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Milwaukee County equity officer showcases data tools to Shorewood trustees
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Summary
Milwaukee County’s chief equity officer, Samaya Clark, presented a data-driven Health and Racial Equity Accelerator to Shorewood trustees, highlighting dashboards, an impact planner and free technical assistance to help municipal leaders identify disparities and plan community-responsive projects.
Samaya Clark, chief equity officer and executive director of the Milwaukee County Office of Equity, presented the county’s Health and Racial Equity Accelerator to the Shorewood Village Board, describing it as a suite of dashboards, downloadable toolkits and an online “impact planner” designed to help local leaders assess population needs and plan equitable projects.
“The tool allows you to have a good understanding of who your constituents are and what their unique needs are,” Clark said, walking trustees through county dashboards that show differences by municipality in homeownership, age, language access and indicators such as food insecurity and opioid overdoses.
Clark pointed to county maps that identify neighborhoods where more than 40 percent of residents report food insecurity and cited homeownership gaps — noting the county would need “over 30,000 more Black or African American families” across the county to achieve parity in homeownership with other racial groups, as displayed in the dashboard. She also described an impact-planner feature that lets officials upload a project idea, answer targeted questions and receive recommendations for outreach and design.
Trustees praised the presentation as concise and practical. “I really laud your approach here,” Trustee Chelsea Warren said, adding the dashboards make it easier for local officials to see both problems and concrete next steps. Clark emphasized the accelerator also offers technical assistance — including research support, community engagement guidance, language-access resources and disability-rights expertise — and encouraged trustees and staff to explore the website and request help for specific initiatives.
Why it matters: The accelerator packages demographic, health and economic data with planning tools and county staff technical support, enabling smaller municipalities to design projects and grant proposals that explicitly consider racial, age and language disparities. Trustees said the resource aligns with Shorewood’s strategic goals to integrate equity into municipal policymaking.
Clark invited trustees to test the site’s tools and suggested the impact planner could help shape grant applications and community engagement strategies. The presentation closed with trustees thanking Clark and noting staff and committee members could use the materials when prioritizing future initiatives.
