Milwaukee has set its sights on keeping 2026 homicides below 100 for the first time in more than five years, and city officials are betting that fixing broken streetlights and overgrown bushes in 26 specific neighborhood clusters can help get them there. The Department of Community Wellness and Safety launched the effort, called This Is Our City: The Countdown, to funnel housing, economic, mental health, and neighborhood support resources directly into the areas where violence has concentrated this year.
The initiative covers 69 of Milwaukee's 78 homicides recorded so far in 2026, according to Julien Phifer, a program manager at the department, as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Department Director Karin Tyler said flatly that “violence is not inevitable,” framing the initiative as proof the city believes it can keep pushing its numbers down. City departments and community programs are being asked to commit resources to the 26 clusters, with the department planning to focus intensively on two clusters a week.
Seven Shot Near a Milwaukee Church
One of the targeted clusters sits adjacent to St. Mark AME Church in Milwaukee's Arlington Heights neighborhood, an area that has recorded seven shooting victims this year, including four homicide victims and three people wounded in non-fatal shootings. The stretch covers 1.26 miles. Pastor Joy L. Gallmon said the community's work against violence is far from over, but she believes the broad, cross-agency approach can build on the progress the city has already made against violent crime.
Each of the 26 clusters will undergo an environmental analysis meant to flag the physical conditions that can make an area more dangerous — poor infrastructure, bad lighting, overgrown bushes, reckless driving, and drug use among them. Department staff will then identify the groups, whether city agencies or community organizations, best suited to address whatever gaps the analysis turns up. The Department of Community Wellness and Safety has invited city agencies and other programs to assist the clusters as part of that process, and those partners are expected to develop an action plan for the rest of the year.
Why City Leaders Feel Pressure to Act Now
The urgency behind the launch traces back to 2025, when Milwaukee recorded 142 homicides, an 8% increase over the prior year that ran counter to double-digit homicide declines seen in most major U.S. cities nationally, according to Fox 6 Milwaukee. A 2026 total under 100 would mark Milwaukee's lowest annual homicide count since 2019, when the city recorded 97 killings, a benchmark that stands in sharp contrast to the record 215 homicides logged during the pandemic-era surge of 2022.
Momentum this year has been on the city's side. Milwaukee has logged 296 non-fatal shootings so far in 2026, down from 389 at the same point in 2025. That comparison comes amid the city's broader public-safety efforts.
The Gap Between Solved Murders and Unsolved Shootings
Still, the numbers reveal an uncomfortable gap that The Countdown is explicitly designed to address. The Milwaukee Police Department cleared 87% of homicides in the first quarter of 2026, according to FOX6 News Milwaukee. The initiative also takes a community-level approach alongside traditional detective work.
That distinction provides context for the city's broader violence-intervention work. The city's broader intervention ecosystem already includes the 414LIFE program, run in partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin, which places trained hospital responders at Froedtert, Ascension St. Joseph, and Sinai hospitals to mediate conflicts immediately after gun violence incidents, according to the City of Milwaukee. Those credible-messenger responders were also deployed following a 16-year-old's drive-by killing on West Clark Street last month.
An Agency Still Finding Its Footing
The Countdown arrives as the agency running it takes on a new initiative. The Department of Community Wellness and Safety is led by Director Karin Tyler, as reported by Urban Milwaukee.
Tyler leads the Milwaukee Department of Community Wellness and Safety, according to CBS 58. Her office already provides resources to people impacted by crime and runs programs that respond after violence occurs, work that predates The Countdown's more targeted, forward-looking approach.
How This Effort Differs From Existing Programs
Milwaukee isn't starting from zero. The city has run its Promise Zones program since 2017 to steer resources into struggling neighborhoods, and the Violence Response Public Health and Safety Team, known as VR-PHAST, began in 2020 as a cross-agency gun-violence program. A separate Milwaukee County-run program works directly with people who have shot someone or been shot, aiming to avert future violence.
What sets The Countdown apart, per the Journal Sentinel's reporting, is its strict focus on violence that has occurred specifically in 2026, rather than areas identified through older or more general risk data. Program organizers acknowledge the new clusters may overlap with areas already targeted by these preexisting efforts. The department hopes to replicate the initiative in 2027 if it proves effective this year.
Addressing What's Beneath the Violence
Organizers say the environmental fixes are only part of the plan. The initiative pairs physical repairs like lighting and blight removal with mental and emotional health resources. The goal, city officials say, is treating concentrated violence as a public health problem with both environmental and human roots.
