National Housing Trust Fund

Please Call Congress National Housing Trust to Get Money Pass This Message on to Others. Let’s Get NHTF Money Before Congress Adjourns for Holidays. Please call your representative and both of your senators on December 1 or 2. Please ask your networks to do the same. Tell them you want at least $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund before Congress adjourns later in December. Urge them to support any bill moving through the House or Senate that contains money for the NHTF. Let them know that providing money for the NHTF will create needed jobs. Every $1 billion investment in the NHTF, at $100,000 per unit of housing, will create 15,100 construction jobs and 3,800 jobs in ongoing operations. Also, the NHTF will support local economies as low income families can afford to spend more money on goods and services when they are not spending half or more of their income on housing. Our goal is to create an early-December blizzard of phone calls from all over the country in a compressed period of time to demonstrate strong and urgent support for an initial infusion of money for the NHTF. Please pass this message on to your networks. 877-210-5351 is the toll free number for the congressional switchboard. Ask to be connected to the housing staffer for your representative's and senators' offices. Questions? Contact NEOCH at 216/432-0540 or see the National Low Income Housing Coalition website at www.nlihc.org

The day of Action was Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. We missed posting it, because of other deadlines. You can still call your Congressman especially Senators Brown and Voinovich to urge them to support the creation and preservation of affordable housing.

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

What Can I Do?

Photo by Pleasure Simmons--Photography Graduate from 2008. For ordering prints please contact the Coalition at 216/432-0540.

A Few Opportunities for Lobbying to End Homelessness

1. Cleveland Hearing on People's Budget Priorities
Epiphany Catholic Church at 11901 Oakfield Ave. will host a forum on Federal Budget priorities on Thursday night at 6 p.m.. Community groups and individuals can give testimony of up to three minutes. Testimony will be collected and given to Congressional and Senators from Ohio. This is sponsored by the Peoples Budget Priorities c/o Peace in the Hood. For more information call 216/283-4400 ext. 2266.

2. Lobby Day with COHHIO on Wednesday April 22 or Thursday April 23 with ABLE
The Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio will host a their lobby day on April 22 in Columbus. The focus this year will be the two foreclosure bills pending in the Ohio House at this time. Cathy Johnson at COHHIO is the contact and she can be reached at 614/280-1984. If you cannot make it down to Columbus, but are talking to your local representative make sure you mention how much you support HR 9 because it protects tenants from facing surprise homelessness when their landlord is foreclosed on. This is a critical bill to begin to end this foreclosure crisis.

Thursday April 23, 2009 the Advocates for Budget Legislation Equality (ABLE) will be going down to Columbus to assist legislators understand the importance of state funding for health care, child care, elder care, housing and food programs. They wll be leaving from Merrick House early in the morning and traveling down to Columbus as a group. The ABLE group wants to call attention to some of the rough decisions that are going to have to be made with the upcoming budget, and try to put a face on these decisions. For information call Larry or Tim at 216/651-2606 for more information.

3. Support the Development of a Local Housing Trust Fund
After a couple of years of work, the County Housing Trust Fund Implementation Task Force will report on their work to the County Commissioners on Thursday April 30, 2009 at sometime between 11:30 to Noon. If you have time, please show your support for a fund that would be dedicated to preserving or building affordable housing locally. There is a fund for the arts, for stadiums, and for conventions, but not for housing. We need the Commissioners to accept this report, and then work with the state of Ohio to get authority to put a fund in place. We could use some people in the seats to show support for the creation of a Housing Trust Fund April 30, 2009 at the Cuyahoga County Commissioners meeting on the fourth floor of the County Administration buildin--1219 Ontario Ave. We hope that you can make it or when talking to County Commissioners let them know that you support this housing trust fund.

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

Bill Moyers Journal Available

Cleveland Foreclosure Story Captured in 18 Minutes

On July 18, the Bill Moyer's Journal featured Cleveland including interviews with the Mayor, Councilman Brancatelli, Mike Piepsny, a group of homeless families, Jim Rokakis, and me. It is available to watch here and the transcript is available here. I liked how they focused on greed, and the lack of oversight by anyone within government. I liked how they started with the President's push for homeownership, and how that did not really pan out very well. I liked that they included the clip from State Legislator Jon Husted who argued in 2002 against any legislation to protect consumers against predatory and deceptive mortgage practices. Filed under famous last words from Rep. Husted, "I don't think that there is anyone in this body today that can tell me how we should regulate, manage or micromanage how people get loans in this state."

The best quote has to be foreclosure champion Jim Rokakis, "Back in the old days when there was no sheriff in town, people would rob the banks. Well, here we are in modern day era. And there's no sheriff in town. The banks were robbing the people." Check out the show it is a great look at the crisis with good discussion afterward about with The Nation commentator, William Greider.

On a related note with some good news...The County Housing Trust Fund implementation committee meets this week for the first time. Just in time to help us rebuild and preserve existing affordable housing. I believe that Phil Star is organizing this committee, and will recommend the scope, size and the revenue source for a County Trust Fund to the County Commissioners. We need to catch up with Franklin and Montgomery Counties in Ohio, and find some money for housing locally.

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

Community Meeting: Housing Trust Fund

Mary Brooks Comes to Cleveland to Talk About Developing a Housing Trust Fund

On May 8, 2008 at 3 p.m. a the NEOCH/CTO conference room, we will have invited guest Mary Brooks from the Center for Community Change in Washington DC. She is an expert on the development and use of Housing Trust Funds, and has assisted communities like Franklin County and the State of Ohio with the development of a dedicated revenue source to build affordable housing. We are having a meeting earlier in the day with the County Commissioners. This meeting will set a time line and assign tasks to bring on additional allies. All are welcome to attend this critical meeting to work toward a $10 million resource to build additional housing in the community.

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

County Trust Fund

The Case for More Affordable Housing

NEOCH and the Cleveland Tenants Organization held its first meeting on the road to implementation of a County Trust Fund. We need a place to deposit funds to be reserved for the construction or preservation of housing. We have all heard of (and may have even voted) for trust fund kids. While trust fund kids have a derogatory connotation, a County Trust fund would go along way to moving people into housing. We have a team of young leaders working from Cleveland Bridge Builders on a plan for the development of a fund. The plan is to figure out the best revenue source for a housing trust fund. These funds would be locked away and reserved exclusively to build or renovate housing. They also have a goal of developing a strategy for building consensus around a campaign to create this fund.

What could this fund do for Cuyahoga County? The hope is to generate $6-$10 million per year for the development of housing. This fund could be used to:

• Repair elevators in senior buildings to keep these buildings from having to close.
• Provide $200 a month to a low income family trying to stay in their housing.
• Renovate housing for family with young children to remove the lead paint.
• Provide the 20% local match for HUD homeless/housing funds for the construction of new supportive housing project.
• Provide a piece of the funding for a place for men to pay a weekly rent while they get back on their feet in order to avoid having to go to shelter.
• Set up a sweat equity program for single men with skills to renovate abandoned housing that are eventually turned over to those men who helped to bring the housing back.
  
• Or the hundreds of other programs that would contribute to a reduction in homelessness.

This is a needed resource since both the Federal and State government have dropped the ball on the creation of affordable housing. But a new tax or an increase in taxes is always tough for the public to accept. If we can approve a sin tax for the arts then we should be able to figure out a way to pay for such life sustaining activity as housing.

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