If you are unable to secure long-term housing accommodations before arriving in Milwaukee, take steps to secure temporary housing as soon as possible. Guest housing with UWM’s University Housing is one option. Guest housing provides you with a temporary living space while you search for more long-term housing around the UWM area.
We strongly recommend contacting Guest Housing by either email or phone to make arrangements for your first few weeks in Milwaukee. Do this as soon as you know when you will be coming to Milwaukee to make sure guest housing does not fill up.
Another option you may want to consider is booking an Airbnb or hotel in the Milwaukee area, although this will be a more costly option. Airbnb allows for up guests to stay up to 10 nights in a 12 month period, so this may provide you a place to stay for a short period while finalizing housing plans. Panther Families has a list of preferred hotels with discounted rates for short-term stays.
Google Maps is a great way to get directions for walking, biking, driving and public transit! UWM’s Transportation Services website also has lots of helpful information on transportation options.
- Rent a bike to ride around the city!
Milwaukee County Transit System
- Ride any MCTS bus free with your U-PASS and Student ID!
- Shuttle to UWM’s residence halls from campus.
- BOSS is a safe ride service available to UWM students, operating in a radius of campus every day between the hours of 6:00 PM and 2:00 AM during the academic calendar.
Need to go to another city or state?
- Daily routes from Madison to Milwaukee with stops at Student Unions.
- A low cost travel between cities with prices starting from as little as $1. Easily travel to Chicago, Minneapolis and beyond!
- Train routes to over 500 destinations across the U.S.
Occupancy Ordinance
- No more than 3 unrelated adults may live in a unit, no matter how many bedrooms, unless the landlord has a rooming house license*. This license is not common for landlords to have in the City of Milwaukee, as it is typically pricey. Additionally, there must be more than one exit within the dwelling. If looking at an attic or basement unit, make sure there are multiple exits, or it is an illegal dwelling. Citations could be as much as $5,000 and may be issued against the landlord and the tenant for illegal occupancy.
- A common ploy by unethical landlords is to allow more than three unrelated adults to rent a location, saying something similar to: “You can just put three names on the lease” or “How many people that live there is up to you. I don’t prohibit subleasing.” When caught by the City of Milwaukee, the landlords may then claim to have only rented to a legal number of people. Only those on the lease can legally stay, and must pay the entirety of the rent for the rest of the lease. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence. Moving and finding a new apartment in the middle of the semester for this reason is an unnecessarily stressful experience.
- Check the Department of Neighborhood Services website and look up the complaint and violation history of the property. Most landlords are honorable business people. However, some have bad records. You may also check Wisconsin Circuit Court Access for a possible landlord’s court record. Be aware of properties with recent, active violations and landlords with backgrounds of excessive housing related records, such as evictions.
- Property complaints can be made to the Department of Neighborhood Services Customer Service line at 414-286-2268, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m—4:45 p.m.
- Renting with more than three unrelated adults puts tenants and the landlord at risk for tickets and eviction.
*A rooming house means any building or part of any building or dwelling unit occupied by more than three persons who are not a family** or by a family and more than two other persons for periods of occupancy usually longer than one night and where a bathroom and toilet are shared.
**Family means, unless otherwise specified, a person occupying a dwelling unit, or dwelling unit with one or more persons who are legally related to such occupant by virtue of being husband and wife, son or daughter, uncle or aunt, grandparent or grandchild, niece or nephew, first cousin, mother or father-in-law, all of whom comprise no more than one nuclear family unit per household.
In the City of Milwaukee, there are rules and laws that prevent housing discrimination for certain protected groups.
Milwaukee County Ordinance Chapter 107 states:
“It is declared policy of the county that all persons shall have an equal opportunity for housing regardless of sex, race, color, disability, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, marital status of a person maintaining the household, lawful source of income, age, sexual orientation…”
This means that landlords cannot refuse to rent housing to international students because of their background or national origin. For example, a landlord could not refuse to rent from a Canadian student simply because they are from Canada.
However, “student status” is not a protected class, so some landlords may legally choose to refuse to rent to any students.
Additionally, there are other legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons a landlord may refuse to rent to an international student. These may include:
- No job or unable to verify employment
- Not enough income or unable to verify income
- No credit check available or poor credit history
- No co-signer available
- Unable to do a criminal background check or bad record
- No rental history
- Bad landlord reference(s)
- Prior eviction(s)
- Unable to pursue a claim or collect damages against international students when they return home
The UW-Milwaukee Legal Clinic suggests international students offer to pay the landlord extra money in addition to the security deposit, if able.
The Off-Campus Resource Center also provides a list of International Student Friendly landlords who have requested to be on our International Student housing contact list.