We Mourn the Loss of An Advocate

NEOCH Will Miss David Westcott

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless Board and Staff are deeply saddened to learn of the death of our beloved treasurer David Westcott on Friday February 27, 2009. Funeral services will be announced in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday. David served on the NEOCH Board for eleven years. He came to the organization in the early 1990s as a true advocate for homeless people. He pushed the agency to rise above every barrier to focus our attention on an end to homelessness. David was always frustrated with the pace of change in this community, and wanted to see religious, government and social service organizations come together to reduce the number of people sleeping in shelters. He was a real asset to NEOCH by improving our systems and operations and guiding us through rough years after September 11 and the beginning of this latest recession in 2007. As treasurer, he set up a wonderful system of checks and balances, and can boast a solid history of clean audits.

Westcott was a former production manager in Milwaukee as well as a Periodical Product Manager for Concordia Publishing of St. Louis. He was a former Army officer in World War II and Korea. Westcott served as Executive Director of the Lutheran Council of Cleveland and as a social worker at WESM. He volunteered with Brookside Family Neighborhood Center, International Partners in Mission (IPM), and the ACLU. He was proudest of his work as a Board member of IPM building a solid organization that reaches out a hand in peace and in the model of the teachings of Christ to lift up disenfranchised populations in El Salvador, Beruit, and India. He was the 2002 Homeless Advocate of the Year as selected by the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. David came into the agency every Thursday to sign checks or take a deposit to the bank or just to see if we were all working. Thursdays will not be the same at NEOCH for a long time.

Brian