New Stats on our Website

Updates on the Poverty 

 The NEOCH website now has the 2010 Census data on poverty and homelessness in Ohio.  It lists the cities in Northeast Ohio as well as the largest cities in Ohio.  The estimates on homelessness are all based on a percentage of the people who live below poverty losing their housing during the year.  This does not mean that they show up at the shelters, but most likely means that they will stay on couch or with family or friends.  It is good overview of the extent of the problem we are confronting.   Click here for the chart. 

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Comedy Show Feature on Homelessness

HUD Secretary on the Daily Show

What does it say about the major media that a good solid discussion about homelessness is done on the Daily Show?   Last night, Shaun Donovan appeared on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, and for 10 minutes we got to hear about homelessness and poverty on national television.  For clarification, this is a comedy show, and there was a real discussion about the huge increase in family homelessness and the number of children that find themselves homeless.   Now there are a few things that need clarified with regard to the interview that were just spin and not based in reality, but the bottom line it was nice to hear the discussion. 

• Everyone who watches the show knows Jon Stewart is a New York Mets' fan.  Psst, Shaun, watch the show for a couple of weeks before appearing on it so you seem hip and with it. Never ask a Mets' fan if they are New York Yankee's fan.
• We did not just figure out that housing was better than shelter even for the mentally ill.  We started closing down affordable housing back in the 1980s so what were we supposed to do?  Congregate living is cheaper than offering an apartment, medical care, food and case managers for every single person in need.  65,000 people declared themselves in need of housing when the Section 8 voucher list was opened.  We do not have the money or ability to serve that number of people, and so shelters are the best option when so many people are in need. If we had a national housing strategy, we would not need shelters in the United States. If we supported our voucher programs, our public housing and HUD housing with the the same zeal that we fund the Defense Department there would be no homelessness in America.  Unfortunately, we do not and so we have opened shelters to prevent people from dying on the streets.  The only way that it is cheaper to offer housing instead of shelter, is if the resident can contribute to the rent.  So, if you can return the person to the workforce quickly and they start paying rent then housing is cheaper than shelter.  Otherwise a bed in a shelter is way cheaper than an apartment.  
• The 20% decrease in veterans homelessness is BOGUS!!!  Just read the report that HUD published and see all the qualifiers at the beginning of the report.  They are using estimates of estimates.   They are using a one night count that is done well in some places, but barely done in other places.  It is like asking store clerks at Walmart and the local Shell stations to do a one night count to come up with the US population in the Census.  These numbers are not real for veterans.  If we cannot even figure out how many veterans are homeless how are we supposed to solve the problem by 2015?
• "We are going to raise the amount we spend on homelessness by 15%" according to Donovan.  This is only if Congress agrees to the President's budget, and that does not take into account the decrease in funding for other services that homeless people rely on.  It does not make sense to increase funding on homelessness at the same time as you decrease money for vouchers or eliminate homeless prevention spending.  If housing is no longer affordable and poverty increases, where do these people go except to the shelters?  There are massive cuts to housing and the end of the stimulus while at the same time increasing homeless funding by a small amount.  There is no comparison between the two--rental assistance is being cut by the billions while homeless funding is going up in the millions. Donovan's statement only tells a small part of the story.
• People are not chronic.  People may have a chronic disease, but homelessness is not contagious.  
• The stimulus no doubt helped millions avoid shelter, and the administration should be praised for pushing for these funds.  But what was not mentioned was that these funds are ending this summer.  With the housing system still a mess, what are we going to do going forward?  There are going to be more and more families struggling who can't keep up their payments and will turn to the shelters.  We are not going to have eviction money available to these families. 
• The settlement money discussion:  Why didn't our leading newsman in America, Jon Stewart, ask why they have not solved this foreclosure crisis in the last three years?  This voluntary program has not worked, and when is the administration going to go after these banks to write down these loans to stabilize the housing market?  $26 billion is chump change for the instability in the housing sector.  This was fraud that took place and we need a settlement of $2.6 trillion to clear out the abandoned houses in America and make a down payment on rebuilding our cities.  

There was a second part of the interview that was not broadcast, but placed on the Daily Show website.  A couple of comments from the bonus material.

• A legitimate question about the total number of homeless people was avoided by Donovan with an answer dealing with the Complete Count on one day.  As we have said before, counting on one day the number of people living without homes is like trying to count the number of Skittles falling in the rainbow while watching the commercial.  It is so flawed that it is a meaningless number.  It does not give us a window into homelessness or even give an assessment of the funds used by Congress to address homelessness.  It is a giant waste of time. 
• Yes, there are a lot of children who are becoming homeless, and why doesn't HUD consider the child sleeping on a sofa at a friends house to be homeless? They have this complicated list of questions to determine homelessness and there are millions in America who do not qualify by HUD as being homeless.  It was nice to hear that Donovan and the President are focused on the poverty figure, which is more accurate than the figure regarding homelessness.  
• Having a national discussion about the causes of solutions of poverty is always good, but why does it have to happen on a comedy show?
• "Get sober and we will find a place for you."  The Housing First strategy is great, but if you have 8,000 people using the shelters in Cleveland and you build 100 units of housing a year, how many years will it take to solve this problem at that rate? 

Thanks to the Daily Show for featuring this debate, but sometimes you need a translator to cut through some of the spin from government officials.

Brian 
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Cleveland Power Summit

Working Together to End Poverty

On Saturday March 24, 2012 at St. Ignatius High School on Lorain and West 30th St.  from 8:30 a.m  to 3 p.m. most of the communities advocacy and social justice groups will gather for the Cleveland Power Summit.  Organize Ohio is hosting this event to lay out an agenda for housing, heatlh care, environmental justice, education, children's issues, and living wage jobs.  They will hear concerns from the community and plan a strategy for change.   They will feature a free breakfast and lunch.  There are about 40 social justice groups co-sponsoring the event.  To register go to the Organize Ohio website. 

Brian
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Today's Links

Photo by Cheryl Jones

A Couple of Interesting Stories

The Huffington Post published an article today about the impact of dramatic cuts on families.  We have seen a sharp rise in family homelessness in both Columbus and Cleveland over the last four years.  The most frightening part of this story was from a young child in Detroit:

“He said, ‘Oh, I’m not eating dinner because it’s my brother’s turn tonight. Tomorrow is my night.’”

The report from the Annie E. Casey foundation found 67% of the children live in concentrated poverty in Detroit.  Michigan has made dramatic changes in cash assistance and dropped 11,000 from the roles.  Over 400,000 are unemployed in Michigan, but only 60,000 receive benefits.

CNN featured an inspirational story about Lamont Peterson and his journey from homelessness to Light Heavyweight world champion. It is nice to see media stories in which homelessness does not seem like a permanent condition.    

The AP is reporting that the City of New York cannot proceed with their diversion plan as we reported previously.   The decision concentrates on the way that the policy was introduced.  The judge did not rule on the merits of the policy at this point.  The City is characterizing the policy as one that anyone can walk in for services whether they need it or not.  The Mayor of New York needs to stay in a shelter for a week, and he would realize that it is not a place where people would volunteer to reside.  This is the final step for most people who have lost everything else. It is an insult for the City to say to a desperate individual that they must impose on their Aunt Rose's hospitality or sleep on the streets. 

Brian
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Homeless Stats Update

State of Homelessness Report

NEOCH is currently working on preparing a "State of Homelessness Report for 2011."  We ask public agencies and homeless organizations throughout the community to provide us trends, statistics and issues that impact the population.  Some of the things that we have gathered so far include:

• The largest shelter in Ohio, LMM's 2100 Lakeside Shelter, had 140,136 nights of shelter to Greater Clevelanders or the same as 8.6 home games for average attendance at the Cleveland Cavalier basketball game for this season.
• They served 233,000 meals in 2011 or the shelter served the same number of people as attend 3.5 games of the average home attendance at a Cleveland Brown's 2011 football game. 
• The average length of stay decreased by 4 days between 2010 and 2011 at the Lakeside shelter.  The current average length of stay is 36 days.
• There were more people showing up at the shelter requesting shelter in 2011 with 3,905 unique individuals, which was a 7% increase over the previous year. 
• The women's shelter is around one fourth the size of the men's entry shelter at Lakeside, but they served 1,103 people in 2011.  
• Cuyahoga County has about 21.1% of the family population living in poverty according to the 2010 Census.  
• Based on poverty figures, NEOCH estimates that there were over 22,300 people who experience homelessness using the broadest definition of homelessness in the community.  This is a large increase from 2009 figures, but that could be related to the fact that 2010 was an actual figure from the US Census while 2009 was an estimate by the Census based 2000 count. 

We will have the full report available in the next month.  This is a teaser of the information that will be available to you in the near future.

Brian
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buddy gray remembered 15 years later

buddy gray a man ahead of his time

November 15, marked the 15th anniversary of the death of buddy gray (he preferred his name not be capitalized) in Cincinnati.  He took over buildings and established the Drop Inn Shelter in the Over the Rhine neighborhood.  There was a memorial held by activists down in Cincinnati, and a nice remembrance in the Enquirer on Sunday. 

The Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Cincinnati movement has its roots in the advocacy of buddy gray from 35 years ago. He took over spaces in the Over the Rhine when the parents of most of the current Occupy protestor’s were still in high school.  Buddy was offering sanctuary and unconditional love to those forgotten by society in the 1980s.  He gave Cincinnati a heart. Buddy battled the City to bring to light the problem of homelessness and stopped elected officials from trying to sweep the problem under the bridges.  The social justice movement in Cincinnati grew up on the strong shoulders of buddy gray.

He acted with compassion to those forgotten, ignored or neglected by society.  Buddy was a friend to the addicted, the folks re-entering from jail, and those with a mental illness.  He helped build housing, maintain a shelter for those in need, and he transformed the Over the Rhine neighborhood.  His guiding principle was to fight against discrimination and poverty by any means necessary.  This meant that he embraced civil disobedience, he demanded action from community leaders, and he was not satisfied with social services managing the problems associated with poverty.   Buddy was an inspiration to case workers, other advocates, and volunteers who were infected by his charisma and passion for the issue of ending homelessness.

While buddy fundamentally changed Cincinnati, he had a profound impact on the national movement to reduce deaths attributed to homelessness.  Buddy helped to create the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio by assisting with the merger of the state housing and homeless organizations, and sitting on the board for years.  COHHIO successfully lobbied to make housing a right contained in the Ohio Constitution, and pushed for the creation of a dedicated fund to build affordable housing.   Buddy’s legacy at the state level is that, unlike many states, there is a statewide network in place to push legislators to focus some energy on working to improve the lives of those without housing. 

Buddy was also a strong guiding force in the development of the National Coalition for the Homeless NCH and the Housing Now march in DC.  As a current member of the National Coalition for the Homeless board of directors, we still talk about the days that buddy was on the board. He brought a clear loud voice to the movement, and stood his ground against the other strong advocates from around county who met to push for social change.  Ohio has had a representative on the NCH Board since the beginning of organization.  Buddy and other advocates pushed for an emergency relief act, which became the McKinney Vento Continuum of Care funds.  He stamped the organization with a strong commitment to protecting the civil rights of homeless people, and that has endured for 30 years.  The National Coalition has a national reputation for respecting, listening and amplifying the voice of those struggling with their housing, which we learned from buddy.  NCH has always had those experiencing homelessness in leadership positions and a sizable number of our board are currently or formerly homeless individuals. 

We miss buddy gray, and we know that he would have been a leader in the Occupy Wall Street movement if he were still with us.  He would have been a national voice in protecting the rights of homeless people against these new restrictions on voting sweeping the country.  I believe he would have led a freedom march down to Florida to oppose the restrictions on the distribution of food by religious organizations.  Buddy would have figured out a way to stop the various attacks on social service providers serving homeless people taking place today throughout Cincinnati.  We lost a non-violent general in the War on Poverty.   I am sure that we would be much further along in correcting the imbalances and injustices that exist in the United States if buddy’s voice had not been silenced.  

by Brian Davis

Vice President of the National Coalition for the Homeless

Community Organizer in Cleveland, Ohio.

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In Praise of Government Employees

HUD Staff Worry About a Rise in Homelessness

In the past, when government cut housing or infrastructure, there has always been an increase in funding for hunger and emergency shelter services to offset.  The thinking was that if there is a cut to human services or mainstream programs more people will need emergency services.  In 2011 and 2012, this is not happening and funding for emergency services are at level funding or facing dramatic cuts.  While poverty is rising in the suburbs, hunger in the suburbs is on the rise, the foreclosure crisis has not abated, and we still have a high unemployment rate in Northeast Ohio, the government is cutting back.  The proposed budget has some significant cuts to public housing, vouchers, FEMA emergency food and shelter, development block grant (which can be used for housing services), HOME dollars and on and on and on.  These two trends in rising need and decreasing budgets are dangerous for Cleveland.  The 2009 stimulus dollars are going to expire in the middle of 2012, and we already saw a giant increase in shelter for families this last summer. Will we begin turning away children from shelter in the summer of 2012?  Will we be able to serve the overflow populations over the next two winters?

With all this as the backdrop, I was able to visit senor staff at HUD Washington to talk about issues that have an impact on homeless people.  The big concern is the implementation of the funding and rules changes with regard to federal allocation of HUD homeless dollars known as HEARTH (formerly McKinney Vento).  In listening to the Tea Party and even some in the Occupy Movement there is a distorted picture of government and government employees.  There is a hostility and a sector of our society who believe that government workers are living high on the hog and milking our tax dollars while doing nothing.  From Cleveland it can look as though HUD employees in Washington just don't understand.  All these new rules are going to destabilize the shelters in a time of extreme need.  We see that there does not seem to be much coordination between the homeless veterans initiatives and the homeless priorities funded by HUD.  The planning activities seem to propose lofty goals in creating permanent supportive housing for disabled individuals while we are being overwhelmed with families demanding help.  But when meeting with these "government workers" face to face, it is a very different story.

They have a genuine concern for the rise in homelessness, and they care about the stress being placed on emergency shelters in all communities.  They seem to feel powerless as HUD employees to do much because of the demands of Congress and the current political environment.  Congress passed these changes four years ago in the way HUD funds the shelters and housing programs directed at homeless people, but never passed the appropriations level to implement the goals contained in the legislation.  This puts HUD staff between a rock and a hard place.  They have these new regulations, but not enough money for the planning or the increase in administrative support to implement these changes.  They are going forward in the next two weeks with new regulations on emergency solutions funding and the definition of homelessness.  These rules will go into place while still receiving public comment.  But the rules for distributing the bulk of the homeless dollars are stuck in the pipeline.

The HUD staff are troubled that there will only be $60 million for new projects to be spread out across the United States.  All the other HUD homeless dollars will go to renew existing programs.  HUD staff want to improve the outcomes so that the limited dollars go to provide the best possible service to the millions of homeless households.  When you look these people in the eyes, the bottom line is that they do not want harm to befall the population.  They understand that the decisions made in Washington can have an impact on the shelter beds in Kalamazoo, Kansas City, and Culver City.  They care that people still do freeze to death while sleeping outside in the United States in places like Milwaukee, Memphis and Manhattan.  These people have risen through the ranks of bureaucracy because they have a skill and can balance the needs of the executive and legislative branches of government.  They see the big picture and struggle with state governments that ignore the problem and local communities which try to use their homeless dollars for other politically popular programs.  They care and realize that sometimes HUD rules make it difficult to provide assistance, such as the Cleveland policy of forcing outreach workers to get a notarized statement verifying homelessness for those living outside.  They understand that we are all working on ending homelessness, and that government is not always the best partner.

Despite what you hear from protestors, most government employees care and do their job with a great deal of skill and compassion.  There are some that have to go, but the level of corruption and ineptitude is minimal.  Despite having to work in one of the ugliest buildings in Washington and having to undergo extreme security measures making it difficult to hear from the public, the HUD staff want to help and are concerned about the rise in poverty and homelessness.  If we could figure out a way to get politics out of the way, I have faith that these guys could figure out a way for America to significantly reduce homelessness.

Brian
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NY Times Story on Cleveland Suburbs

Not News But National Recognition

The New York Times today posted a story about the huge increase in suburban poverty.  This is not news for readers of this blog or those familiar with homelessness in Cleveland.  We have reported that 24% of the people utilizing the shelters in Cleveland had their last address outside of the City borders.  A large number of those with a last address outside of Cleveland are not from Cuyahoga County.  There are very few services available to those struggling with poverty in Lake, Medina, Geauga, and Portage Counties.  What does a person do if they lose their housing in these surrounding communities?  They have to figure out a way to Lorain, Summitt or Cuyahoga Counties to find help.  A single male without a job has very few options in most of the counties surrounding Cuyahoga or even the cities surrounding Cleveland.

The New York Times story focused on cities such as Warrensville Hts, Parma Hts., and Wickliffe.  The study cited shows that 55% of the nation's poor now live outside Metropolitan areas.  The story quotes our good friend, Steve Wertheim of First Call for Help about the sharp increase in suburban poverty.  NEOCH along with ESOP will be releasing a survey of the suburban communities response to homelessness and foreclosures over the next two months. The results will show that suburban communities are not prepared for the influx of people struggling.  They have a very good infrastructure for seniors and certainly seniors struggling, but very few are prepared to respond to other populations. There is still not one homeless shelter outside of the City of Cleveland, and if you need any kind of help beside food, you must make your way down to Cleveland.  It is eyeopening and disturbing the large increase in poverty over the last few years in the suburbs. I don't remember a similar story in the Plain Dealer.

Brian
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NEOCH Board Urges a No Vote on Issue 3

NEOCH Supports Universal Health Care By Any Means

The NEOCH Board voted to urge our Ohio members to oppose Issue 3 this November.  The board cited the confusing language on the ballot and the unknown repercussions it could have for other mandated government services.  The Board worried that the constitutional amendment declaring Ohioans could not be forced to obtain insurance could result in unnecessary lawsuits.  There is real concern that the amendment would make it impossible for a judge to order that a non-custodial parent to buy health insurance for their child.  Finally, there was concern over the State's ability to regulate insurance companies if this amendment is approved.

We believe that the Affordable Care Act will benefit our constituency, and should be expanded in Ohio.   At this time, very few of our constituents are eligible for Medicaid, because they are not determined to be disabled.  If we can enroll an additional 20 or 40 or even 60 percent of the homeless population in Medicaid, those resources would be freed to provide additional health care services to the population.  We may be able to provide additional mental health services or additional alcohol and drug services to the population when the law is fully implemented in 2014. 

The NEOCH Board understands that the only way to get close to universal health care in this current environment is to require individuals to maintain health insurance.  We do not believe that Issue 3 is unconstitutional and so this measure is largely symbolic.  The message with a "yes" vote is a statement that Ohio citizens do not believe that every citizen has a right to health care.  A yes vote means that crippling, life long debt should be a part of our health care system for one third of our population.  A yes vote is purely a cynical attempt to attack the President and supporters in Congress who passed the Affordable Health Care Act.

While we recognize that the American Health Care system is not perfect.  We believe that this is a small step toward universal health care in order to join the rest of the developed economies in the United States.  The symbolism of voting "NO" is that the United States needs to take a leap forward toward more health care coverage for those in the service sector, those living below poverty and without a disability, and we need expanded coverage for the Moms working two part time jobs. 

NEOCH urges a No vote on Issue 3.
Posted on Behalf of the NEOCH Board of Trustees
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Poverty and Housing Needs

Shelter Stays Up, Poverty Increases, and People are in Need of Housing

The Community Women's Shelter in Cleveland has seen record numbers in August 2011.  They are way over capacity, and are struggling to serve all the families showing up who are in need.  Cleveland is one of the last cities in the United States that does not turn people away who show up for shelter.  The social service providers work to find a place for everyone requesting help.  We are lucky to live in a city that values keeping people inside and safe.  This has caused the agency running the Community Women's shelter to have to juggle staff and thus close during the day.  The women have to go to the Bishop Cosgrove Center or a library or somewhere else.  This has been a hardship for the women, but the agency is working everyday to serve the historic number of women showing up.  The shelter is more than 60% over the capacity.

Today, the US Census bureau released the federal poverty numbers, which shows that poverty has increased to a figure we have not seen since 1993 and increased by 2.6 percentage points in the last three years.  These are the regional and national figures released today.  The state and municipal numbers will be released later this year.  The South had the sharpest rise in poverty in the United States with African Americans seeing a 1.6% increase in the number of people living below the poverty level between 2009 and 2010.  This shows the Great Recession continues to have a huge impact on our local communities.  The other figure released today was that unemployment rose for the third month in a row.  All of this contributing to the rise in homelessness in Cleveland. 

How this plays out on the local level is that evictions within the City of Cleveland are up, and a record number of people applied for a housing voucher in August.  There were 64,700 unduplicated number of individuals who entered their name into the Section 8/Housing Choice Voucher lottery from August from CMHA.  Only 10,000 names will be drawn so an applicant has a 15% chance of getting a voucher.  The person "winning the housing lottery" could wait up to five years for their number to come up.  The last lottery, in 2006, saw 40,000 unique individuals apply shows the level of need in our community. 

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State of Homelessness 2010

Homeless Stats for 2009 Based on the Poverty in a City

NEOCH is working on publishing our State of Homelessness report. Every year we update the number of people living in poverty, and then using the Census data we extrapolate the number of people who became homeless during that year. The most recent poverty information available from the US Census is from 2009.

Top 11 Counties in Ohio by population in Ohio sorted by percentage of people living in poverty

County/Major City Number living in Poverty % Living in Poverty
Lucas/Toledo .................. 80,184 ................................... ...... 17.3%
Mahoning/Youngstown........ 39,535 .................................. ..... 16.7%
Cuyahoga/Cleveland ......... 209,216 .... ................................... 16.4%
Franklin/Columbus ............. 181,719 ................................... ......15.8%
Montgomery/Dayton .......... 82,015 .........................................15.4%
Hamilton/Cincinnati ........... 121,418 ..........................................14.2%
Summit/Akron ................. 70,513 ..........................................13.0%
Butler/Hamilton ................ 46,124 ...........................................12.7%
Lorain/Lorain/Elyria.............. 38,519 ..........................................12.6%
Stark/Canton ...................... 46,674 .........................................12.3%
Lake/Painesville ................ 18,232 ...........................................7.7%

Other Counties in Northeast Ohio sorted by percentage of people living in poverty
Ashtabula/Jefferson.............. 16,223 ............................................. 16.1%
Columbiana/Lisbon ................16,374 ...............................................15.2%
Trumbull/Warren ...................29,422 ..............................................14.0%
Portage/Ravenna.................... 20,164 ..............................................12.8%
Erie /Sandusky ........................9,313 .................................................12.1%
Geauga/Chardon .....................7,231 .................................................7.3%
Medina/Medina .....................10,268 ................................................5.9%

OHIO State total ....................830,204 .............................................13.6%

These are big increases in poverty for nearly every county probably due to the financial downturn of 2008. Stay tuned for the full report, which will be out in the next few weeks.
Brian

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People Who Make Things Work 2

Earl Pike Photo by AIDS Task Force Staff Kathie McClure

Earl Pike of the AIDS Task Force

By now you have heard that Earl Pike is no longer the director of the AIDS Task Force. I received his Facebook posting explaining his decision to move on, and he said that had been thinking about a move for sometime. This may be true, but it seems to me that if this was a planned move by the agency the statement would be more like, "At the end of this month, Earl Pike will be leaving the AIDS Task Force, and Tracy Jones will take the position of interim executive director," or something like that. But it does not matter, those are the often strange inner-workings of non-profit organizations that we will probably never hear the real story.

This series of posts reflects on people in Ohio who make government work. These are the people who are doing jobs that government should be doing or individuals who make local or state government work properly. As Director of the AIDS Task Force, Earl Pike worked to serve those with HIV/AIDS for the last 25 years, basically, since the beginning of the crisis. He is one of the deep thinkers in our community, and we all felt confident that with Pike in charge we had a chance of solving the problem. Coming up with solutions to providing the best services to people with AIDS is not the same talent as fund raising, human resources, and completing government grants in order to run a non-profit organization. Implementing a solution to a crisis is also not the same as media relations, interaction with politicians, and schmoozing with donors as required when leading a non-profit organization. But Earl Pike is always thinking about the population that he served, and how to improve their quality of life.

There are tons of people who say that government should be cut, and that once government gets involved everything will cost more and all we typically get is WFA (waste, fraud, and abuse). When I heard that Earl Pike had left the AIDS Task Force, I thought about how much has changed with regard to people suffering with AIDS during the time he dedicated to this issue. It is a testament to the power our government has to impact people's lives. In 1985, Ronald Reagan starts his second term in office, blood begins being tested for those donating blood to prevent the spread of AIDS, Back to the Future is the king of the box office, and New Coke is introduced. People that receive word that they have HIV consider it a death sentence, and agencies are constructed to act as hospice care centers to the dying. Government put a disproportionate amount of money into the problem compared to other killer diseases of heart disease, cancer, or respiratory diseases. We the people poured money into this new disease and improved the quality of life for millions throughout the world. What is the price of 20 to 30 extra years of life for millions? I have to think that it was worth it, and I am proud that I paid my taxes. This was a disease like none other seen by modern man that was spread by the exchange of bodily fluids. We put lots of money toward this problem and our best minds with tremendous results. Next time someone criticizes the wasteful government spending just ask them about HIV/AIDS.

I worked with Pike on various health care related boards and some homeless assistance projects, and look forward to some other bigger projects in the future. The last time we collaborated was when a truck ran over a homeless man in front of the AIDS Task Force building. Earl offered his space for a memorial for the man since the family was not big on going into a church. It was a nice way to remember Symeon Hurt who was trying to get his life together.

So, Earl Pike is moving on to a new problem or a broader look at the issue of sexual health and disparity issues. We can only hope that he will have as much success in his new endeavors as he had with the AIDS problem. Please do not think that I am saying that the AIDS crisis is done or over or that we can rest on the success that advocates such as Earl Pike have fought to achieve. All I am saying that if America sets it mind to something (getting to the moon, keeping HIV positive people alive, and keeping the elderly from living in extreme poverty when they retire) we do a pretty good job. We need more people like Earl Pike to put their talents and life to working to solve problems and we could finally solve homelessness, obesity, mental illness that disrupts a person's life, and eventually poverty.

Brian
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Drew Carey Entertains City Council

Next Week Carrot Top Unveils a Device that Will Revolutionize Cleveland...

I like Drew Carey, I really do, but to give him a couple of hours before City Council is an insult. It makes us look like we live in a Cow Town. I have a long history with stand up comedy, and Drew Carey was one of the best. I mean, his routine about Cleveland's unofficial motto being "At least it's not Snowing" is hilarious. He also has did a great routine about driving a Yugo among many others. He is no doubt a great comedian, but he is a lousy community leader. In a time in which 29 miners died in West Virginia, 11 oil workers died in the Gulf, and banks destroyed neighborhoods in Cleveland and around the country, how does a person who believes in less government have any credibility?

I watched all the Nick Gillespie/Reason Magazine videos, which contained only a dash of Drew Carey, and felt cheated. Advertising these as Drew Carey videos is like calling Ken Burn's Civil War series the Studs Terkel videos. He was a minor part of the presentation, and these videos had very little value in forwarding civic discussion. I just don't understand how anyone watched them and said, "We need to get this guy to testify before City Council."

They kept bringing up the state of Cleveland sports, and somehow making the connection with the decline of Cleveland. The Browns were perennial contenders in the 1980s, the Indians in the late 1990s, and now the Cavs are regular participants in the playoffs. If this was a valid point all of our teams would be cellar dwellers since the river caught fire. Complaining about high taxes, privatizing schools, and restrictive land use policies are not a solution for anything. They are conservative talking points that have not worked in practice. Our own state has flirted with charter schools and that has resulted in high failure rates among these schools, and for profits making money off of providing education to the next generation. We have had nearly two decades of cutting taxes, and where has that gotten us--two unpaid wars, trillions in debt, and many angry people who are not willing to pay their fair share for living in a democracy. The first combination strip club/pawn shop/payday lender that goes into Gates Mills, Bratenahl, or Avon Lake would be the end of less restrictive land use policies.

I really wanted to hear some good ideas for how to turn around population decline, job losses, and a collapse in the housing market, but was disappointed. There were two good points made during the videos: We wasted millions on playgrounds for the rich with the two stadiums and the arena, and that we need to figure out a way to reduce red tape within government. That being said it is a giant leap to say end the MedMart deal, sell the West Side Market and allow a Walmart to go up where ever they want. We are all-in on the MedMart deal. No matter what we think, we have invested far too much public money to stop this train now. A year after we sell the West Side Market, it will close. It will go the way of every other farmer's market and a Walmart will open in its place. I loved how Gillespie mentioned transparency when talking about how a corporation could run the West Side Market better. I have never thought of WalMart, BP, Exxon, Halliburton, Blackwater, or AIG as especially transparent in their business dealings. This was the most laughable part of the videos. Government can at least be forced to be transparent, but corporations guard their privacy above all else.

I think Michael Symon could offer more help to Cleveland as a local business man than Drew Carey. Libertarian views are great for the classroom discussion at CWRU, but they are impractical and silly in practice. The private sector cannot solve homelessness, poverty, massive job losses, and population declines that currently face the City of Cleveland.

Brian
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InterAgency Council Seeks Comments

Only One Week Left to Comment on Federal Plan

Picture by Cheryl Jones of the Grapevine Photo project 2007.

There is only one week left to make suggestions for the InterAgency Council on Homelessness Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. The Plan was mandated by Congress by May 2010, and very little was done during the Bush Administration. So, now there is a push to get public comment on a plan by March 15, 2010. Here is the link to go to in order to comment in six different program areas. So, all you experts out there it is time to comment. All those who keep saying that there is a better way, you need to add your voice to the national debate. The InterAgency Council has held a series of town halls throughout the country, and they have gathered information from their website. You have one week to submit your thoughts and your ideas and your crazy plans. They will take all this information and run it by the various cabinet offices and come up with a roadmap for the various departments to use. It is hoped that Commerce, Labor, Justice, HHS, HUD and Education will use the information to shape future funding and future program design.

It can't hurt, and at least they are asking. We the people should get to shape the future of our struggle to end homelessness in America. NEOCH will be submitting comments and most of the national groups have submitted. We encourage you to do the same.

Brian
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Met Dick Gregory Last Night

Photo from Smithsonian.com magazine

Civil Rights Icon Starting a Fast for Haiti

I was just sitting in the lobby of a Washington DC hotel enjoying an adult beverage and the football games when I look over and at the next table is Civil Rights icon Dick Gregory. I was in DC for the National Coalition for the Homeless Board meeting. I am not a star struck/autograph type of person , but this was Dick Gregory. I played his comedy routines on a radio show in college and used many of his anti-war speeches in my activism. He spoke frequently in the 1980s and 1990s about the problems facing the African American community in America.

This is the guy who did the heavy lifting so that kids today can wear their pants on the ground or choose a college based on the amount of zeros in their bank account and not the color of their skin. He was in DC because he was starting a fast on Monday for raising awareness about Haiti. I would have never recognized him, but I watched the Mark Twain Prize for Bill Cosby and he was a presenter. He is 77 years old and doing a fast to push Americans to continue to help this country as the shock of the initial tragedy wears off. Gregory is doing 7 days without food or liquids and then 23 days with only liquids. This is not his first hunger strike. He is amazing.

He talked to the three NCH Board members about the history of the Haiti and his theories about poverty in America. He says that he uses the sale of Alpo, Spam and Hamburger Helper as a gauge for the food security of a neighborhood. When the sales of these low priced "food" items increase in a neighborhood that means that people are having a hard time, according to Gregory. He said that in some extremely poor communities, people resort to eating dog food, and to avoid the embarrassment they remove the labels. Gregory claimed that the marketers at Alpo have realized that some people buy this food to eat, and so they removed the picture of the dog from the cans. The one good side of this, according to Gregory, was that dog food has more regulations on it than most human food.

Dick Gregory integrated comedy clubs and marched against the racist wars of the United States. He ran for president in 1968 and fought against corporate control, racism, and pay inequality for women. He looks like he has weathered many struggles in his life, but still looks good for 77 years. Gregory was sitting with an advisor and his doctor planning this fast for Haiti on Sunday night. All I said was thanks for all that you have done for the United States and good luck in raising awareness about Haiti.

Brian
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Cleveland Media Forgot About Homelessness in 2010

Top 10 Homeless Stories Missed by the Cleveland Media in 2009

There were so many stories in the homeless community from 2009, and below are the top 1o that were missed by the local media. I was thinking back to 20 years ago and how many options there were to get stories into the media. Every radio station had at least one reporter and there were magazines that featured news, and we had weekly newspapers from all over the community. Now there are blogs but very few feature general news stories that are not opinion driven.

Here are the stories that were missed in 2009:
1. Despicable Process for Distributing Stimulus Dollars. President Obama helped get $1.5 billion out to the states and communities for preventing homelessness. Cuyahoga County received $14 million. There was one story in the Plain Dealer that focused entirely on a NEOCH vs. the County dispute over these funds. The story was much bigger and was the prime example for why voters distrust County government. The City let down their constituency by just giving their $10 million from the Stimulus over to the troubled Cuyahoga County. A good plan was developed by homeless people, service providers and advocates which was set aside by the County and for some inexplicable reason a different plan was funded. So far in the first 2 months only 10 people were given housing help. So much for stimulating the local economy.

2. Homeless Memorial Day 2009. We read the names of 45 people who passed away over on the first state designated homeless memorial day. This was the 23rd time we have presented the homeless memorial day, and the first time no media showed up to cover the event (except the Grapevine).

3. Homeless Stand Down 2009. Again, an important event with over 2,000 homeless people in attendance. This year no media showed up to cover this huge social service fair. We had entertainment, 60 health care/social service groups, and hundreds of volunteers. No television, no radio news reporters, and no special interest coverage.

4. Huntington Bank Help with North Point Transitional. Introduced in late 2008 and early 2009 was a new effort to get homeless people to start using the banking system. There are so many poor people excluded from the banking system, which manifests itself in the proliferation of payday lenders. Huntington Bank has stepped forward to help guys who are trying to rebuild their lives with support in getting a bank account. A good program that has received no publicity.

5. County Publishes Blueprint for Change. As part of the stimulus dollars and the new focus on prevention efforts, the County Office of Homeless Services published a new strategy for how to end homelessness on July 1, 2009. This document got ZERO coverage in the media, and is a fairly radical departure from what was done in the past. The document had zero input from homeless people and very little input from homeless shelter providers. It was also unfortunate that it came out one and half months after all the groups submitted proposals for how to use the prevention dollars. Maybe it is better that this got no coverage, so that it will be easier for this document to quietly fade away.

6. Shelters Overflowing even in the summer. The New York Times, Washington Post and other papers did stories about the overflowing shelters in their cities due to budget cuts and the instability in the housing sector. There was a brief mention on WCPN, but for the most part the story did not get any coverage in Cleveland.

7. Many work while living in the shelters. This is on the list every year, but it is a good story that never gets enough attention. The mythology is that most people living in a shelter or on the streets are lazy. No one ever does a story about how these guys get up at 4 a.m. to try to get sent out to work at the Temp. company. No media tries to dispel some of these horrible myths about homelessness in America.

8. Failures of the Alcohol and Drug System and its impact on the Imperial Ave. murders. It was said over and over that most of the women killed on Imperial Ave. were substance abusers, but I never saw one story breaking this down. What happened to the alcohol and drug addiction system and the safety net that we pay for as tax payers? Where was the breakdown? Did these women try to get help? Why do we base most of our treatment on outpatient assistance? Why does the alcohol and drug system not follow people long term and why don't they help with housing? How does this system work or how does this system fail poor people? There was such a wealth of stories about the failures of government to protects its citizens from this predator that just never got any coverage.

9. Tough Decisions Made By the Shelters in this Bad Economy. There were a number of stories this past year about the problems of suburban hunger and the growing issues with pantries. I never saw similar stories about the struggles within the shelter community. Cleveland has seen a loss of six shelters in the last six years, and none of the shelters have seen a cost of living increase from government. They should all be given metals for the ability to keep costs under control in the face of flat funding from the government. Despite the rumors, no shelters gets paid based on the number of people entering the building. All the shelters get a set yearly budget and have to figure out how to make that work.

10. The Ability of Social Service Providers to keep the Outdoor Homeless Numbers Down. Over the last three years, despite increases in the number of people sleeping in shelters, the numbers sleeping outside in the downtown area have remained steady. This is a testament to the social service outreach units that go outside every night to build relationships with those who are resistant to shelter. The Volunteers of America, Care Alliance, Veterans Administration, Mental Health Services, Salvation Army, and John Carroll's Labre Project all provide a valuable resource to Cleveland. The media did not do any stories about these wonderful people who earn the trust of those disenfranchised from government and "the system" and in fact save many lives.

Brian

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The Death of Cleveland Transit Authority?

2010 Proposed Cuts Will Result in Death of RTA

When I read the Plain Dealer story on the proposed cuts to the Regional Transit Authority, I had the same reaction as Rob Pitingolo who posted on Brewed Fresh Daily. If these go forward, this will be the death of the Transit Authority. It is already difficult to get around using RTA and the bus pass cost is out of control. It is the single biggest complaint of homeless people that there is no way to get to work or doctor appointments while living in a shelter, because of the expense of riding RTA. We already endured huge increases in the fares and the elimination of the Circulators as well as a reductions last year. The announced 2010 cuts are extreme and in my opinion the agency will not recover from these cuts. I think that they have cut the transit program to the bone and any additional cuts will make it impossible for people to rely on the transit authority to get to work. We will view the RTA as a way to get to the airport or a special event, but not a reliable partner to get to work everyday. I can't take a bus to a rapid stop and then transfer to the rapid and then take the healthline to work. It will double the bus ride to work, and I am not willing to give an extra hour and a half a day for work. This is a horrible decision. If they want to save RTA, they need to keep or reduce the daily fare, keep the routes the same, and FIND A DIFFERENT REVENUE SOURCE!!! They need to demand additional state dollars or additional hotel/ motel tax or a new hospitality tax on restaurants to maintain existing service. Please don't kill the RTA.

Brian
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New Homeless Czar for Federal Government

Ohioan Named Director of InterAgency Council on Homelessness

The office of InterAgency Council on Homelessness within the federal government has not produced much except some press releases and newsletters about how great the US government has done in solving homelessness. This in the face of ever increases in homelessness in the United States. The world's last superpower that can put a man on the moon, build a movable staircase and a way to turn the desert Southwest into a giant suburb with the invention of air conditioning but we cannot find housing for everyone living in America. Very few in the public have heard of this office, and any drive in the downtown of any city in America would lead to the conclusion that this office has failed miserably. It is supposed to get all the cabinet members together to work across bureaucracies to reduce homelessness. All the usual department heads are represented (HUD, HHS, VA, and Education), but also at the table is the head of social security, the department of labor, homeland security, transpiration, and energy. All these powerful people or their representatives at the table and all we have to show for it is a good newsletter?

Barbara Poppe from Columbus and the Community Shelter Board was just appointed Executive Director. I have a long relationship with Columbus as most of my family live in the capital city. I have known Barbara for years as the wife of the State Housing and Homeless director, Bill Faith, and as a competent leader of the Community Shelter Board. She kept down controversies in Columbus, and had an iron hand on the homeless social services that operate in Central Ohio. Poppe was the person politicians and the media turned to when they had problems with homeless people, and in exchange she controlled all the resources. She put in a plan to reduce homelessness among men, but never got around to address the issue of people with a sexually based offense who cannot find housing. She did a good job of putting Columbus on the map with regard to fighting to reduce homelessness, and she traveled the country teaching others. Poppe was the first in Ohio to recognize the need for supportive housing for long term single homeless people, and had to admit last year that family homelessness saw a steep rise in Columbus. Poppe had the confidence of the leadership of Columbus, but rarely interacted with people experiencing homelessness.

I have some experience with national homeless policies and with Ms. Poppe. I am in the perfect position to give Ms. Poppe some advice in her new role as the Director of the InterAgency Council on Homelessness. I met with her predecessor on four different occasions and walked out on two meetings with Mr. Mangano. I know what the spin that the Interagency Council has delivered over the last few years and the fact that there was just publicity coming out of the Interagency Council.

Dear Barb:
Congratulations on your appointment to the Interagency Council. We are honored that the administration recognized someone from Ohio as having made progress on homelessness. Since I have known you for years, I feel that I can pass along a few suggestions for your new job. Take them or leave them. As a 15 year observer on national policy I do have some expertise on the inter-workings of government. I met with Phil Mangano a number of times until I got tired of his same old song and dance routine. By 2006, we began arguing for a change in leadership at the IAC, and local activists pledged that they would protest any gathering that featured Mr. Mangano in Cleveland. Our objections were that he was not critical of all the cuts that hurt homeless people in housing subsidies and never said anything about the horrible federal response to Katrina. We felt that as the Homeless Czar he needed to raise concerns over federal policies that harmed those without housing.

My suggestions for the new office are:

1. Don't follow your predecessor's example. Don't fly around the country championing how great the federal government is doing when our problems are mounting in each of our communities. You do not have to the public relations arm of the administration.
   
2. We need you in DC pushing for change. We need help from the administration and the cabinet to make it easier for homeless people to find stability. We need each of these departments on the council to put forward objectives to reduce homelessness. An example is reducing the time it takes to approve disability assistance or increase enforcement of the exploitation of low income workers especially by temporary labor companies.
   
3. Please don't pit one population against another. Veterans vs. families or disabled vs. long term homeless or single adults vs. young people was the hallmark of the previous administration. It is going to take a much larger pie to solve these problems, and not just slicing the existing pie into smaller and smaller pieces for all these worthy sub-populations.
4. Please don't tell us to go use the mainstream programs. That is like telling us to go find the gold at the end of the rainbow. We all know that the mainstream programs (public housing, cash assistance, disability, etc.) are not accessible or have years long wait for help. It is an insult to keep bringing this up when there is nothing there, and we have all tried to find help with mainstream programs.
5. We need the other departments to start thinking of ways to serve homeless people. Why can't the Department of Health and Human Services take more of a role in solving homelessness? HUD is the leading funder of the shelters and services, but why can't some of the other departments help support the shelters? Why can't HHS set up a pool of funds to provide supportive services such as health care, voice mail, transportation, and mental health services at the shelters? Or why can't the Department of Labor provide employment training at the shelters?
6. We need real outcomes that lead to real reductions in homelessness. You did a very good job in Columbus requiring the shelters to prove their worth. We need something similar at the national level for all federal funding.
7. Don't forget about Civil Rights. Employment, housing, and health care are all important to ending homelessness, but civil rights issues are just as important. You never really addressed this in Columbus, but there were not huge threats in Columbus. In some cities this is the single biggest problem facing homeless people. If a person is regularly arrested because they cannot fit into the shelter, it will take them years to get off the streets. We all pay a huge bill for their incarceration, medical bills, and mental health services because we cannot help these troubled individuals off the streets. It is hypocritical for American cities to take money for shelters then turn around and make it illegal to be homeless or sleep outside or beg for money. This is an issue, Barb, that we need you to address.
8. We need you to ease the regulatory burden on the shelters and services. Please help us cut through the red tape in order to do good. Push for unified reporting forms for both public and private sector funding. We need you to help with oppressive regulatory guidelines and impossibles obstacles put in place to help people.
9. With the political will we can end homelessness. Not in five years or ten years or if something else happens, but we can end homelessness today if we wanted to. There is enough housing in this country. There are enough resources, but we are just not using those resources to put people into housing. We need you to convince Congress and the White House to fix health care, improve access to jobs and make housing a human right.
   

Brian Davis

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Ohio Serial Killer

Photo by Cheryl Harris of the NEOCH Photo Project

Are We Casting Aside Some Women in Our Cities?

As you most likely have read, Cleveland had a serial killer living in the Mt Pleasant neighborhood. I know the victims, and I see them almost everyday. At this point, only one woman has in fact been identified, but we know that they were all African American women. But I can close my eyes and see these women in our shelters in Cleveland. They sometimes have an addiction or a mental health problem or chronic health condition and they always have unstable housing. They "hook up" for short periods of time with men to have a place to stay. They self medicate and struggle to find ways to feed their addiction or find help for their health issues. They see five years of waiting for housing, and so they try to find someone who help. They have a tenuous job and no career. These women have strained relationships with family or no family in the area, and they are looking for a lifeline. The short cut is to stay with a man and put up with physical or mental abuse or exchange sex for a warm bed or tolerate countless other forms of mistreatment. This is a sometimes a matter of survival, but it is also dangerous for these women.

Did authorities do enough when these transient women go missing? I am not blaming the police, because they have most likely been burnt thousands of times looking for women who were not in fact missing. They have probably wasted thousands of police hours chasing people who do not want to be found because they are fleeing the bill collector or they are just having a hard time finding a place to live. But these grieving families over on Imperial Avenue are angry and confused. They know that if there were two white women missing from the same neighborhood in Westlake there would be a task force and the FBI, National Guard and John Walsh would be here kicking in doors in that neighborhood. We all know that the media would be camping at Police headquarters every night if 10 or 11 white women were missing from Mayfield Hts. The serial killer knew this also and was able to stay under the radar for the last few years by preying on transient African American women. Are their segments of our community that are just forgotten?

Brian
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Good Will Gone Wild

Local University Students Sleeps Outside

I have never been a big fan of these fund raisers, but apparently Habitat for Humanity supports the concept locally. CWRU students slept outside earlier this month, and had a great night. One of our old interns wrote a letter to the editor complaining about the mixed up message and inappropriate stereotypes. Mike is correct that it is difficult to match the goals of raising dollars with awareness campaigns. There is some debate at the national level about these pizza and box nights. It is not fun to be homeless and it is nearly impossible to realize the problems faced by homeless people in one night.

The issues associated with being homeless is that there collapse of all stability without an end in sight. There is no place that is safe that people can use as a headquarters. There no place to put your stuff as George Carlin loved to talk about. There is no privacy and the future is always cloudy when you lose your housing. It may be fun for one night or even a couple of weeks, but that sense of freedom wears off real fast. Eventually, we need a regular safe place to return to. We all need a dresser to hold important documents and clean clothing. We want to stay up late if we feel like it, and we want a private quiet place to just think.

I know in Columbus and Athens do a homeless experience project to try to get across to students the frustration of being homeless, but they are not usually fundraising opportunities for the agencies. Back in the 1980s, the students built a shanty on the quad at CWRU. This was my first experience with the problem of homelessness, and got me interested in working on these issues. It was not a fund raiser, but an attempt to get the students involved in the problem. This was similar to the anti-war and anti-apartheid movements of the 1970s and 1980s. The organizers brought in speakers both local and national and confronted the university administration over their lack of involvement in addressing poverty. The students were arrested, but it generated a great deal of media and student attention. The group that formed met throughout the rest of the year and did a few other events to try to push the university to become more involved in taking a leadership role in addressing the poverty all around the school.

Brian
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