He’s been a Milwaukee ambassador for years. Now, he serves the unhoused with a ‘heart of gold.’

News / He’s been a Milwaukee ambassador for years. Now, he serves the unhoused with a ‘heart of gold.’

He’s been a Milwaukee ambassador for years. Now, he serves the unhoused with a ‘heart of gold.’

By: Nathanial Rosenberg

First Posted on: August 14, 2023 in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

When Brian Johnson got a call that a woman was screaming and crying on the bridge near West McKinley Avenue, he sprang into action.

Johnson called his supervisor and police and then hustled over to the scene, arriving just in time to see the woman leaning over the railing, on the verge of attempting suicide.

“At that moment, I didn’t think about that I couldn’t swim, I thought about: That’s a life right there,” Johnson said. “Somebody needs help.”

Johnson began talking to the woman, urging her to back away from the edge and pray with him. She refused his appeals, asking him to tell her mother and children she loved them. Then she began to lean over the railing. Johnson lunged forward and grabbed her, pulling her back and talking with her until assistance arrived.

A year later, he remains in contact with her, and said she is doing better.

Brian Johnson of Milwaukee

While most days are not nearly as high-stakes, Johnson has been serving the residents, workers and visitors of downtown Milwaukee for 15 years as a public service ambassador for the Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District.

In his role, Johnson has given directions to countless tourists, staffed hundreds of events and worked diligently to make downtown Milwaukee the best it can be.

More recently, Johnson has dedicated himself to helping downtown’s significant population of unhoused people — a word he find far more humane than homeless. He has spent that last two years in charge of reaching out to that population for the Business Improvement District, which pursues a “housing first” model of trying to find people shelter.

What Johnson does day-to-day is visit tent encampments or other known gathering spots to check on people living there, and attempt to connect them with beds in homeless shelters, said Roosevelt Jenkins, director of the public service ambassadors. He often knows people’s social workers or other service providers and tries to make connections and keep people from slipping out of touch. That may mean finding resources for someone with addiction or mental illness. Johnson is known for giving out his business card to everyone and answering calls at all hours.

“Brian has a great rapport,” Jenkins said. “I’d say 80 to 90% of the people that he’ll see that are unsheltered he already knows.”

A longtime love of downtown Milwaukee

Johnson grew up in Milwaukee, raised by his mother and grandmother on the city’s north side. He attended Cass Street School before graduating from Rufus King High School in 2006, and remembers his education as a challenging time in his life.

“I’m not ashamed to say I was one of the young men that couldn’t read,” Johnson said. “People looked down on me a lot, my English grammar wasn’t right all the time.”

After graduating from high school, Johnson said, he was struggling, with little direction beyond a desire to do better for himself. He began traveling downtown — walking because he did not have a car or bike or bus fare — and knocking on the door of any business he could find, resume in hand, in search of a job.

Johnson said he went downtown for jobs, despite all the challenges, because it struck him as the most exciting part of the city, and somewhere he could learn every day.

After a month of futility, Johnson finally saw his luck change when he bumped into Carol Robinson, whom he invariably refers to as Miss Carol, who was working as a downtown ambassador.

Johnson saw her handing out pamphlets to city visitors. More than that, he remembers her attitude.

“She had a great smile, no matter what she would do every day, she got a smile on the face,” he said.

He approached Robinson, who helped him apply for the job. He’s been on the job ever since.

Working as a public service ambassador forced Johnson to become better in his reading and speaking, a challenge he accepted with excitement and something he takes pride in as inspiration for young people.

“I come from 53206. In that area you find a lot of young people feel like they can’t make it,” Johnson said. “I wanted to be that one to reach out, to show them the difference — that I was once like that, I couldn’t do certain things, but I didn’t give up.”

Unhoused outreach guided by faith

When Jenkins and Beth Weirick, the downtown Business Improvement District’s CEO, decided to create a full-time position for homeless outreach, they struggled to find the perfect candidate, interviewing more than 15 people without finding someone who had the right demeanor, ability to connect, and most importantly, a willingness to learn.

Eventually it struck Jenkins that they had the perfect candidate already on their team. He pulled Johnson in and offered him the job. Johnson hesitated, saying he needed to talk it over with his wife, and pray on the matter.

“I said, ‘I can’t think of any better Christian job that you can do for helping people,’ ” Jenkins remembers.

Johnson came back and accepted the job.

It was apt that Johnson chose to pray on the matter, because his faith guides his work. Johnson has spent his whole life at Rockhill Community Missionary Baptist Church.

His grandmother initially brought him to the church. Ruthie Morgan, the wife of the pastor, remembers Johnson as a boy, when he would play drums for the church.

“He’s always been a good kid,” she reflected. “Kind and respectful.”

Johnson has become more involved over the years. He now runs the church’s sound engineering, plays the organ and serves as youth minister.

He sees his work as directly tied to his faith. The most important part, in his mind, is listening to someone and learning what they need from them.

He recounted building rapport with a man who he came across living on the street last winter. The man said that he just needed something to eat. Johnson dipped into his pocket and bought the man a bowl from Real Chili, and then sat down and talked with him for an hour. After the conversation, he was able to help the man get into a shelter and off the cold streets.

For Johnson, the process of outreach is a lot like prayer. He reaches out and asks, and then his job is waiting for an answer and acting.

“He’s always giving back,” Morgan said. “To the city and definitely to his church.”

Winner of the ‘Heart of Milwaukee’ award

After two years on the job, Johnson’s tenure has been a rousing success, according to Jenkins, so much so that the district is looking to hire “another Brian” to expand the work.

What makes Johnson so special is how he has managed to quickly become the person people in downtown turn to when they need help. He is constantly in MacArthur Square, where a small group of unhoused people — approximately 30 tents — have sprung up.

Johnson also has connected himself to businesses downtown, to the point where he gets their first call when they are having issues with the unhoused population. Those businesses used to call Milwaukee police, and Jenkins, a former police officer himself, said the work Johnson has done to build trust on all sides has been invaluable.

In June, Johnson was recognized for his contributions, winning the Heart of Milwaukee award from Visit Milwaukee, which specifically noted how he “acted with compassion and courage” to help the woman in crisis on the West McKinley Avenue bridge.

For Jenkins, the award was not a shock, but an appropriate moment of appreciation for a man who has the “biggest heart” in serving others.

Morgan was not surprised either.

“In any way he can help you, he will help you,” she said. “He has a heart of gold.”

This article was shared with permission from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.