Voting Decision Posted on the NEOCH Website

Back at the beginning of August, Federal Judge Alegenon Marbley decided in our favor to extend the agreement between NEOCH and the State of Ohio until 2016.   This will standardize how provisional ballots are counted and will assist homeless people to vote in the upcoming Presidential election in person on Election Day.  We posted the entire decision here.  It is good reading because Judge Marbley has some wonderful language defending his decision. 

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NEOCH Endorses Issue 1 Human Services Levy

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless Board of Trustees debated the merits of the replacement human services levy on the November ballot and decided to support Issue 1.  For those who do not know, the County has placed a replacement levy on the ballot for November 5 to support Health and Human Services locally.  This is the first time there will be a vote in an odd year when there are typically only local municipal issues on the ballot.  This became necessary because of huge cuts in the last two budgets from the State of Ohio to local governments and the hostility toward expanding Medicaid to serve our population. 

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Updated the list of School Liaisons on the NEOCH Website

 It is state and federal law that every school district assign one staff person to interact with children and young people struggling with their housing.  These homeless liaisons will help to keep a child from having their school disrupted if their family losing their housing during the school year.  They will find the best placement for the child either in their school of origin or in a new school if there are domestic violence issues.  These liaisons will make every effort to provide transportation and a safe return to school as soon as possible for the child. We have an updated list on our website here.

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New Facebook Page on the Hand Up Gala

As we prepare for the upcoming fund raiser, the Hand Up Gala, we have created a Facebook page just for the event.  Thanks to our friend Kim, we have a page dedicated to this unique event.  We are sending out the invitations this week to previous supporters of the event.  We will send out another mailing next week to some of our friends in the community.  In case you have not seen, the Hand Up Gala is a fine dining meal we serve to homeless and hungry in Cleveland as an alternative to the silent auction dinners we had in the past.  We had some nice events for our members in the past at Massimos, and a couple of homeless people would get to enjoy the evening.  We decided for all the staff and volunteer time, we should design an event in which our most important constituents (the people we serve) can have a special time.  Three years ago, we partnered with the Cosgrove Center to host a day for homeless people to enjoy music, table cloths, floral arrangements and a wonderful meal.

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Next CAHA Meeting focuses on Foreclosures and the Land Bank

The next meeting of the Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance is October 7 at 1:30 and will feature Bill Whitney of the Cuyahoga Land Bank and Lou Tisler of Neighborhood Housing Services.  Bill will give his regular update on the clean up of the foreclosure crisis in Cleveland.  The land bank is taking down shells of housing so that the land can be re-developed into parks, farm, or housing.  They are also working with a few community groups on creative solutions to the protect Cleveland neighborhoods going forward.  Recently, they were granted permission to use some of the foreclosure assistance money to take down more abandoned properties when the Treasury Department decided to allow the hardest hit fund to go to demolish housing.  This had been used to save people's homes and now it will be to wipe away abandoned housing.   Someday at CAHA after the foreclosure crisis is over we will have to discuss if the American dream of homeownership is now dead for millions of lower income families now that the housing bubble has burst and we taken down thousands of units of housing.  

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The Future of the Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance Meetings

The last CAHA meeting was about the future of HUD in Ohio.  In a cost saving move HUD will be closing nearly all of the HUD multifamily field offices in the United States. These are the offices that oversee private landlords who serve low income families (Lupica, Rainbow Terrace, Emeritus House).  Every resident in the building gets a subsidy from the federal government.  HUD monitors the quality of these buildings, assures compliance with federal rules and is the government watchdog to make sure that the buildings maintain occupancy rates.  The Cincinnati office has already closed with Columbus and Cleveland closing their multifamily offices in 2014.   They are moving staff to DETROIT?? and Chicago.  Does anyone find it ironic that HUD multifamily staff will be located in a bankrupt city with a similar number of abandoned properties as the area around Chernobyl in the Ukraine?

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South Carolina Reverses Criminalization of Homeless

We posted two blog entries about the absurd Columbia South Carolina law that would require homeless people to seek shelter or go to jail.  With all the national attention and pressure put on the City from national groups like the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center, the petitions on Change.org and the national media stories was too much for the City Council.  They backed away from the law and will go in a different direction.  It is amazing to me that they did not have the backing of their own police, and that not one council member saw the potential problems associated with this legislation to vote against it. 

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Strange Article in the Plain Dealer About Housing

There was a strange and long article in the Plain Dealer last week from Stephen Koff regarding "social engineering"  at the Department of Housing and Urban Development that you might have missed.  The article suggests that enforcing a Civil Rights era law could be "social engineering."  Then a letter was published on Friday that shows the fear and mythology that has developed around the Housing Choice voucher program and Public Housing in our community.  First, the letter was highly offensive and incorrect, and should not have been printed in the paper.  Ms. Melillo has no proof that "incoming section 8 people bring their bad habits and culture with them--violence, drugs, prostitution, deterioration and loud music..."

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Even Police Oppose South Carolina Forced Shelter Law

We wrote about this "crazy South Carolina law"  in the last two week, but it turns out that not even the police agree with the scope of this law.  Huffington Post printed an article on August 28, detailing Columbia Interim Police Chief Ruben Santiago's opposition to the new law.  The National Law Center has been raising concerns about this issue and staff appeared on MSNBC last week.  The Huffington Post quoted the acting police chief saying, " We can't just take people to somewhere they don't want to go.  I can't do that. I won't do that." 

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Marcia Leaving the Board

Our former Board and staff member, Marcia Bufford has left the city.  She was currently serving as Board Treasurer after retiring from three years as Board President.  She started out in 1997 as a volunteer with the Homeless Stand Down recruiting and training other volunteers. She then took a turn as an Americorps*VISTA with CTO and with NEOCH.  She did tenant and community organizing for the two organizations.  She leaves today for greener pastures in another state.  She could not find a job here after working with homeless people and children for over a decade.

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Hand Up Gala Date Announced

One of the most unique events in the community is a collaboration between Catholic Charities and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless called the Hand Up Gala.  The 2013 event is set for October 18, 2013 at the Bishop Cosgrove Center on Superior.  Most of the non-profit agencies in Cleveland have a once a year dinner and silent auction.  This event turns that concept on its head.  The main beneficiaries are homeless and hungry people in Cleveland Ohio.  We have a chef prepare a four star meal and we provide all the atmosphere of a high end restaurant.  

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Promissory Note Still Comes Up Short for Housing

50 years ago, African American leaders gathered in DC to seek justice and equality.  Most remember Martin Luther King Jr. delivering  the single best oratory speech since the Gettysburg Address, but John Lewis, A. Phillip Randolph and Roy Wilkins also gave powerful speeches.  Just focusing on the world of housing which was a critical plank in the push for jobs and freedom in 1963 there have been strides, but the United States has a long way to go to repay the debt.  We have seen poverty and homelessness disproportionately impact African Americans for 150 years.

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Satire: Do We Need Early Voting At All?

Thank you, Ohio legislators for protecting us from having to get up from our Playstations on the weekend to go vote!  We are so glad that you are saving us from President Obama who spent time and resources in Ohio to open up weekend voting so that we will have less time to spend with our families on that weekend before the election in 2014.   We "support" State Representative John Becker's effort to cut down on early voting because 35 days is just too tempting to try to vote multiple times with so many days available. Ohioans may vote the first week in October and then forget and try to vote again on Election Day.

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