In Memorium

Fond Memories of Bernadette

I was honored to speak at the memorial for Bernadette Janes last week. The family collected a carload of canned goods for the Cosgrove Center. It was a nice celebration of Ms. Janes' life organized by her family. All the social justice warriors of Cleveland attended. One of her sisters from Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice sent me this memory. I know that Bernadette's family was collecting memories on a website, but here is one more from Ms. Ikuta.

One day, I met round-faced white haired woman from Whittier, California. She told me that she is new to Cleveland area. She just moved here because her only daughter and son decided to settle in Lakewood. She wanted to meet like-minded people and decided to try a few organizations like Women Speak Out, city Club and Peace action because she was active with several progressive organizations in Whittier.

I often picked her up to attend meetings and we had rather passionate discourse about peace and justice issues and mental health care accessibility.

I could feel that her passion went much farther into opera singing, extensive reading of progressive books such as written by Howard Zinn, Noan Chomsky and many other thoughtful writers. She also hummed some tune while driving to and from the meetings and told me how she wished she could have developed serious singing career but it was not in her card. She grew up in a large family where extra money for cultural development was scarce.

As she spoke of her lost dreams her tone of voice was neither sour nor bitter and took pride in surviving so many challenges including her stint in the US Marine Corp. I still cannot believe this small woman was in that tough Marine Corps outfit. In spite of her agreeable smiles, there must have been tough core person in her short body.

She often spoke of her daughter, Debby and son Corry with deep caring and affection no matter how life could get tough. Bernadette certainly was a brave woman as well as wise.

As a board member of Women Speak Out she contributed much. She offered good ideas and was willing to take on big jobs such as calling volunteers who might be willing to work at the Holiday Peace Festival and Bazaar every year.

She never failed to get work done as she promised and it was good to be able to count on her. Even when she suffered from excruciating back pains she did all she could to keep out work moving. She certainly was a rare person of commitment and devotion.

Bernadette, Thank you for all you have done for us. We miss you very much. I can imagine you singing away from the top of your lungs standing with angels on a fluffy cloud and watching over us as we continue our struggles.

Yoshiko Ikuta

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Updates from Previous Posts

Health Care, Poor People, and Shelter Standards

Today on NPR's Morning Edition they featured a story about health care for homeless people in the context of the current debate about health care reform. I posted something about the need for health care reform to reduce homelessness last week. It was a good story indicating that 70% of the homeless population do not have access to any insurance including Medicare/Medicaid across the United States. I believe that in Cleveland that figure is at 80-85% according to Care Alliance. Single adults in Ohio do not have access to Medicaid and very few are old enough to be eligible for Medicare. This puts pressure on the Free Clinic, Care Alliance, MetroHealth, and the neighborhood family practice clinics to provide charity care to the 16,000-17,000 who find themselves homeless and without health care in Cleveland every year.

I attended the Poor People's March on Friday with about other activists in Cleveland including peace activists, those opposed to poverty, those advocating for universal health care, and unions. It was a nice event well guarded by the Cleveland Police, and they were allowed to walk down the in the street angering motorists this year. I did hear one speaker at the Federal building advocating for straying from MLK's non-violence credo. This was disappointing when viewed with the backdrop of violence displayed at the Town Hall Forums. No politician or elected official showed up.

There are now 23 Cleveland City Council Candidates who have signed onto regulating the shelters. This includes 11 candidates who were in office as City Council members in 2008. If you see any candidates over the next two weeks leading up to the primary ask them about the shelter regulations. We regularly update this site as soon as we hear from the candidates.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Gentrification=Attacks on Poor People

Neighborhood Wars

Gentrification is insidious in that it slowly overtakes a neighborhood. It is feared by poor people, and spreads fear throughout the neighborhood. People start believing that all their problems within the neighborhood are caused by poor people. They start to believe that if they do not kick out the poor people their housing values will decrease and they will lose their nest egg or become homeless themselves. In Tremont, Ohio City and now starting in Detroit Shoreway there is this drive to "develop" the neighborhood. It is usually led by the neighborhood development corporation and by a small group who are single minded in their focus to improve property values. These are worthy goals, but it all falls down when the health of all income levels are not taken into account. There are many CDC directors who try to work with both low income and higher income households and the attempt to balance the needs of each. There are some who try to integrate the neighborhood and champion diversity. But a few who just let the developers go wild, and are hostile to poor people.

Some CDCs restrict access by non-profits who serve poor people out of a fear of attracting homeless and the downtrodden. They condemn and bulldoze property that is unsightly. They demand action by the City to make it illegal to be poor (panhandling, anti-"camping," and anti-feeding ordinances). They constantly chew the ear of the elected local official until the Councilperson finally breaks and forgets about their poorer constituents and follows the vision of the rich developers (potential campaign donors) to move away from affordable housing.

The results are:

• All the shelters get pushed to the "bad" parts of town away from bus lines, social services, and government offices.
• The innovative ideas like pay to stay places (non-profit flophouses) or sweat equity affordable housing co-ops or one stop service centers do not get tried.
• Land is left vacant or used as community garden/park space to avoid the development of affordable housing.
• It is harder to locate a place to live that is affordable to a person making service sector wages.
• When people fall out of their housing through eviction they fall all the way to shelter or the streets. There are no longer safety nets to catch people.
• Housing gets more expensive city wide because certain markets are shut off to people.

This is gentrification and the results of gentrification. The Center for Community Change does some work on gentrification. Also, the National Low Income Housing Coalition has some articles on NIMBY issues.

Brian

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