Award Winners at the NEOCH Annual Meeting

The Board of Directors of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless presented the Advocate of the Year award to Eileen Kelly at the Annual Meeting on March 19.  We also gave the David Westcott Volunteer of the Year award to Kimberly Fischer for her outstanding work last year.  Eileen Kelly invited a number of St. Colman friends with her to the annual meeting to help celebrate her social justice award.   Kelly helped start the Identification Collaborative in Cleveland nearly 10 years ago, and they have served thousands.   Last year, Kelly did a great deal of work trying to get the Social Security Administration and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in protecting access to identification for homeless people.  This year the hard work begins of trying to raise enough funds to keep the project going.

http://www.neoch.org/cleveland-homeless-blog/2014/3/20/award-winners-from-neoch.html
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Ione Biggs Award Winners

Jay Westbrook and Maria Smith were honored by the Homeless Coalition as the 2013 and 2012 Ione Biggs Social Justice Award winners respectfully.  We presented them with a plaque that they can display on their office wall.  We also have a recognition plaque in the office with the engraved names of the previous winners. We keep Ione Biggs name alive in Cleveland with this Social Justice award, and each of the winners knew Ms. Biggs and were fans of her advocacy and dignity. For those who do not know, Ione Biggs was one of the first female police officers in Ohio.  She had a long history of fighting for the rights of women especially women of color. 

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Annual Report Posted on our Website

We had a really nice Annual Meeting on Wednesday night with a full house of over 40 people.  We were proud to give lifetime achievements to Maria Smith and retired Councilman Jay Westbrook as the 2012 and 2013 Ione Biggs Social Justice Award winners. Both graciously tried to find others who deserved the award more than they did, but we finally convinced each to accept the award.  It was nice that both knew Ms. Biggs before she passed away.  We had some good food (thanks Jennifer) and around 40 people attended the Annual Meeting.

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Two Related Stories on the Criminal Justice System

There were a strange group of articles in the paper that point to the two different approaches to the criminal justice system in America.  The Justice Department announced a change in the sentencing recommendations for drug offenses then on the other end the Plain Dealer had a story that the Governor was asking for additional criminal justice money because they are running out of space in the jails.  Attorney General Eric Holder is asking for a reduction in the range of sentences for federal drug crimes.  At the same time, he is requesting that Federal Prosecutors not object to requests for sentencing reductions.  This will affect nearly 70% of the drug trafficking cases in the federal courts. Here is the NPR report on the issue. 

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At Least We Don't Live in Columbus

We have real problems with diversion as part of Central Intake mostly based on concerns of women at the shelter.   We do not believe that it is ever a good idea to return a woman to the place she was last night if there is a possibility that the women will experience domestic violence.   The County is following a trend in the United States to interview people and ask them where they slept last night, and then try to negotiate a place to stay with family, friends or landlord that is not in the shelters.  This is called Diversion and it is the latest trend out of Washington DC.  Over 20% of the people do not get a shelter bed and are relocated back to the community.   I am skeptical that a victim of domestic violence would tell a total stranger that she is being abused if she is embarrassed or ashamed that she has stayed with the abuser for an extended period of time.

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National News Updates

New York City
The new police chief of New York City, Bill Bratton, has tripled the number of arrests for panhandling as was done in the first two months of 2012.  This is a crackdown on those who sit by the subway asking for change which is annoying, but these guys need the help.  I have never understood giving people who are down on their luck a ticket for begging for money.  This seems like kicking a man when he is down.  Do they allow these guys to beg for the fine that they will be charged for asking for help?   Unless you provide an alternative for these poor people it will only perpetuate the problem.

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Radio Program Featured a Discussion on Voting

This morning on WCPN 90.3 was another good Sound of Ideas radio program on voting rights in Ohio.   Mike McIntyre did a good job trying to move beyond the spin and talking points regarding the big changes taking place in Ohio regarding voting.  It was nice that he asked Secretary of State Jon Husted my question that I submitted about the market wanting weekend voting and Golden Week voting so why won't government respond to the people instead of saying we have to respond to government?   He also asked Subodh's question about disenfranchisement of African American voters in large urban communities.   We never got to hear a debate about large populations like Cuyahoga County not being able to get the 700,000 registered voters through the lines when we have the same hours as the 14,000 voters in Van Wert County.

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More Limits on Voting in Ohio

A number of editorial boards have condemned these voter suppression bills. The Plain Dealer editorial is here. Toledo Blade has weighed in opposing the changes in February.  Democrats all opposed the changes, and have threatened lawsuits.  It looks like we will again spend the spring and summer engaged in many lawsuits over the process of casting a ballot in Ohio.  There is a perception that all these changes are being done for purely political reasons.   The picture on the side of this story is the line at the Cuyahoga Board of Elections on the Sunday before the November election in 2012.  These lines were replicated all over the state showing that there was demand for Sunday voting.

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NEOCH Annual Meeting 3/19/2014

We have not given out the Ione Biggs Award for a few years.  We typically gave them out during our annual fund raiser.  Since we are doing that event differently with the HandUp Gala, we have not really had a good venue to give out these Social Justice Awards.   This year, we decided that we need to give out this important award again.  We are going to recognize the long career of both Legal Aid lawyer Maria Smith and retired Councilman Jay Westbrook.

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Housing 101 Workshop

Here is a copy of the flyer that you can print out or distribute to your co-workers.
We are starting our Housing Workshops for 2014.  We hope to have four this year.   These will help housing case workers learn more about the resources available to homeless people.  We will discuss the landlord tenant law and the fair housing laws.  We will talk about appeals and denials from subsidized properties, and how to better use HousingCleveland.org.   There are big changes in how homeless people access shelter and permanent supportive housing, and we will have the agency responsible for these programs present.  You must send in or drop off your reservation (with payment) at 3631 Perkins Ave. Suite #3A-3, Cleveland, Ohio 44114.

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Golden Week and Early Voting Curtailed

We the people of Ohio have to wonder what is the reason that we are not allowed to vote in the evening in person?  If government is supposed to act more like the business world then why are they not filling the demand for weekend and evening voting?   These were all busy times for early voting in Cuyahoga Counties and other urban centers.  Government should respond to the needs of its citizens--not force the people to meet the needs of employees of rural boards of elections.   In another example of fixing a problem that does not exist,  Secretary of State Husted has decided to limit early in person voting to consistent hours throughout the state.

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New Street Voices Video Posted on the Site

Sheri West is one of our Street Voices Speakers, and available to come out to a church, synagogue or civic organization to talk about her experiences.  She had a rough marriage and wound up in a women's shelter.  She is stable now with a job and housing, but had to endure a year of trauma.   We have a profile of Sheri on our website here. 

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Five Years After Recovery Act: Cleveland Homeless Better Off

This week was the anniversary of the American Recovery Act signed into law to clean up the mess that Wall Street made of our economy.  The lax regulations of big banks and the unregulated housing market corrupted the financial industry.  A lot of ink has been spilled to complain that the ACA was a giant boondoggle because we still have a relatively high unemployment rate.  I don't know about the other areas of the ACA, but I can say that it was a life saver for homeless people in Cleveland. 

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New Street Chronicle Available Now

Cleveland Street Chronicle Issue #21.1 is now on the streets.  The vendors are very happy because the Winter festival on West 25th St. is today.  They have new content to distribute to shoppers of the West Side Market and the businesses over on the Near West Side.  They have become a staple over there even appearing in the history book documenting the first 100 years of the institution.

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Permanent Supportive Housing Featured on WCPN

David C. Barnett had a nice story on WCPN yesterday regarding the new permanent supportive housing projects.  We appreciated hearing from a resident "Joan" who lived at one of the apartments.  We know many people who have been on the streets for years living in these properties.   We have a former vendor who has a huge issue with alcohol living in the Broadway neighborhood.   His former residence was a tent next to the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. 

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National Homeless Updates

Barb Poppe Stepping down at InterAgency Council
Our friend, Barb Poppe, from Columbus Ohio former shelter director and current US InterAgency Council on Homelessness has announced that she will step down next month.  She is the wife of COHHIO Director, Bill Faith and was the coordinator of funding in Columbus Ohio for years.  The InterAgency Council publishes reports on homelessness and was the first agency to push a housing first strategy.  They also have a really nice newsletter.  Barb put her stamp on the agency by focusing on the rise in family homelessness and beginning to talk about the problem of youth homelessness.  The InterAgency Council is supposed to work with all the federal departments (Social Security, HHS, HUD, Labor and others) that may have cross agency concerns with homeless people.

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A Few Quick Updates

CWRU Civic Engagement Conference and Learning Center along with the InterReligious Task Force on Central America had their 14th Annual Teach In conference on a cold snowy day in February.  I was one of the presenters regarding homelessness in Cleveland.  It was amazing how many students came out to participate.  Sarah Kalloch of Oxfam and Dr. Rhonda Williams of CWRU Social Justice Institute were the two keynote speakers for the conference.   100,000 Homes Campaign was featured on 60 Minutes on Sunday February 9.  It was a nice piece on the savings for the community in providing housing before wasting time with services.

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Social Security Administration Delays Changes

Since the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle offices do not seem to have access to the internet or the E-verify system, we have no idea how they are going to deal with this problem of the Social Security Administration not providing a print out.  This is a huge problem for homeless people which are regularly having their important documents taken or they get lost with all the movement in and out of housing and shelter.  We are still waiting for a response from the Ohio BMV. 

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Housekeeping on the Website

On this cold wintry day in Cleveland, we have made some changes in the website.  We posted Don's message about the Street Voices program on the front of our website.  We moved the Homeless Memorial Video to the In Memoriam page of our website.   Brent has created a channel for NEOCH on You Tube here, which has four videos currently available.  We have added a gallery of pictures from the Homeless Stand Down 2014.  We know that over 1,400 people attended the Stand Down this year despite the horrible snow storm on January 25, 2014.

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Don Messitt Promotes Street Voices Program

Brent is going to post short promotional videos with our Street Voices presenters.  The first video is of long time speaker, Don Messitt, who talks about the value of this program to break stereotypes.   You can schedule a speaker by calling Ken at 432-0540 ext. 106 or by going to the Street Voices Section of our website.  We are hoping to schedule more engagements in the next year, and we will post all the videos on our website.

To View the Video Go Here...
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