NEOCH Annual Meeting 3/20/2013

On Wednesday March 20, 2013 at 5:30 p.m. NEOCH will host our annual meeting to review the past year.  We will give out awards, release our annual report, and look at the future of the agency.  There will be a light meal available for those who attend.  We ask that you RSVP for the event by calling 432-0540.  The Annual meeting is held at the agency office at 3631 Perkins Ave. on the third floor between Payne and Chester near East 36th St. 

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Former Board Member Gaskins Passes

When NEOCH was a much bigger organization and we had a larger board, Tony Gaskins was a member of the Board.   Gaskins worked at Channel 5 WEWS TV as a local reporter when he was on the NEOCH Board.  He really cared about some of the stories he covered including the stories about lower income people.

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Housing 101 Workshop

We are working to increase the number of case workers using this affordable housing website in Cuyahoga County.  So, we are offering a training to attempt to increase usage in the program.  We are offering social work CEUs for those who need the continuing education credits.  We ask that you RSVP if you are planning on attending this event.

Housing 101 Workshop
Friday March 22, 2013
10 a.m .to 1 p.m.
At NEOCH
This workshop is directed at staff working with very low income and homeless people including social workers, case workers and advocates.  Our goal is to encourage more case workers signed up to use the Special needs functions of HousingCleveland.org.  We will have presenters from the Cleveland Tenants Organization, Housing Cleveland, EDEN Inc., the Housing Center, and the Dept. of Veteran Affairs.

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Support Your Local Street Vendor

The new Cleveland Street Chronicle is on the streets right now.  As the West Side Market reopens on Monday, a brand new paper will be on the streets.  A few of the highlights from this paper include:

• A look at the new Central Kitchen for shelters
• There is a profile of Kathy Kazol who has led EDEN development corporation for over 20 years.

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Rental Housing Forum: Know the Law

There is a forum on Success in Rental Housing: Know the Law for March 5, 2013 at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Center in Shaker Hts. from 5-7 p.m.   This is a forum being organized by CTO and COHHIO staff. 

For a copy of the flyer go here....
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CAHA meeting for March 2013

Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance Meeting features a focus on Public Housing and Vouchers for the March 4, 2013 meeting.  Then in April two County offices look at Homelessness and Housing Development activities and finally Bill Faith from COHHIO will present at the May meeting.  All are welcome to attend to learn more about affordable housing locally.

There is a flyer on the blog here...
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Evictions Level for 2012

The February Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance meeting featured a look at evictions with Cleveland Housing Court staff and the new director of the Cleveland Tenants Organization.  Magistrate David Roberts and Housing Specialist Robert Fuches provided an overview of the court and trends that they have seen over the last year.  The Cleveland Housing Court has a great number of resources available for the community, and those facing eviction in Cleveland have a much easier time compared to those facing an eviction in the suburban municipal courts in Cleveland Hts. or Berea for example.  The most alarming trend was that the magistrates and the housing court officials have noticed an increase in seniors who are facing an eviction.

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Two Americas in Health Care

For homeless people this graph shows some really bad news.  Those living in Texas or Pennsylvania or North Carolina are out of luck.  Those in Ohio, Illinois, California or Arizona will have safety net insurance to avoid years of debt for one encounter with the local emergency room.  These blue colored states from above graph may be able to expand mental health care and alcohol treatment centers with the cost savings from not having to provide emergency room care to those without insurance.  Hospitals in the blue states from the graph will have a reason to expand preventative care and to not discharge sick people to the shelters.

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Here and Now Radio Program on Homelessness

There was a nice interview with Neil Donovan of the National Coalition for the Homeless today on the radio program Here and Now out of WBUR from Boston.  The show featured a lengthy discussion about panhandling and some of the disturbing trends in homelessness on the Tuesday Feb. 12 program.  If you can get beyond the Boston heavy accents and expressions, it is a very good program.   This program is nice because they give the guests a chance to talk beyond just the sound bytes.  Neil discussed criminalization of homelessness, the affordable housing crisis, the exploding numbers at the shelters and plenty of shout outs to Pine Street Shelter system in Boston on this national radio show.

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New Stats added to the NEOCH Website

NEOCH posted an overview of homelessness in general.  Here are the beginning part of this information:
Shelter Counts in 2012 (Cuyahoga County)

• 8,428 individuals served in 2012 up 23% compared to the two previous years.
• 3,210 were newly homeless in 2012.
• Average length of stay in the emergency shelter in 2012 was 20 days for single adults and 52 days for families.  Average length of stay in transitional shelters in 2012 was 174 days for singles and 258 days for families. 

For more information on this data go here...

We also posted the most up to date information on the 50 poorest cities in the United States here.   For the second group of poorest cities from 53 to 106 go here.  These are the poverty data released by the US Census every year typically in August of the following year.  Cleveland is the fifth poorest city and Toledo is the 12th poorest cities in the United States as of 2011. 

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Medicaid Expansion in Ohio

Congratulations to Ohio Governor John Kasich for accepting  the millions in federal dollars that come with the expansion of Medicaid in 2014.  The homeless of Ohio appreciate that they will have an easier time receiving life sustaining health care.  The savings that our local hospitals save with federal reimbursements can go to expand mental health care and dental assistance.  Right now almost 90% of the homeless population are not eligible for health care insurance. 

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Someone Needs to Go to Jail

It was announced today that the Federal government was going to sue Standard and Poor's rating services in civil court for their role in the financial collapse.  As the Washington Post reports, the case involves favorable ratings for toxic assets that led to the financial collapse in 2008 especially revolving around residential mortgages.   This is good news for moving forward on recovery, but it is not enough.  There is no way that we can prevent this from happening again until we start pursuing the leaders of these titans of the financial services companies with criminal charges

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