This Milwaukee rooming house provides sober living space. And it's activating a key building in Riverwest, Harambee neighborhoods.

Tom Daykin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Published 5:00am CT April 14, 2022

For Hannah Brennan, living in a community with other people who are recovering from addiction has been a key part of staying clean.

"It's a provided family," Brennan said about the sober living facility in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood. "I needed this because I didn't know where else to find it."

That rooming house, where residents share their living quarters, as well as a kitchen, TV room, back yard and other communal spaces, opened about a year ago.

Its operator is 4th Dimension Sobriety Inc., which leases a historic building that previously was used for about a year as a travelers hostel — before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down that business. Now, 4th Dimension has launched a $2 million fundraising campaign to buy the building, at 500 E. Center St., for $1.1 million, do some renovations and help fund its operations.

New activity at key location

Along with providing an important service, 4th Dimension is activating a prominent building on the border of the Riverwest and Harambee neighborhoods that has seen several years of vacancy.

"Our focus is on community because we believe sobriety can't happen without that," said Jason Gonzalez, founder and chief executive officer of the nonprofit corporation. 4th Dimension Sobriety is the largest provider of sober living houses in Milwaukee County and the only such provider in Riverwest," he said.

The two-story Center Street building can house up to 22 men and 11 women "who seek a life free from drugs and alcohol," Gonzalez told the Journal Sentinel.

The facility doesn't provide alcohol and drug treatment. A for-profit affiliate, 4th Dimension Recovery Centers LLC, operates a separate treatment facility at 1216 N. Prospect Ave.

The sober rooming house is rooted in the 12-step recovery process, Gonzalez said, with programs focusing on structured communal living, wellness and spirituality. The average stay is six months. 4th Dimension had operated sober living facilities at smaller rental properties in Riverwest for eight years before consolidating most of those operations at the Center Street site last spring. That location not only houses more people, it also provides space for holistic healing events, neighborhood gatherings and large communal meals, Gonzalez said.

SERVING AN INCREASED NEED

The opening of the Center Street facility came as addiction rates and overdose deaths increased steeply during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, 4th Dimension is helping restore life to an 8,000-square-foot building that was close to being taken over by its lender. Located just east of North Holton Street, it was built in 1927 to house Holton Street State Bank, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The building was remodeled in the 1990s for a Milwaukee Public Schools Head Start program, but was left vacant in 2005. In 2018, the Common Council approved a proposal by then Mayor Tom Barrett's administration to sell the building for $150,000 to RiverBee LLC, a community investors group.

HOSTEL A VICTIM OF PANDEMIC

RiverBee, led by developer Juli Kaufmann, was comprised of around 50 small investors from the Riverwest and Harambee neighborhoods. It converted the building into Cream City Hostel, with 52 bunk beds in eight dorm-style rooms, as well as a common kitchen and other shared space. Cream City Hostel opened in late June 2019 — providing cheap accommodations for travelers.

The hostel, while opening a bit later than planned, did well in 2019, said Kaufmann, who operates Fix Development LLC. But the business was devastated by the March 2020 onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was especially hard on the travel industry. Cream City Hostel closed that month, and by early fall 2020 the decision was made to not reopen, Kaufmann said. "They were unable to pay rent," she said.

Typically, Kaufmann's central city neighborhood developments, including Tandem restaurant and the Sherman Phoenix business hub, have relied on various financing sources that don't include conventional bank loans. However, RiverBee obtained a loan from Tri City National Bank to help finance the $1 million in costs need to remodel the building and provide working capital — thanks to strong market conditions in Riverwest, Kaufmann said. Tri City and the nonprofit Milwaukee Development Corp., an affiliate of Metropolitan Milwaukee  Association of Commerce, together held $450,000 in debt that was facing default, she said.  That led Bader Philanthropies to lend $450,000 at a 2% interest rate so RiverBee could buy out those loans, Kaufmann said. That bought time for the building to find a new use and generate rental income. Initially, that hostel was to be replaced by a housing cooperative, where tenants work together to set the rules for their living space and pay a fee for operating expenses. It was to house around 12 people, with an opening by summer 2021. But that plan "didn't get traction," Kaufmann said.

FRESH IDEA TAKES ROOT

By early 2021, the sober living space emerged as an alternative. The timing was right, Gonzalez said. With the pandemic, he was considering ways to make 4th Dimension's smaller sober living spaces in Riverwest more sustainable while meeting a higher demand as addiction rates increased. A consolidation and expansion of those operations made sense, Gonzalez said. A friend connected Gonzalez, a former Pius XI High School teacher, with Kaufmann, a Pius alum. 4th Dimension provides a form of cooperative housing, Kaufmann said, bringing the building back to life. Also, it amounts to an important service — one that has a personal connection to Kaufmann, who had a friend die from addiction during the pandemic. 4th Dimension began operating at the former hostel in May.

That new use resonates with Byron Thompson, a neighborhood resident and a RiverBee owner. Thompson initially invested in the plan to develop Cream City Hostel in part because he wanted to give back to the community. He's a recovering addict who's been clean for 20 years, and recalled the area around Center and Holton streets as a place where he used to buy drugs. Thompson is Milwaukee program manager at The Phoenix, a national nonprofit organization which provides fitness services for people in recovery. He's delighted to see the building's transition to a sober rooming house. "I have more of a connection now than ever before" to the project, Thompson said.

Meanwhile, Brennan is about to move out of 4th Dimension, where she serves as a volunteer house manager, into an apartment. She works as a barista at The Daily Bird, a Riverwest coffeeshop, 818 E. Center St., that is owned by another person in recovery. "It's been amazing," Brennan said. "I actually didn't think I'd be sober this long."

Pius XI High School teacher opens his Riverwest house to encourage sobriety

By Makenzie Boettcher, Radio Milwaukee

Published February 22, 2016 at 9:43 PM CST

Born and raised in the Riverwest neighborhood, high school teacher Jason Gonzalez loves Milwaukee.

"I knew I wasn't giving everything back that I could. And then I had this thought, 'Maybe I can build this culture and community that I crave.'"

So a few years back, Gonzalez, a recovered alcoholic, decided to give back to Riverwest the one way he knew how: by helping others get sober and fight addiction.

"I got sober, and I know how to do that. So I just opened my doors up and said 'well here's how I live and here's how I practice principles in all of my affairs. If you want this, follow my lead for a while.'"

Now known as 4th Dimension Sobriety, that house is now booming with energy and with individuals eager to learn from Jason's success: a structured lifestyle that encourages self-reflection, self-appreciation and the appreciation of others around you. Now with a second men's house, as well as a newly-opened women's house, 4th Dimension is providing a safe living environment for people struggling with addiction while also offering them a supportive community to lean back on. And Amber Davis, the house manager for the women's house, says 4D offers so much more than just recovery: "We're a family, first and foremost. The second you come into this house, I love you."

Listen to my full interview with Jason and Amber from 4th Dimension Sobriety by clicking the podcast player here. 

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