built a sustainable staff, volunteer network, and referral system and facilitated over 1,500 mediations. Mediate Milwaukee was then established as a nonprofit to manage the foreclosure mediation program, working with partners to help homeowners retain their homes, protect their credit, and achieve long-term affordability.
Subsequent efforts included expanding these services statewide through the Wisconsin Foreclosure Mediation Network, assisting thousands of families, and working with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to create a voluntary foreclosure mediation program for homeowners in bankruptcy, which was later replicated in the Western District.
Mediate Milwaukee began to work with landlords and tenants in 2017, offering mediation as a tool to help resolve a variety of housing situations. Since then Mediate Milwaukee has helped over 3,500 people in Milwaukee resolve disputes, access financial assistance and other resources, and assisted people to find new housing.
In late 2025, Mediate Milwaukee’s Board of Directors made the difficult decision to close the agency due to reductions in funding. The Board worked in partnership with the Milwaukee Justice Center, which now houses the landlord tenant mediation program. Formal foreclosure mediation programs continued to be offered in other parts of the State through the Winnebago Conflict Resolution Center, Western Wisconsin Mediation Services c/o La Crosse County Clerk of Courts, and U.S. Eastern District Bankruptcy Court.
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