Since early April, Farina Brooks and her husband have been living in a hotel after rainwater began leaking through the roof of their Metcalfe Park duplex.
The apartment on West Center Street is the only home they’ve known in Milwaukee since moving to the city from Michigan nearly 40 years ago.
Videos posted to Brooks’ Facebook account on April 2 show water dripping from multiple points in her chipped-paint ceiling, including from a light fixture in the kitchen, Brooks said.
“Oh my God,” Brooks recalled thinking. “That right there is not good.”
The family’s living conditions represent a broader issue facing Milwaukee renters who are living in deteriorating housing conditions despite repeated tenant complaints and city citations.
In extreme cases, tenants are advised to contact Milwaukee’s Department of Neighborhood Services to begin rent withholding, a process by which renters can legally withhold rent and place the money in an escrow account until repairs are made.
But even when tenants follow that process, repairs are not always completed, illustrating the limitations of a legal pathway meant to protect renters and improve the quality of their apartments.
Brooks entered escrow in October 2025 and has yet to compel her landlord to take action, leaving her and her husband stuck in poor living conditions. While the two wanted to stay in their home, they recently decided enough was enough and moved out.
“We did everything we were supposed to do on our end,” Brooks told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We definitely did that.”
Living with leaks and broken front steps
The leaks began about three years ago, Brooks estimates.
At first, the leaking water was confined to the living room, but over time, it spread to the dining room and then the kitchen.
To make matters worse, last year, Brooks fell down the front steps after tripping on a loose wooden plank on the porch, she said.
She required seven stitches between her lip and nose.
“I had a big, big, round knot on my head,” she said. “And I had bruises all over my body.”
Brooks, who is a community advocate and founder of DreamTeam United MKE, said her family reported those issues to the city’s Department of Neighborhood Services and repeatedly asked the property management company hired by her landlord to repair the ceiling and the front steps, among other issues.
Those requests were ultimately denied by her landlord, who cited a lack of funds to complete the work.
Property records show the duplex is owned by Maria Torkelson, an out-of-state landlord who owns three other properties in Milwaukee – one in Metcalfe Park and two in Sherman Park.
All four properties are managed by MPI Property Management, which declined to comment for this story.
Across the four properties, Torkelson has been cited for code violations 69 times since 2017. The duplex the Brooks family lives in accounts for 19 of those violations, according to the Milwaukee Property Ownership Network Project.
City inspection reports obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel show Torkelson has been for the property’s interior and exterior disrepair, including two citations in 2022 and 2026 for the leaking roof.
Despite the repeated citation and notice by the department that the Brooks’ rent is being withheld, Torkelson has yet to agree to fix the roof.
The Brooks’ daughter, Finchion Fowler, called MPI Property Management in hopes of getting help, but she said she has had no such luck.
Despite the persistent problems, Brooks and her husband decided to stay in their home because they were comfortable. Her husband, James Brooks, is an introvert – a homebody who finds comfort in his routine: go to work, come home, watch TV, repeat, she said.
“It was really hard for him when we decided we had to move,” Brooks said. “He’s still struggling with it.”
Brooks is also coming to terms with leaving the neighborhood.
“I really want to be in Metcalfe Park,” she said. “Because I do a lot of events over here and I’m familiar with the area.”
Enforcement tools with limited reach
The Department of Neighborhood Services is a city agency that enforces various building codes and can issue orders requiring landlords to fix violations.
Rent withholding is a program led by Neighborhood Services that enforces a state statute that protects tenants from renting apartments that are not habitable, but the process can take time, and repairs are not always completed promptly – or at all.
“We are limited by the tools allowable by the state,” said Jeremy McGovern, a spokesman for Neighborhood Services.
When tenants file a complaint about their apartment, the department can order the landlord to make repairs. When landlords fail to make necessary repairs, the department can continue to issue reinspection fees in accordance with the terms of the order, McGovern said.
If a landlord still doesn’t make the repairs, tenants can withhold rent by holding it in an escrow account through the department. This step also requires a written notice to the landlord and an official inspection of the unit.
Rent is held until repairs are completed to achieve code compliance – even if the tenant voluntarily vacates the premises – unless the unit is deemed a hazard and placarded by the department.
Data obtained through a public records request by the Journal Sentinel found that an average of 58 tenants per year entered escrow between 2023 and 2025. Approximately 41 tenants have successfully filed rent withholding actions against their landlords thus far this year.
For most tenants, if their landlord fails to make repairs and they decide to move out, they will likely not see all of their rent money again, as the rent-withholding process typically does not permit the withdrawal of funds from an escrow account.
“Regarding the money in the escrow when a tenant leaves voluntarily, the money remains in the escrow until code compliance is achieved,” McGovern said in an emailed statement.
“If the tenant is in rent withholding, but then has to move out due to a placard [posted by Neighborhood Services], we can use those funds for relocation costs,” he said.
In Brooks’ case, local officials have intervened on her behalf to get her a full refund.
Ald. Russell Stamper visited the Brooks home in April, and, according to Neighborhood Services records, worked with Neighborhood Services Commissioner Jezmil Arroyo-Vega to have all funds in the family’s escrow account reimbursed − funds Brooks said she and her husband are now using to help pay for their hotel.
“Ms. Farina is a respected and beloved leader in her community — someone who has consistently given back and uplifted those around her,” Stamper said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“It is deeply unfortunate that she is now facing housing instability, particularly given the circumstances beyond her control.”
Brooks began community work after a teenager was shot and killed near her home in 2016, eventually starting DreamTeam United MKE, a nonprofit dedicated to serving the community by providing resources and hosting grocery and clothing giveaways.
Through it all, Brooks maintains that Torkelson is not a slumlord.
When the property management she hired before MPI failed to make the necessary repairs to Brooks’ water heater after it stopped working suddenly in 2009, Torkelson drove from eastern Michigan to Milwaukee to make sure the maintenance crew completed the work order, Brooks said.
Until recently, Brooks said Torkelson was responsive to requests – frugal, perhaps, but responsive.
The couple began to move out of their Metcalfe Park home in mid-April. The apartment is nearly empty now.
Brooks recently toured an apartment in a senior living community. Soon, her husband will tour it as well.
Brooks and her family created a GoFundMe page to help cover hotel fees, first and last month’s rent, and a security deposit at a new apartment.
Until then, they will continue to call a hotel room home.
April Quevedo covers Metcalfe Park for the Journal Sentinel’s Neighborhood Dispatch. Contact: aquevedo@usatodayco.com.
Neighborhood Dispatch reporting is supported by Northwestern Mutual Foundation, Journal Foundation, Bader Philanthropies, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and reader contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visit jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Metcalfe Park couple leaves home, exposing the limits of rent withholding process
Reporting by April Quevedo, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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