When the foreclosure crisis hit Milwaukee, the city was already reeling from the loss of 70,000 manufacturing jobs and gowing poverty rate. Yet an opportunity emerged to create a local food movement.
Now the Home Gr/own initiative is turning Milwaukee’s thousands of vacant lots and idled citizens into a source of food and jobs.
“We’re trying to do a paradigm shift with how cities deal with their real estate,” says Tim McCollow. Through the program, some of Milwaukee’s 2,700 vacant lots and 1,300 foreclosed homes are now being repurposed for local food production, processing, and distribution.
(WATCH an introductory video below, and READ the story at FastCoExist.com)