Hate Crime Against Homeless in Cleveland

System Failed One Homeless Man

Last Saturday, a homeless guy was sitting near the freeway overpass on Superior Ave. on a milk crate. He was not bothering anyone, just enjoying the first nice weekend of the year in Cleveland. He was attacked by a group of young people who beat him for five minutes with a board with nails in it. He stumbled over to the Lakeside Shelter, and collapsed.

The worst part is how this homeless guy was mistreated by the system. The Police refused to take a report because the guy did not know his attackers. MetroHealth treated his broken wrist, but not the leg wounds from the nails. He was discharged almost immediately despite his open wounds. Those wounds are now infected and he needs almost round-the-clock care. Beaten by a group of disturbed individuals, then violated by the police and finally kicked to the curb by the hospital. A day in the life.

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

Is it Charitable to Make People Suffer?

Change of Fortune… FOR THE WORSE!

For those of you unaware of the situation, we here at NEOCH have run afoul of a “charitable” organization known as Change of Fortune Foundation. This foundation is a program of Skyline Financial Group based in sunny LA, an investment and MORTGAGE COMPANY. The beginnings are outlined in this Free Times article from June 29, 2007 (scroll down to “Help From Above”):

If you don’t feel like reading it, the short version is these big wigs from California showed up in little old Cleveland to buy up homes and give them to homeless families rent-free so they can get back up on their feet. They had bought four houses for four families and planned to have 10 families moved in by the end of 2007. In addition, the families would receive free investment, financial, and job training.

However, that article was written in June 29, 2007, and could therefore only report on what the Change of Fortune Foundation said they were going to do. What they actually did, after they were out of sight of the cameras and reporters, was give keys to only three families. Here’s how this worked out:

• The first family, LaTosha Hanna’s family, was given keys to a home with a broken furnace, missing windows, and broken locks.
• The second family was given keys to an unlivable house with a broken furnace, busted water pipes, and missing windows. This family NEVER MOVED IN to the house due to the problems and wound up finding housing on their own.
• The third family we don’t know much about, but we do know this:
• the third family to receive keys was not the homeless family that was selected by the mayor’s office to live there, and
• the third family is PAYING RENT.

Luckily, the Free Times revisited the situation recently and published a new article about the goings-on. Please check it out here (scroll down to “No Good Deed”):

Anyways, now that you’re caught up, I wanted to offer some response to Skyline’s remarks in the article as well as some personal insight into the Big Wigs of foundation who are acting more like the Three Stooges.

The rent-free window is supposed to pad savings, [Ken Miller of Change of Fortune] says, allowing tenants to build the financial wherewithal to fix credit problems [Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

That’s funny, didn’t you say you were going to provide help in fixing credit and financial problems originally?

[Change of Fortune CEO Gene Parker] also is commited [sic] to helping [the families] get back into the game of life with; job training, credit repair, investing. [Change of Fortune Press Release, June 18, 2007]

Whoops. It looks like you did make that promise, albeit in a grammatically incorrect way. In Change of Fortune’s defense, they aren’t very savvy in the ways of the normal world.

So, why aren’t they doing anything? Well, they respond to that with:

Change of Fortune had hoped that minor problems with the houses would be covered by the new tenants. [Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

I was taken aback by this, because when I asked them why they were not making repairs, they informed me that I was a clown. They seem to have taken a different strategy in responding to that question when speaking with a member of the press, which, in retrospect, is probably a wise decision.

However, we’ve been asking Change of Fortune for months about making these repairs, and not once did they say, “We were hoping LaTosha would take care of it.” Instead, they usually told us, “We’ll get on it… let me get back to you… we’re sending someone out right now to take care of it.” Not that expecting a struggling homeless single mother with a sick child to make repairs that they should’ve made before they gave it to her is admirable, but at least letting us know that they expected Ms. Hanna to make the repairs instead of giving her false hope that "Change of Fortune" staff were about to make those repairs any moment now would’ve probably been a better strategy.

"Some people, they want a big screen and not just a TV," Miller says. [Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

LaTosha never asked for any TV, let alone a big screen TV.

“They want a mansion and not just a house.” [Ken Miller, Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

LaTosha never asked for a mansion, just someone to keep his word.

“We've bent over backwards to make sure LaTosha had a home.” [Ken Miller, Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

Here is their definition of bending over backwards:

• October 28 – November 10
• Ken Miller received a phone call almost every day letting him know LaTosha Hanna’s furnace was not working and that the water company is going to shut off Ms. Hanna’s water because of a past due bill from before she moved in. He did not return these calls.
• November 16
• Change of Fortune pays some of the past due water bill, but not all.
• Ken Miller is informed that LaTosha found someone on her own to fix the furnace.
• November 17
• Change of Fortune arrives at LaTosha’s home in order to see what needed to be fixed. Nothing is fixed, but they do make the following promises:
• the windows will be fixed,
• the locks will be fixed,
• a screen door will be installed
• a motion light for the backyard will be installed.
• November 18 – January 20
• Nothing is done.
• January 21
• LaTosha’s lawyer sends a letter to Change of Fortune demanding the repairs to be made in 30 days.
• January 22 – February 19
• Nothing is done.
• February 20
• Change of Fortune shows up at LaTosha’s house and tell her they will find someone to make the repairs.
• February 21 –
• Nothing is done.

Perhaps I’m a little “old school”, but where I come from, “bending over backwards” for somebody implies that you actually do something. Saying you’re going to do something does not actually get that thing done. You don’t just make declarations, there’s a whole process involved after you declare what you’re going to do, and it usually involves doing what you declare. Really, you can do almost anything, just as long as what you’re doing isn’t nothing. If you’re doing nothing, you’re doing it wrong.

“Very seldom do I get a call and it's like, ‘Hey, thanks, I'm going to school now.'” [Ken Miller, Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

You didn’t get that call because LaTosha isn’t going to school now, nor has she received any help from Change of Fortune in her attempts to return to school. Do people usually call you and thank you for things you had nothing to do with? If so, I can understand why you’re so disappointed no one’s called you about returning to school. I never get a call from anyone about school, either. I understand your pain.

“It's, ‘Hey, there's a knob that needs to be fixed' or something.” [Ken Miller, Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

All the knobs in the house work fine. Do you even listen to us when we call? We have never said anything about broken knobs.

"What happened is, all the resources under Change of Fortune, with all the repairs that had to be made, had become exhausted," Miller says. [Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

So, all the resources of a self described “financial empire” [Change of Fortune Press Release, June 18, 2007], all the resources that were intended to be used to house 10 families by the end of 2007, were exhausted half-repairing one house for one family. I would love to see an itemized list of expenses next to the moneys they set aside for rehabilitating 10 houses for 10 families for 2 years. Either they were building these houses from the ground up out of solid gold wood or they just set aside a shot glass of dollars out of the bathtub of moonshine that is their financial empire.

"We went to get other nonprofits involved to assist us to make this work, but they didn't want to help." [Ken Miller, Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

You needed money and you went to nonprofits? A MORTGAGE COMPANY needed money, so they went to not just any nonprofits, but nonprofits in Cuyahoga County, the foreclosure capital of the nation and one of the poorest communities in the US? Of course they didn’t help. If I walked down to LMM’s 2100 Lakeside Men’s Shelter and said, “Hey, Duane [the director], I’m gonna give free homes to all your clients, but I don’t have any money, so can you give me money to do it?” of course he is gonna say no. If we had the money to put homeless people in houses, we’d be doing it already.

"But we'll do a better job during the selection process from now on," [Ken Miller] adds [Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008]

You didn’t have anything to do with the selection process. The clients were chosen by Bridging the Gap and the City of Cleveland. Perhaps instead of “we’ll do a better job during the selection process” you should reword it to “we’ll do the selection process.”

and yes, that's a dig at Hanna, whom [Ken Miller] says has "just been totally unreasonable" [Cleveland Free Times, April 9, 2008].

Change of Fortune apparently defines totally unreasonable as a single mother living alone with her young daughter asking to have locks on her home. A group that said, “It is unconscionable that men, women and children are living in shelters,” [Change of Fortune Press Release, June 18, 2007] also finds it unreasonable that homeless families should live somewhere safe.

These guys really irk me. It’s not enough that they’re totally taking advantage of a vulnerable single mother, but they have to have really annoying personalities to boot. Whenever I listen to them talk, I feel like I’m at a medicine show. They flew in with free gifts, and we accepted the gifts on behalf of our client and expected that these businessmen would live up to their words.

In the end, all that’s important is that these repairs get made so LaTosha and her daughters can move on and begin to get their lives back in order. If anyone out there in cyberland wants to help out, the number for Skyline Financial Group, the parent organization of Change of Fortune, is 818.716.3610.

The CEO is Gene Parker III. He’s the one who signed LaTosha’s lease. Please call and remind him that LaTosha Hanna still needs locks and her windows fixed. He doesn’t respond to either myself or LaTosha, so maybe you’ll have some luck. Also, ask him if he switched the water bill into Change of Fortune’s name like he’s supposed to. I know he said he was going to, but he said a lot of things. Finally, ask him to keep his promises on all the City of Cleveland by offering free housing to homeless people.

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

No COHHIO Conference for Me

Researchers Lead Us Down the Wrong Path

There is such a limited amount of research about homelessness in the United States that a few good papers will get you a long distance on the public dole. Dennis Culhane from the University of Pennsylvania is one of those researchers who actually took the time to figure out where homeless people were coming from and how long they stayed homeless. This was very useful information, but the conclusions drawn by Mr. Culhane were far off base. Culhane did research in NYC and Philly, two cities that have very little in common with Cleveland or Toledo, and nothing in common with Lorain or Sandusky, Ohio. He has parlayed this research into regular gigs with federal agencies and speaking engagements around the country. All of us in the field have to pay for his sketchy science.

Every agency funded by the federal government now has to try to count homeless people coming in the door no matter how bad the undercount or the infringement on the privacy rights of our clients. We have to do a one day count that has no basis in reality. Think of the the "guess the jellybeans in the jar" game. We have to bear the bulk of the costs of all these distractions taking us away from actually getting people housing at the local level. The Culhane research brought us the terribly expensive Permanent supportive housing option, which we talked about in December and NEOCH has a policy paper that the Coalition published about the problems with supportive housing. In the end, we are no closer to ending homelessness in America then we were 20 years ago.

The basis of the Culhane theory is that by removing those who have been homeless for long periods of time, the community can save 60-80% of their resources. This is a great theory on paper, but in real life it does not work. If we could just save the excess water dumped on Northwest Ohio and transfer it to drought stricken Atlanta, all would be right with America. This theory does not work with weather and it will never work for people. But Culhane is milking this theory for all it is worth. How does this play out in the local community? Our shelters are starved of cash to the point that they are all closing. Public housing has had to cut all of their supportive services and has no money to renovate their buildings for years. There is no money to house poor people or families because all of our resources go to those disabled individuals who have been homeless for years.

I will not be attending the COHHIO conference featuring the ivory tower theories of Dennis Culhane. We slog through every day trying to clean up the messes made by researchers living 1 million miles from the streets of Cleveland.

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

What is Happening to Homeless in America?

National Coalition for the Homeless Meeting in DC

First, just two weeks ago we identified Alphonso Jackson as the worst HUD Secretary in history. Today, the Washington Post had a front page story on how bad the HUD Secretary was as he exits this week. Check out Jackson's improper emphasis on homeownership, while easing scrutiny of mortgages. Maybe this colossal failure will force HUD to return to the safe rental housing, but I doubt it. Home ownership is the American dream, and people vote for dreams no matter the costs.

I was in DC last week for the cherry blossoms and the National Coalition meeting. The best part of the meeting is going around the room to find out what is happening in the local communities. I have to say that even though Anita from Georgia was not able to make the meeting, Atlanta is certainly one of the worst places for homeless people in the United States (besides New Orleans). In fact, having visited there last year I have to believe that Atlanta is the future New Orleans. They are at war with poor people, and have eliminated almost every shelter and now working on eliminating public housing. When you isolate poor people and the City is struck by tragedy (a lack of water, tornado, fire, terrorist attack, etc.) hits the city, low income people suffer disproportionately. [Photo by Kevin Cleary from Cosgrove Center in Cleveland].

Here is a rundown of things going on around the country:
Baltimore: The Mayor of Baltimore is putting extra effort into addressing homelessness. She shows up at the shelters unannounced. She volunteers at the shelters with her senior staff, and has started to make progress with a planning process, a push for advocacy, and two replacement shelters.

South Carolina: More barriers put in place by the State legislature to building affordable housing. New rules based on NIMBY issues. They passed a Housing Trust Fund, but

Virginia: Advocates concerned about the new rules for the homeless mentally ill in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Los Angeles: The biggest concentrated disaster area in the country for homeless people has to be Skid Row Los Angeles with thousands of homeless people sleeping outside every night. In response police are cracking down on "quality of life infractions" by issuing 15,000 jaywalking tickets last year. City officials have rejected the 10 year plan because it was based on "need," which they determined to be unreasonable. They want a re-write the plan based on the number of resources available.

Kansas: Still working on a planning process, and have developed a few new housing resources in Wichita.

Arizona: Phoenix has a foreclosure crisis that is out of control. Tuscon has seen an increase in hate crimes against homeless people. The state is in such financial crisis that they are proposing stealing money from the State Housing Trust Fund to offset their expected $1.7 billion deficit.

Colorado: Denver is making progress on the development of permanent supportive housing goals, and they are committed to not disrupting the lives of homeless people during the Democratic political convention in 2008. They opened a 20 bed facility for vets using tax credit financing, and have recently built 100 units of new housing.

Austin, TX: They are looking at opening a park with tents, mobile homes, and other entry type housing opportunities to ease people back into permanent housing. This is an interesting experiment that we will have to keep an eye on. I have never seen this type of mixed housing sharing a space.

Minnesota: Advocates are working on funding their permanent supportive housing goals, but they want their projects to include families. Ohio needs a similar plan.

DC: They are working on a Housing First fund. One of the bigger shelters is closing down after the loss of a separate shelter last year.

Jeffersonville IN: They are suffering under large numbers of foreclosures, and people coming to the shelters in need of help. They have made some progress in coving the uninsured in Indiana. Jeffersonville was rocked by the suicide of a local Iraq War veteran who fled South and crawled into a drainage ditch in Florida and died because of symptoms associated with PTSD.

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

Reserve a Space for the Annual Event

Your Seat Awaits You

Dear Friend of NEOCH:

We would love if you would attend our annual event "Partnering to End Homelessness" by reserving a seat from our website. The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless made it through a rough year. Come celebrate with our Board of Trustees the triumph of making it to 2008, as we detail our plans for long- term stability in our struggle to end homelessness. You can reserve your ticket or table at the Seventh Annual Dinner and Auction from our website at www.neoch.org under “Contact Us” .

The dinner and award ceremony is Friday May 2, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. at the GESU Family Center at 2490 Miramar Blvd. in University Hts. This is the only special event fundraiser for the Coalition all year. We need your support to maintain the important services offered by the Coalition including the Street Card, website, advocacy, Grapevine and Legal Assistance. The Partnering to End Homelessness event features a keynote speaker, the awarding of the Ione Biggs Award, a wonderful dinner, poetry and an auction.

Ticket prices are:

Corporate/Organizational Sponsor at $500 ($420 tax deductible)

Table of Friends $400 ($320 tax deductible)

Individual tickets are $50 ($40 tax deductible)

You can pay for your tickets with a credit card or Paypal account from the website using Network for Good services. Or if you prefer you can reserve your space from the website and pay by check through the U.S. mail. We would love to have you join us at this important event.

Sincerely,

Teri’ Horne

Associate Director

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

Homeless Congress Talk to Councilman Zone

Homeless Congress Talks About Shelters, Vacant Buildings and Overflow

We had a small crowd for the Homeless Congress meeting last week because of the ballgame going on at the same time. Approximately, two hundred or more homeless people work the game through clean up crews or the parking lot attendants at nearly every home Indians game. Despite the new name of the ballpark, indentured servants wait in the wings to clean up the beer and trash as the cheers fade away in the not-so-progressive field. We had about 15 homeless individuals, a couple of agencies, staff from Dennis Kucinich’s office, a representative from the County Office of Homeless Services advisory (the Homeless Book Club), and Councilman Matt Zone.

Councilman Zone was invited to the meeting (along with his 20 colleagues) to hear the concerns of homeless people over the conditions in the shelters and urge passage of the shelter standards bill in Cleveland. He heard an earful:

• One woman said that she was told by the shelter staff to put her baby in the foster care system while she looks for housing. She did and now that she found housing, she was told that her babies were up adoption. Bad advice.
• The men at Lakeside shelter are upset that when they visit family, go to the hospital or have to do a third shift job and they come back to find someone has taken their bed. This sounds reasonable to the world because we are not running a hotel here, but to the men the new person is unknown and coming into the community straight from the street. He could be drunk; he could be stealing items; he could be bring bedbugs. There is concern that the only way that 2100 Lakeside works with 400 guys is to divide the facility into six smaller shelters and force people to work and make milestones to move into the better communities. Sticking a guy who may have a prison mentality right into one of the higher communities even for a night, is a recipe for disaster. They want a reversal of this policy by creating sufficient overflow to address make this not necessary.
• There were concerns about shelters throwing away a person’s identification.
• There was concern about the training of staff who work at shelters and screening them for drugs and relapse issues among the staff.
• One of the shelters has a massive bedbugs outbreak, and the men were concerned about the ability to sleep in a facility with bedbugs.
• One other shelter primarily serves fragile populations of disabled and elderly men and does not have a defibrillator for heart attacks or the proper emergency equipment.
• Finally, the women expressed concern about the hot water tank repeatedly breaking in the Community Women’s Shelter.

Councilman Zone listened to all the concerns and agreed to take the concerns back to Councilman Cimperman and the city administration to activate this committee and begin discussing the Shelter Standards in Cleveland.

Other issues that we discussed included a proposal by the Congress to look at the abandoned property in Cleveland, and look into how those buildings may be turned over to homeless people in a modern urban homesteading initiative. We are going to invite community development folks to the next meeting to talk about the issues.

The County staff could not attend so they sent current North Point director Ed Gamerchek as a representative of the poorly named Office of Homeless Services “Advisory” Board. I say, poorly named because they really do not advise anyone. He received the Homeless Congress concerns about time limits along with the similar concerns expressed by the Coalition. He came to assure the group that no time limits were being talked about, but there was a concern about the amount of time spent in the shelters by some individuals. It should be noted that this is an extremely small number (single digit percentage of the total) who spend more than one year in the men’s shelter. There was also concern that some people were rejecting available spaces in transitional shelters thus there are vacancies in the transitional facilities and overcrowded conditions in the emergency shelters. The men said that the problem was that the County needs to step up and demand the transitional shelters make it easier to get in, and there must be a safety net so that if you fail out of the transitional facilities you do not have to start over at the beginning of the emergency shelter without a locker or fixed bed. It takes a lot of time and patience to move through the system, but there are set backs in a person’s recovery and the guys do not want to have to go all the way back to the unsafe and disruptive entry system.

We thank Councilman Zone for coming and listening, and we hope that he and other Council members will continue to join us. Thanks to Ed for attending, and the other community members for their help. We should recognize Laurie Rokakis and Congressman Kucinich for bringing two gift baskets to the meeting in March that we raffled off during the meeting.

Brian

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

Worst HUD Secretary in History Steps Down

Good Riddance!!!

The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is stepping down today. This is welcome news for America's homeless and those living in subsidized housing. He came in with such promise as a former Public Housing Director and then proceeded to dismantle public housing in the United States. Jackson just did not understand this job, and became the worst HUD secretary in the 40 some year history of the post. Here are some lowlights of his career:

• His biggest failure is New Orleans rebuilding. He eliminated public housing in New Orleans and has yet to build back any subsidized property. The one bright spot is that when people say we need smaller government and there is no reason to have a strong government we can point to New Orleans as the outcome of this policy. Government can rebuild a community like we did after the San Francisco earthquake unless we have neutered the government to the point that it is no longer able to function.
  
• He rewarded his friends and tried to punish those who disagreed. He bragged about withdrawing a contract from a contractor who had complained about Bush. He also held the Philadelphia Housing Authority hostage until they rewarded a piece of property to his friend.
  
• He attempted to starve public housing agencies to death.
  
• He left us with nearly $3 billion in underfunding in the Section 8 Project Based Housing program leaving hundreds of thousands of building owners scrambling to figure out how to pay their mortgages. This is a problem that the next administration will have to address.
  
• He was asleep at the wheel with regard to the foreclosure crisis. HUD owned property from foreclosed housing are mounting in most communities, and the HUD Secretary was baffled by the problem.
  
• Because of the foreclosure crisis and housing instability, tax credit projects in the United States are teetering. These projects make housing slightly more affordable to lower income people then the market. It is less attractive for investors to put money into these properties with the housing market in decline. Again, we heard the crickets chirping from the HUD building in DC when we asked about these problems in our local community.
  
• He pushed this silly and offensive "chronic" homeless initiative on the rest of the country while at the same time reducing affordable housing to families. Jackson pushed for cutting the homeless funding pie among more groups without increasing the size of the pie. In a time of increased homelessness this only lengthened the stay in shelters by those populations not in style anymore like families and non-disabled adults.
  
• He has refused to take a position on any pending bill in Congress as announced at the Cleveland City Club discussion from a couple of weeks ago.

There are so many problems with Mr. Jackson we could dedicate an entire blog to the woes of HUD. Poor people expect harsh treatment by Republican administrations. It is always worse when someone of such promise who comes out of the Public Housing sector stabs his former constituency in the back. Jackson had all the right background, but failed miserably and we declare our worst HUD Secretary ever.

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

Things You Need to Know

When You Fall...You Fall to the Bottom

Every few days, we get a call at the office from people who are new to homelessness, and they cannot believe that they have to go to a shelter. They are losing their home or their apartment, and are calling around a long list of numbers hoping for some help. There are some who had no idea that their landlord was being foreclosed on, and were told that they had to find some other place to live. The middle class has shrunk over the last 25 years, and there are many more people who are in danger of being homeless. Here are a few things that you need to know in order to prepare for the "Brave New World" without a safety net:

• There is no emergency housing in our community. There is rental housing and there are shelters. There is nothing in between. There are no more flop houses or places to pay for a week or a day at a time. There are motels, but those are not appropriate to live since they have no kitchens.
  
• There is no place to store your items. When you become homeless and you first go to shelter there are no places to keep your belongings. You must compact your entire life into one bag.
  
• Theft is a huge problem within the shelters. Take care of your valuables.
  
• No one from the County will tell you this to your face, but they have opened up files at Children and Family Services because a family became homeless. Stay strong, and go through all the hoops. Don't let the system take your children because you don't do the paperwork or show up for their hearings.
  
• If you are not the primary caregiver to a child and you are no longer married, immediately go in and request a change in your status. It takes months to get the payments on child support lowered, so you need to start that paperwork immediately. The debt accumulated while waiting for a child support correction usually can never be reduced or eliminated. It can last forever.
  
• It is highly unlikely that Mom and Dad can go to the same shelter. Unless the stars align perfectly this is not likely to happen. Stay strong and meet your spouse during the day. If you are not married or cannot prove you're married you will not get into a shelter together.
  
• When you first become homeless you go to the two entry shelters around 3 p.m. There is no need to call, they are not supposed to turn people away. If you are a woman go to 2219 Payne Ave. If you are a man go to 2100 Lakeside Shelter on Lakeside Ave.
  
• Call every morning to see if there are vacancies at the other shelters or you get stuck in the two entry shelters. There is usually no choice on the shelter that you start out in, and the rest of the shelters do not keep waiting lists. No one is going to advocate for you or open doors for you. You have to be a little pushy to get through the system. Ask questions, talk to people, and remember that you will make it through this if you stay strong.
  
• Word on the streets is often more reliable than the information you may get from the providers. Other homeless people know a great deal of information, and you should talk to them. They often know more than the case workers and social workers who are barely keeping up from one emergency to the next.
  
• Except for the entry shelter for women, nearly every other shelter will ask you to leave to go find housing or a job during the day.
  
• Make sure that you get a voice mail box early so that you are connected to the rest of the world. This will help move through the system quicker.
  
• Bus tickets are gold, and cigarettes are silver. They are also a form of currency in the homeless community.
  
• The libraries are great places to go during the day, and usually the librarians are incredibly helpful. There are plenty of resources on the computer that can help. The best are the 211 website www.211cleveland.org and the housing website www.housingcleveland.org. Both have all the resources you need at your fingertips to get out of your situation.
  
• It may be the time to take a break from the rat race and improve your skills during this time of homelessness. This may not be what the shelters suggest, but you should think about what would be best for you for the future. A period of homelessness is the best time to evaluate your life and your career and whether you have enough education.
  
• There are 19,000 people in the same situation as you during a year. So, while it is frustrating, there is no easy way out. There are long waits for subsidized housing, good jobs are hard to come by, and finding a professional to talk to is even difficult.
• Stay connected with your family and friends. Some of the things that you see during homelessness are amazing and can make you crazy. It is important to have people who you can talk to who are outside of the system.
  

Good luck. You can make it out of this situation. Too many people give up, and prolong their stay in the shelters. You can do it if you stay focused.

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

Awards and Agency Update

NEOCH Annual Meeting

Pictured here is Tera Horne (right) presenting Bryan Mauk the NEOCH advocate of the year award (middle) and the Volunteer of the Year Ronald Falconi (standing) their awards.

The NEOCH Annual Meeting was Thursday, and we released our annual report. It will be available on our website soon. We looked back on the rough year of 2007. We talked about the transfer of two of our programs. The NEOCH Board elected a new Executive Committee. We have two new EC members, Tiffany Burse and Cynthia Ford. Our new Board President is Jennifer Simpson.

I gave a look at the 2008 plans and the upcoming Strategic Plan that the organization is currently undertaking. We talked about some of the major community advocacy efforts of the the Coalition. And the best part of the Annual Meeting is the awarding of a token of our recognition for community members who went above and beyond to help homeless people.

Bryan Mauk--NEOCH 2007 Advocate of the Year
Bryan worked both in high school and at John Carroll University to create a program where faculty and students venture off campus to Downtown Cleveland to interact with those resistant to shelters, called the Labre Project. He is a true leader who, with his continued nurturing of the Labre Project, he sets an example for others. Bryan recently helped open an overnight drop in center at St. Augustine in the Tremont neighborhood, which provides a warm place for homeless people who sleep outside to go for a hot cup of coffee and a friendly environment. NEOCH salutes Bryan Mauk for his service to the homeless community.

Ronald Falconi and Robert Heintel--2007 Volunteers of the Year
Ronald and Robert are both members of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. Together they oversee the legal clinic at West Side Catholic Shelter and Drop in. They are known for their thoughtful and respectful treatment of clients who seek their advice at the Catholic Center. Without their help, it would be difficult to maintain this intake site for the Homeless Legal Assistance Program. Both attorneys reflect the highest standards of the legal profession. They are dedicated to providing legal help who those cannot afford an attorney. NEOCH salutes Robert and Ronald for their service to the homeless community.

Wish you were there.
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

The Worst Meeting Ever

No Time For Questions

It seems like the whole country is acting like George W. Bush where up is down and war is peace. I went to the Homeless Book Club meeting, otherwise known as the Office of Homeless Services Advisory, and the director presented an overview of the shelter situation since Aviation High School closed. By the way, this group does not advise anyone. "The surge is working," this last year and the 1999 quote: "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is," said George W. Bush. Ruth Gillett told us all that we are better off now without Aviation. She was comparing overflow shelter with permanent supportive housing and transitional shelter beds created. Beds that do not turn over for six months or six years cannot be compared to beds that are a short term answer to those without housing.

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace," said George Bush in June of 2002. Gillett said that three new people come into 2100 Lakeside shelter every night, but did not realize that this meant we are witnessing an impending train wreck. I mean if we replace beds that had half the people leave every month with beds in which people do not leave for six months, we have serious problems coming down the line. It was a huge mistake to talk about overflow when talking about opening North Point transitional shelter. They have nothing to do with each other and the County is so focused on North Point that 2100 Lakeside is suffering.

"No President has ever done more for human rights than I have," said George W. Bush. I felt like I was sitting in the meeting with one goal: say something enough times people will actually start to believe it. Gillett said things were all right because in the last 10 days the 60 beds of overflow were sufficient, dismissing the fact that the City Mission was only committed through the end of the month, which would limit us to 30 beds of overflow. She did not address the reality that on one night 25 people waited in a chair for a bed. Gillett did not address the reality that we have always had a slight drop in the shelter census on the first 10 days of the month. Now I understand why no one in the White House Press Room challenges the President. There were so many things wrong with this presentation, it was impossible to pick out where to start. There is never enough time to address all the problems in the homeless community at the Homeless book club meetings.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," said George W. Bush after the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. The most amazing part of this meeting was Gillett's solution to this problem was to put a Gatekeeper at the Lakeside shelter to divert people from coming into the shelter. This policy, which I am calling the "There is a couch in this community with your name on it" will put people through a long screening process to figure out if there is a better or more appropriate place in Cleveland for the men who show up. It is a good thought, but we still need to address the train wreck coming because we do not have overflow anymore.

We just need a place for those banned from the rest of the shelters to go. We need a place for the sexually based offenders to get out of the cold. We need a place for those recently released from prison to go, because there are no couches in the community for them. We need somewhere that second or third shift workers can sleep. We need a place for those who cannot stand rules to get a cup of coffee. We need a place for the drunk to sober up. Some of these people are not the most desirable or employable, but they are still our brothers and they still need a place to live.

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

More Updates from the Coalition

Homeless Coalition Upcoming Events

1. Ione Biggs Award Nominations Due Monday: You still have time to submit a nomination for the Ione Biggs Award using our website. Go to http://www.neoch.org/nav/contactus.htm and complete the application and send it to NEOCH. The application is a two page summary of the accomplishments of your nominee and their work on social justice in 2007.
   
2. NEOCH Annual Meeting March 20: All members are welcome to attend the NEOCH Annual Meeting on Thursday March 20 at 5:30 p.m. at the NEOCH offices at 3631 Perkins Ave. Third Floor Conference Room. We will look back at 2007, give out a few awards and look at 2008 including our upcoming planning process.
3. Training at May Dugan Center on March 25: The new self help legal center opened and there are now computers available for people who need legal assistance, but cannot find a lawyer to help. In addition, HousingCleveland.org has been up and running for 2.5 years now. If you want to know more information about either of these programs, there is an in-service training on Tuesday March 25, 2005 at 2 p.m. at the May Dugan Center . May Dugan is at 4115 Bridge Ave. in Ohio City . You need to park on the streets, because there is no parking available in the lot. This training is directed at social service providers, case workers and anyone interested in knowing more about these two resources. For more information call 216/432-0540 or 939-1850.
4. Human Services Institute March 28, 2008. The Center for Community Solutions sponsors a gathering for human services workers in the community at the Cleveland Convention Center on March 28, 2008 all day. You can register at www.communitysolutions.com. NEOCH staff will be conducting a workshop on ideas for finding jobs for the difficult to employ. We hope that you can join us with the keynote speakers of Erin Gruwell of Freedom Writers Foundation and Richard Rodriguez, an author and journalist for this event.
5. Volunteer Orientation March 29, 2008. Did you make a New Years resolution to volunteer to end homelessness? We have an easy way to fulfill that resolution. NEOCH is hosting a volunteer orientation on March 29 at 1 p.m. at our main office 3631 Perkins Ave. third floor conference room. We have legal needs, voice mail assistance, general office, event planning, fund raising, street newspaper help, and advocacy help. You can volunteer once a week or once a month. Whatever your skills or your availability we can find a place for you to help us end homelessness. Please RSVP to Larry Davis at 216/432-0540 ext. 103.
6. Homeless Congress on Thursday April 3: The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Homeless Congress is Thursday April 3, 2008 at 1 p.m. at the Bishop Cosgrove Center ( 1736 Superior Ave. ). This is when representatives of the various shelters meet to discuss issues. The public is welcome to attend.
7. Save the Date May 2, 2008--Partnering to End Homeless Fund Raiser: Please put in your calendar the date for the NEOCH Fund Raiser is May 2, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. This year the event will be at GESU family center near John Carroll in University Hts. Invitations and Save the Date Cards are on the way.

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

Baby Living in a Abandoned Apartment

The Bible Story Looks Different in America

The Coalition coordinates all outreach workers in the community, and so we ask community groups to call NEOCH about homeless people instead of calling law enforcement. The idea is that law enforcement have enough work, and social workers should address problems surrounding homelessness. We get about one call every week at the office, but we do not usually deal with problems of homeless babies. There is a protocol for taking babies into County custody if they are living in a car or in an abandoned property. This happens on a regular basis in Cleveland and we never hear about these cases. The child is quickly taken into custody if the homeless mom makes herself known in the community or if her power or heat is turned off. The reality is that Children and Family Services act first and ask questions later.

This week we heard from a suburban official about a Mom-lets call her Mary- her boyfriend- let's call him Joseph- and a five month old baby who were living in an abandoned building. It seems that officials from a Cleveland suburb were preparing to tear down an abandoned apartment, and doing a walk through when they stumbled upon this couple and their baby. An outreach worker went out immediately to try to connect the family with a shelter. Unfortunately, the Mom was already arrested for child endangering and her baby was in the custody of Cuyahoga County. We have no idea what happened to Joseph. The woman from the suburban development office who called us was not the only one who had encountered this family, and they did what most do: call the County to take the baby into the foster care system.

After the initial shock of trying to get this family in a better place as soon as possible, I started thinking about how different the Bible would be if it were set in Cleveland, Ohio in 2008. The basis for Christianity was based on a story with all the indoor beds full, and so the founder of a religion was born outside among the animals. In Cleveland, the Biblical Mary would have lost her child to Cuyahoga County, and would have had a one year time limit to get her act together or the child born among the animals would be adopted by another family. It seems unlikely that the Biblical Mary would have been able to remain an important part of her child's development or be a part of his young adulthood while he was challenging authority figures or even to be a witness to his execution in modern day America because she had endangered this child with the birth in the barn.

Our own modern day Mary tried the shelters, but could not believe that she had to leave every morning with her baby and could not live with the father of her child. She was arrested and charged with child endangering. She now is fighting the clock, a criminal record, and a case with the County to get her child back. I am not saying that children who cannot speak up for themselves should not be protected. I just have to wonder how these policies have changed our society? How many families have been destroyed because Moms cannot find a place to live? How many children will never reach their full potential because of their 18 year struggle to find a place in our society? How many families make bad decisions because the shelters cannot bend their rules? How many world events have been altered because we are quick to split up families?
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Ribbon Cutting a Success

(Left to Right) Joan Burda--Cleveland Homeless Legal Assistance Program Director, Rob Anderle--Justice For All Committee member with the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, Marcia Egbert--Program Officer of the Gund Foundation and Meg Wilson--NEOCH Board President cut the ribbon on the new Self Help Legal Clinic.

Self Help Legal Center Opens

On a cold day in February 2008, the Homeless Legal Assistance Program officially opened their Self Help Center. I kept meaning to post this picture and a brief description. Sorry for the delay. Anyway, this facility will allow very low income and homeless people to go into the center and print out their own proceedings for the Court. They can print out a poverty affidavit, or a simple divorce filing, or a defense against an eviction if they cannot find help from an attorney. The Center will start out open on Monday afternoon or Wednesday mornings until we find more volunteers to staff the site. This has been a dream of Burda for years, and is finally taking shape. The St. Luke's Foundation and Gund Foundation have long supported this program. Every year, we serve between 500 and 700 people who cannot find anyone else to help them with their legal problems. We are one of the only programs going into the shelters to help people directly with their legal obstacles to housing.

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

Columbus Has a Great Plan

Columbus Mayor Appoints Cabinet Official to Work on Homelessness

Mayor Michael Coleman has appointed a cabinet level position to attempt to solve homelessness. This is a great idea, and we should think about this for Cleveland. The Mayor in Columbus at the urging of City Council appointed Erika Clark Jones to a cabinet level position to do advocacy and coordinate services.

"I consider this position to be a strong voice for the seemingly voiceless," she said. In addition to homelessness, the new office will focus on three main issues: the problems of the uninsured, affordable housing and work-force investment according to the Columbus Dispatch article.

As a former resident of Columbus, I hate to admit when Columbus does something better than Cleveland. In fact, we were told a few years ago that Columbus had solved homelessness, and HUD champions them as the center of progressive thinking on homelessness. No matter the propaganda and spin, this is a great idea.

We have had a joint City and County office for 15 years in Cleveland, but it has not done much. Yes, they bring in huge dollars for the County compared to the rest of the state, but bottom line is that homelessness is worse than it was 15 years ago. The City/County OHS does not do a very good job coordinating services, all of the services are still concentrated in the City of Cleveland, and no one coordinates lobbying activities. I am going to ask the Mayor of Cleveland to look to Columbus for a better way to address homelessness. Every urban community needs a cabinet level office to address homelessness, because it is most severe expression of every other problem in our society. Re-entry, illiteracy, housing, job re-training, entitlements, civil rights and the health care crisis are all serious problems for homeless people and are the cause of homelessness. The issues associated with homelessness cause prolonged stays in the shelters, are very expensive for the public, and cause instability in society. Tax payers are amazed that if they fall on hard times and cannot afford the rent or mortgage, they fall hard all the way to the shelters. They need a voice at the Mayor's cabinet to raise these issues, and restore the social safety net in our society.

In other Columbus Ohio news, the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless has hired full time staff and just published a street newspaper called Street Speech. While I am not a big fan of street newspapers that begin with the word Street (6 out of the 10 papers pictured on the front of the new paper are named "Street..."), but it is an impressive first issue. Street Speech is colorful, and has some interesting commentary inside. The paper has a review of the "Thrift Store," poetry, and a profile of the vendor of the month. Congratulations Columbus Coalition for a big step forward in providing a voice to homeless people.

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

They Look Down on Us

Europeans Can't Believe the State of America

I watched today's 60 Minutes about the Remote Area Health care charity that provides assistance in the United States. It is a disgrace to see that we claim first world status, but we cannot provide basic health care to the population. For those who did not see it, please check out the link. Basically, these groups who would set up volunteer health care camps in the Amazon started setting them up in the United States because of the demand. The reporters visited one in Knoxville where the group was staging a Stand Down type program for the uninsured or under-insured, and thousands showed up asking for help. The charity had to turn away 400 people because they ran out of time and supplies. We are all so worried about the rationing of health care if we had socialized medicine. If the current system does not ration care then I don't know what that looks like. The whole health care system needs scrapped and we need to start over with a new health care system.

Because of this foreclosure story, I have been talking to journalists from Europe. Yesterday, I talked to Italian Public Television and a few weeks ago to a Scandinavian television journalist team. They were in Cleveland to follow up on the foreclosure story, and were shocked by the state of homelessness in America. They could not believe that families were homeless and living in cars and shelters. They did not understand how families had to split up in order to get shelter. The Italian TV people were amazed by the state of temporary labor. It seems that they could not understand how people could work full time and remain homeless. They did not understand the exploitation on the job or that chronic health conditions could lead to homelessness. They look down on us. For those who do not get to talk to people from other countries, like me, this is quite a come down. We are constantly told that this is the best country ever by the media and our movies and that no country can compete with the United States. Then we fall hard when we talk to European visitors. We have become the jungle country that Europeans visit to point, stare at, and take pictures before going home. How did this happen?

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

Incarceration Nation

United States: Out of Control Prison Population

The greatest threat to our democracy is the increasing incarceration rates in the United States. A report released by the Pew Center last week shows that 1 in 100 Americans are now behind bars. A few facts from the study:

• 1.6 million adults are now in prison with another 700,000 in local jails.
  
• The imprisoned population has tripled in the last 30 years.
• One in 15 African American males are behind bars
• The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country in the world (both by percentage and sheer number).
• The United States imprisons more people than China (1.5 million), a much more populous (and autocratic) country.
• States now spend $44 billion on corrections (a 127% increase since 1987).

Who cares? Everyone needs to care for the economics, justice, and long term impact on our society. The incarceration economy is bankrupting our society. We cannot afford to take over other countries, educate our public, keep them housed and incarcerate 1 in 100. A bankrupt democracy is a government in its last days. A bankrupt society is easily manipulated by a demagogue. There is no justice with such a sizable population lacking freedom. Some states remove access to democracy for life from those convicted of a felony. Why are there so many behind bars compared to other societies? Why is a free society incarcerating so many, even compared to totalitarian dictatorships? Why are we treating addiction as a criminal offense?

This does have to do with homelessness in Cleveland. Our shelters are swamped with people (both men and women) returning from prison. I was thinking about this after listening to Fresh Air on Tuesday on WCPN featuring a meth addict and his dad. David Sheff and his son Nic each wrote books about their experiences. I understand "tough love" and all that, but it does not seem to work. Addictive personalities must hit bottom and lose everything in order to get help. Why can't we find a better away to address this problem in our society? Are the sky rocketing incarceration rates related to the lack of universal health care? If health care was paid by the government would they be willing to pay for treatment upon demand over jail? Would treatment be readily available to the addicted? Would we be able to shut down the private prisons that make millions off our incarceration nation if we had a better health care system?

What is the tipping point? How long can we sustain this level of incarceration? How long until those imprisoned rise up? 1 in 100 of "we the people" have their freedom stripped and are jailed. They work for pennies a day, and are subject to violence and repeated violations while in prison. We strip people of their liberty and then we cannot even keep them safe while we jail them. How long can we have our African American population tolerate one in fifteen of those between the age of 20 and 34 behind bars? How long do we condemn this group to a life of menial jobs, unstable housing, and sporadic health care? How long do we put mentally ill people behind bars instead of offering counseling to young people who exhibit dangerous behavior? How long can we make these men and women pay for their crimes, before they decide that the government is the enemy? How smart is it to confine a group together to foment anger and dissension against the government for a good part of their life? There are consequences for constructing an incarcerated nation, and they effect all of us.

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

Packing People in the Shelter

Lakeside Shelter is Overflowing

The FAA and Department of Homeland Security closed Aviation High School as the Overflow Shelter for homeless men in Cleveland on February 1, 2008. With the snow and the cold this week, how have homeless people faired since this decision was implemented? 2100 Lakeside shelter is bursting at the seams, and on Thursday February 21, 2008, 25 guys waited throughout the night for a bed to open. The plan put in place by the City and County as we prepared for the closing of Aviation High Overflow Shelter did not work. The sooner that they admit that their plans failed, the sooner homeless men will be able to sleep peacefully in a bed. It is bad enough carrying all your stuff around, sleeping in a shelter, and being homeless without having to sit up all night waiting for a bed in the land of plenty in the richest country on the planet.

A little history is in order here. 2100 Lakeside legally houses 385 people a night. As we have learned "if you build it they will come." The shelter was full the day it opened, and every time they put more beds into the facility the population increased. In 2003, while the shelter was under the direction of the Salvation Army, there were some nights that 600 people showed up seeking a bed. St. Ignatius and some of the other shelters offered hallway space to accommodate the overflow on a temporary basis. In 2004, Aviation High School opened as the overflow site housing between 135-220 people per night. The Crawford Aviation Museum talked about buying the building in 2005, but it remained a shelter.

In late 2005, the City was contacted from the federal authorities began putting pressure on the City to close the shelter out of terrorism concerns. The shelter bordered Burke Lakefront Airport, and there was concern for the safety of the airport with 150 unscreened people sleeping a few yards from the airport grounds. The City resisted federal concerns, and pushed back a series of deadlines for relocation. Why would a terrorist become homeless and sneak onto Burke Lakefront to steal the WKYC helicopter or the KeyBank Learjet? The final deadline imposed by the Federal government was January 31, 2008. After that date the City could not use the abandoned high school. The City and County had over one year to put in place a replacement plan for Aviation.

The County Office of Homeless Services took the lead, and did a lot of innovative things to replace the overflow. They forced the rest of the men's shelters to take people into their programs first from the Lakeside Shelter. They opened a series of permanent supportive housing, and provided additional housing vouchers. They opened North Point Transitional shelter in an old motel, which can house 160 people. North Point is a great idea that we should be proud of in our community, but it is not overflow. We opened beds at Oriana House, and tried to quickly move people out of Lakeside. All worthwhile efforts, but they do not address the problem of overflow. As I have always said, "if you build it they will come." If you improve the system (North Point) more people who were living on the margins of homelessness will show up.

So, the day after Aviation closed on Saturday Feb. 2, despite 160 people having moved over to North Point, Lakeside shelter was overflowing. The staff at the shelter had asked the City for 100 beds of overflow. The County granted them 30 spaces at the Volunteers of America, and told them to deal with it. Luckily, the City Mission stepped in and offered an additional 30 spaces. Even with 60 overflow spaces the shelter has had 10 days of people waiting for a bed to open in the hallway and cafeteria. As stated above there were 85 people over the legal limit on Thursday. Sixty were provided a cot or mat at Volunteers of America and the City Mission, as the two overflow sites. Twenty five people had to wait for people to get up in the middle of the night to go to work in order to get a bed. The plan is not working. City and County officials should have listened to the professionals working at the shelter or even the Homeless Congress and have provided 100 overflow beds. A County Commissioner or the Mayor needs to step in here and open a warehouse that we can put 100 cots at night as the overflow. We have plenty of vacant buildings. Put them to use! Sunday night is going to be rough for homeless men in Cleveland seeking shelter.

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

NEOCH Board Against Time Limited Shelters

Coalition Board Supports Homeless Congress

The NEOCH Board of Trustees at our February 21, 2008 meeting endorsed the policy statement passed by the Homeless Congress with regard to time limited shelters. That statement as passed by the Congress is:

There is a movement within the City and County to limit the time that a homeless person can stay at the publicly funded shelters in Cleveland. At this point, the two entry shelters, 2100 Lakeside Men’s Shelter and the Community Women’s Shelter, do not have a time limit on the length of stay. Every other shelter in the community has a time limit for length of stay. The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless does not support the expansion of the time limits to include the two entry shelters. This policy statement came from the Homeless Congress who adopted this position at their January 2008 meeting. The Congress takes positions on issues in the community only if every member gathered at the monthly meeting agrees. NEOCH agreed at the February 2008 meeting to endorse the position of the Congress with regard to their opposition to time limits on the length of stay at the shelters. Congress and the Coalition Board members believe that until those who fund the shelters figure out how to pay for housing for people with a sexually based offense, a criminal background, chronic behavioral health conditions, and/or a substantial personal debt then it does not make sense to limit the time a person can stay in the shelters. Congress and NEOCH Board members are concerned that there are so many people who have huge barriers to stable housing that a time limit will only increase the number of people sleeping outside. We recommended that government officials work on increasing the supply of housing available for those re-entering from a corrections facility, those with huge debt problems, and those with an addiction instead of spending time on policies that will harm the homeless community.

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

Jackson Request for Federal Help

Mayor Wants a National Urban Initiative

I really like the request that the Mayor made to the Presidential candidates in exchange for his endorsement. This is exactly what every elected official should demand. For too long the feds have turned away from American cities. We need a major infusion of dollars to reclaim the 20 years of neglect. I saw Sicko and 60 Minutes tonight about how much better they have it in Europe. They have accepted that paying more in taxes so that everyone has a better standard of living. With a better standard of living, crime goes down. People are safer, and have more time for family and living in Europe. When are we going to change?

NEOCH is pushing for a National Housing Policy like we had back in the 1960s and 1970s. We are going to push the new President to adopt a National Housing Policy in the first 100 days of 2009. We need the federal government to care that millions in the United States cannot afford a place to live. We need the funds that only the Federal government can provide to solve homelessness. Is it greed? Is it guns over butter? Is it selfishness? This path can only lead to continued unrest and eventual collapse.

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

Homeless Foreclosure Story Goes National

Associated Press Story Today on Foreclosures

The Associated Press published a story today about the foreclosure crisis in Cleveland. A story by Tom Sheeran went out across the wires in the United States and was published in Chicago, DC, Detroit, and pretty much every city in the United States. It appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network here and SF paper here and Detroit here. It immediately shot our website traffic from about 122 a day to 800 today. We had as many people visiting our website in the first 17 days of February as we had in all of January.

I talked to a friend in Texas who could not understand this problem we face in Ohio. The foreclosure crisis is much different in the other parts of the country. Most of the foreclosures in Austin were in suburban, usually higher end neighborhoods, and far away from the homeless population. He said that the police would be quick to respond to a squatter in the areas where foreclosures are cropping up in Austin. It is so different in Cleveland. Almost every neighborhood has witnessed the devastation of foreclosed properties. The temptation of all these abandoned properties is too much. Any walk down the any street in Cleveland has obvious empty houses. There is no way that law enforcement or community groups can monitor all these properties. Foreclosures are really bad in Cleveland.

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