by James E. Causey
Milwaukee has a poverty problem that usually doesn’t trigger outrage until something shocking happens – which happened on Sept. 16 when police discovered six children, ages 2 months to 9 years, locked inside a storage unit on the city’s north side.
The only toilet available was a red bucket, and the unit lacked electricity and running water. Their parents, Charles Dupriest, 33, and Azyia Zielinski, 26, were found sleeping in a car in the storage unit’s parking lot with the family dog.
Both have been charged with six counts of child neglect, four of which are felonies because they involve children under the age of 6.
The comments on social media about the parents are too harsh for me to repeat here.
Many asked: Why do they have six kids?
Truth is, it doesn’t matter now. The children are here.
While the parents deserve criticism and need to be held accountable for leaving their children in deplorable conditions, they were overwhelmed. I’m not trying to excuse their actions, but when you get beyond the rote shock and outrage, it’s clear their circumstances made it nearly impossible for them to find safe, affordable housing in Milwaukee.
A month and a half before the children were found in the storage unit, Zielinski and her children were evicted from the Joy House after she gave birth to her last child. The Joy House is a shelter for women and children located at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission. This eviction forced the family into survival mode as they needed to find a way to keep a roof over their heads.
I’m not sure why they chose a storage facility, but it seems likely that it was a place where they figured they could store their belongings while ensuring they stayed together as a family without being separated.
People are suffering. Some just refuse to see it.
When news first broke about the children locked in a storage unit, many people expressed shock and called for the parents to be jailed and their children to be placed in foster care.
The reality is that poverty is rising in the United States, and more families live paycheck to paycheck, which increases the risk of eviction. The poor are more affected because anything that disrupts their already tight budget can send them into a free fall. A past eviction. A health scare. A sick child could mean missing work, which means missing income or losing a job.
Depending on how it is measured, Milwaukee ranks as the second or third highest in poverty among the 50 most populous U.S. cities, and for years it was labeled as one of the worst places to raise a Black child in the nation.
Sister MacCanon Brown, who operates the MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary on the city’s north side, said the demand for services for the poor is greater than she has seen in years.
“People are suffering, and some people just refuse to see it,” Brown said.
Food banks are strained, and people have seen their food stamp benefits cut, so they are stressed.
“I recently met a woman who told me she hadn’t eaten in three days,” she said. “We must keep asking why this situation not only persists but is getting worse, primarily when millions of dollars are being allocated to the state.”
Couple faced monumental challenge finding housing
When it comes to the parents, it seems clear they were overwhelmed and nearly out of options. While they both admitted to receiving $2,000 each in Social Security benefits, they said finding affordable housing was impossible.
As of September 2025, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Milwaukee is about $1,185 per month. If you are looking for a clean three-bedroom apartment in a safe neighborhood, you would be fortunate to find anything for less than $2,000.
However, finding a landlord willing to rent to a young, unmarried couple with six children under the age of 10 –especially when both parents have evictions on their record – presents a monumental challenge.
And even if they were able to find someone to give them a chance, did I mention Dupriest is a registered sex offender? In 2010, when he was 17, he had sex with a 13-year-old girl at least 10 times at her parents’ Mequon home.
Do I think they had a hard time finding an apartment? Yes.
I’m a landlord, and I wouldn’t rent to them, either.
Given their circumstances, sleeping in the car and putting the kids in a storage unit might have seemed like a reasonable option for those under this kind of hardship. They managed to juggle this chaotic shelter situation for over a month before they got caught. The only positive outcome of this was that the children were not hurt.
This heartbreaking situation will leave lasting scars on both the children and the parents. Unfortunately, we know they are probably not alone.
When we hear about the next family in a similar situation, do we still have a right to be shocked and appalled? Could we, perhaps, serve correction alongside grace?
