The Healthy Homes Project was relaunched through a partnership between UW-Milwaukee and the Medical College of Wisconsin and is beginning energy and health assessments of homes in March to help Milwaukee neighborhoods improve their health and safety, lower utility bills, and make home improvements to increase weather resilience.
The Healthy Homes & ECO Neighborhoods project was originally launched in 2024 and before federal funding was terminated, helped to provide 14 home energy and health assessments to homeowners in the city. Their initiative was to help homeowners in disinvested neighborhoods, who have historically been forgotten about.
With the work being far from over, project partners connected with researchers from UW-Milwaukee and the Medical College of Wisconsin to help revive the program. They received support from the Presidents and Chancellor’s Challenge, in September 2025, which is a collaboration among UWM, the Medical College of Wisconsin and Marquette University to support projects that help find solutions to local issues.
They also secured a $89,000 award from the Challenge to support home energy as well as healthy home assessments for 17 homes. The money will fund a resilience ambassador and intern that will help guide homeowners through the process. It will also fund continued research by UWM and the Medical College of Wisconsin to further understand what keeps so many homeowners from making upgrades to their energy.
Currently, up to 10 homes will be involved in real-time monitoring of air quality by the Medical College of Wisconsin. They will use sensors that measure volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, carbon dioxide, humidity and temperature.