“Recently a homicide victim was discovered under the trash. Yes – a dead body was found and removed – yet the trash remained after the body was pulled out!”
Ashanti Hamilton, a Milwaukee alderman, announced he was going to be camping near city-owned homes near 26th and Atkinson until the city cleaned up the “mountain of debris and trash in the neighborhood.”
“I will be camping out near a string of city-owned homes near 26th and Atkinson until the mountain of debris and trash is removed from the neighborhood. I am angry and at my wits’ end with this problem, and my patience is gone,” Hamilton wrote in a news release obtained by Wisconsin Right Now.
Ashanti Hamilton’s release got the city’s attention, and the debris was finally cleaned up, according to WISN.
“I can’t help but feel emotional for the lack of value that we have for so many people that live in this city,” Hamilton said to the television station. “How can we trust the system to provide quality education? To provide violence prevention? To provide investment in businesses, when we can’t even pick up the damn trash?”
How bad was it? His release says:
“Recently a homicide victim was discovered under the trash. Yes – a dead body was found and removed – yet the trash remained after the body was pulled out!”
“The homes are for sale and are to be maintained by the Department of City Development (DCD), but someone there has been asleep at the wheel and simply unresponsive (for some six weeks!) to the citizen complaints and the requests I have made to have the illegally dumped material removed. The DCD blames the contractor and the contractor blames DCD – all while the problem just continues to grow.”
According to Ashanti Hamilton, “An area attracts good or bad depending on how it looks. Well, the Garden Homes block I am standing in is currently attracting open drug dealing, loitering, drug use and prostitution. That’s about as bad as it gets, and a situation that makes people want to leave the city. I will be staying here until the materials are removed and the properties are made to look like attractive places for new residents to call home. I expect DCD to act with expediency to address the UNACCEPTABLE conditions here.”
About Ashanti Hamilton
According to his City of Milwaukee Biography,
Ashanti Hamilton was elected to the Milwaukee Common Council in 2004 and most recently re-elected by an overwhelming margin in 2016.
In 2016, Alderman Hamilton was elected by his peers to serve as the 48th known president of the Milwaukee Common Council. He is the fourth African American in city history to serve in that role.
Ashanti Hamilton is a graduate of Riverside University High School and earned his bachelor’s degree in English at Marquette University. He participated in the Upward Bound program and worked in Marquette’s Educational Opportunity Program. After graduation, he went on to teach English, and he coached track and football.
He earned his law degree from Thurgood Marshall Law School at Texas Southern University.
Hamilton is married to Rosha Hamilton, and they are the proud parents of five daughters, two of whom are already in college.
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