Chagrin New Faces Exhibit

Photos by Michael Steinberg

Valley Art Center Show on Homeless

The Valley Art Center in Chagrin Falls Ohio is hosting an exhibit focusing on homelessness. “The Celebration of Diversity: The New Face of Homelessness” runs from February 12-March 17, 2011. It is free and open to the public. NEOCH provided the gallery with our movable wall and some photos by homeless artist who took a photography class that NEOCH orchestrated. Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries which operates 2100 Lakeside Men’s Shelter also provided photos with brief narratives that hung below the photo of the individual.

I had the pleasure of going to the event on its opening night. On the opening night they collected scarfs, hats and gloves that will go to the homeless. It is a moving exhibit, that showcases the challenges of living in shelter as well as the relationships and activities that help a person get through life in shelter. For example there is a photo of a young man in his late teens with a chicken resting on his arm. He discussed how he developed a friendship with the chicken who hangs around the shelter he resides at. Another example is a photo of an older gentleman his narrative simple read “I’m alive.”

The Movable Wall is a photo exhibit paid by the Cuyahoga Arts and Culture Fund that features photos taken by homeless people, and gives a unique perspective on homelessness. The Movable Wall has traveled to churches, gallerias and schools for the past two years.

The Valley Art Center is located on 155 Bell Street, Chagrin Falls, OH 44022. The gallery hour: Mon-Fri 10-4 Sat. 10-2. www.valleyartcenter.org

by Holly Lyon
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Portraits of Homeless Residents will be in City Hall next week

Staff at 2100 Lakeside will display the portraits show at the City Hall Rotunda next week. The presentation of the show will be Monday April 19 from 5-7 p.m. with a short overview and talk by staff and residents of the shelter.

I went to the show when it was hung at CSU Levin College, and I urge everyone to go see it. The interesting part of this show that separates from other shows is there is a narrative that Lydia Bailey prepared with each of the images. You get the opportunity to read the story behind the image, and get to know the subjects. Catch the opening and stick around for the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. What a great night--poverty, art, and democracy for free.

Brian
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WCPN Picks Up Homeless Portrait Story

Lakeside Shelter Featured on Radio

The photo display by NEOCH Board member, Lydia Bailey opened on snowy Friday in Cleveland. It was a very nice show with narratives about the men featured in the photography. It is a big step forward in to dispel some of the myths.

On Monday morning, WCPN featured Mike Sering of LMM and Lydia Bailey for an interview about the project. It is a very good overview of the project and had some good stories about the men in the shelter giving back to the community. Mike mentioned a group of men who are repairing the school bus and even working to transport the men to the current overflow every night.

The show is available to view every day at CSU at the Levin College through March 31, 2010. Check it out.

Brian Davis
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Gary Waterbeck Passes

Photo by Cindy Miller of Gary Waterbeck

Photo Grad and Union Carpenter

Gary Waterbeck passed away this morning. For long time readers of the Homeless Grapevine or this blog, you will remember Gary from the 2007 Grapevine photo project. Gary was a strong, quiet and reserved gentleman who had struggled with health issues. Gary came to NEOCH asking for help from people who were harassing him at his campsite. He did not want to live in the shelters in Cleveland for many different reasons, and felt that he could get off the streets on his own. He met a friend of ours, Cindy Miller, who was helping us work on improving the shelters in Cleveland . I talked to Cindy about how we remember Gary, and she wanted to make sure that he was remembered for more than just the stereotypical issues facing a homeless guy in Cleveland. There is no such thing as a typical homeless person, but Gary was not even a typical man.

Gary was a union carpenter who wasn't working due to the cutbacks in construction work in Cleveland. Some of the large construction projects he worked on included schools, assisted living facilities and the Lerner Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. He did independent contracting work but lost that income due to someone stealing his van and all his tools. He had cut his insurance down to liability coverage. The day after he arrived at the men's shelter he got a job selling hot dogs at the corner of Ontario and Superior. He often worked through temp agencies on assembly lines and even power washing at Jacobs Field. He and a group of other men chose to sleep in a camp rather than at the shelter because by the time they finished work and got back to be transported to the overflow shelter at Aviation High School they missed meals or there was not enough food or they missed the shuttle bus. Often they did not feel safe at the overflow site at Aviation. Gary then traveled down to New Orleans in 2005 to help with the recovery efforts.

Cindy felt safer with Gary than she did in the shelters and they started hanging out together. Gary became disabled as the result of an injury he sustained while in New Orleans helping with the clean up after Hurricane Katrina. A group of men from the shelters and men who were no longer in the shelter went to aid in the cleanup. In 2006, they found a place together in East Cleveland and then a house in Toronto , Ohio . Both joined the photography project taught by Steve Cagan at NEOCH, and both successfully graduated the program. My favorite images captured by Gary are below.

In the past few months he was feeling well enough to be independent again and was active in the newly formed Toronto (Ohio) Coalition for Revitalization. He had helped in negotiating a donation of paint and supplies for a newly started project of the coalition. Gary and Cindy fought the crushing federal bureaucracy, crazy state government rules, and small town politics over the last two years. They also had to struggle with the bizarre American health care system. Gary was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2009. His death was the result of pneumonia. He had received months of chemotherapy that drastically reduced the tumor in his throat. Gary waged a valiant battle to conquer this latest challenge in his life. Gary Waterbeck passed away early this morning, and our heart goes out to his family and to Cindy. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Brian with help from Cindy
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Photos by Gary Waterbeck 2007

Save the Date for 2010

Portraits of Homelessness at Levin College of Urban Affairs

Join advocates and friends of the Coalition on Friday January 8, 2009 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Thomas Campbell Exhibition Gallery at Cleveland State University Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs Atrium for the Portraits of Homelessness Gallery show. Featuring photos and stories by Lydia Bailey, Board member of NEOCH and staff at Lutheran Metro Ministry 2100 Lakeside Shelter. Lydia and shelter director, Mike Sering will talk as well as remarks by the men featured in the exhibit. For more information go to the CSU Urban Affairs website. 2100 Lakeside Shelter is the largest meal program and shelter in Ohio, and Lydia takes some of the stories that she has found and puts a face on the story of homelessness.

Please join us at CSU on January 8, 2009.

Brian
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Congrats and Upcoming show

New Blog and Oprah Show This Week

One of our good friends and graduate of the photo project, CynDe, has a new Blog available. This is one of those rare success stories that we all need in this time of terrible economic news. CynDe has photography and a good look at her life now that she put behind her those rough nights in the shelters in Cleveland on her blog. I encourage you to bookmark From Homelessness to Homeowner and check back frequently. CynDe is starting this blog as the beginning point of a book about her experiences as a casualty in the war against the impoverished.

WCPN is going to feature one hour on the foreclosure plan introduced by the Obama Administration last week on Tuesday February 24 at 10 a.m. I don't know who the guests are, but it should be interesting. Tune in and call in.

Also, I am pretty sure that the Oprah program, which is on sometime in the afternoon on some local channel near you, will feature a piece on tent cities as a result of the foreclosure crisis. I believe that it will be Wednesday February 25 on a television near you. I know that Sacremento and New Orleans, Portland, Seattle all have large collections of tents that have sprung up over the last few years. Imagine in the richest country in the world, we have people living every night in a tent. There are 300 to 400 families, veterans, and young people sleeping under a makeshift home in numbers we have not seen since the 1930s. These people are asking for help from their government and wondering why all these homes are sitting vacant in the hands of banks.

“If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution”

--Abraham Lincoln

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board