Housing 101 Workshop

We are working to increase the number of case workers using this affordable housing website in Cuyahoga County.  So, we are offering a training to attempt to increase usage in the program.  We are offering social work CEUs for those who need the continuing education credits.  We ask that you RSVP if you are planning on attending this event. 

Housing 101 Workshop

Friday March 22, 2013

10 a.m .to 1 p.m.

At NEOCH

This workshop is directed at staff working with very low income and homeless people including social workers, case workers and advocates.  Our goal is to encourage more case workers signed up to use the Special needs functions of HousingCleveland.org.  We will have presenters from the Cleveland Tenants Organization, Housing Cleveland, EDEN Inc., the Housing Center, and the Dept. of Veteran Affairs. 

Upcoming Affordable Housing Meetings

Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance Meeting features a focus on Public Housing and Vouchers for the March 4, 2013 meeting.  Then in April two County offices look at Homelessness and Housing Development activities and finally Bill Faith from COHHIO will present at the May meeting.  All are welcome to attend to learn more about affordable housing locally.

CAHA is always the first Monday of the month unless there is a federal holiday.  It is hosted by HUD at 1350 Euclid Ave.

Brian Davis

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Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance Meeting

The next meeting of the Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance will take place January 7, 2013 at 1:30 p.m. at the local HUD offices.  The meeting is in the US Bank building at 1350 Euclid Ave. in the lower level.  This next meeting will be a graduate level symposium on affordable housing taught by one of the local deans of building and managing property. 

Kathy Kazol retiring director of EDEN Inc. will discuss lessons learned in the development of affordable housing.  EDEN began as a small group working to house those with a mental illness, but has grown to oversee the Shelter Plus Care program, manage the Permanent Supportive Housing projects and even owning the buildings containing homeless shelters.  She will give an overview of the growth of her organization and her hopes for the next few years.  Kazol will talk about how these deals are put together to preserve and expand affordable housing locally.  She will give an overview of her recommendations for policy changes that we could advocate in order to improve the condition for expanding affordable housing. 

Brian Davis

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Don't Miss the Editorial in the New York Times

On the day we find out that our own local paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is planning to fade deeper into obscurity by laying off another few dozen reporters, the New York Times had a wonderful editorial about the sad state of affordable housing in America.  We have copied it for posterity on our member site (need a login as a member to access our member site.) Here is how the New York Times characterized it as:

These programs provide decent housing for about only a quarter of the low-income families who qualify for them. And with nearly nine million households teetering on the verge of homelessness, the country clearly needs more support for affordable housing, not less.

This is the basis for the affordable housing crisis in America that the New York Times references.  They make two solid recommendations that we certainly have advocated at the national level.  Those include funding the National Housing Trust in order to preserve and expand housing and the Affordable Housing Self Sufficiency Improvement Act which would allow major cost savings in the current programs.  The National Housing Trust is the single most important piece of legislation that needs some funding as soon as possible.  The trust was created, but with the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had no funding.  There are a few problems with the current AHSSIA bill, but the core legislation is solid and deserves passage.  From a city that saw 64,000 people apply for a housing voucher in 2011 and only 10,000 names were selected, Cleveland is the prime example of why we need additional resources for the Housing Authority and for private non-profits to develop new opportunities for low income workers to move out of the shelters. Most of the affordable housing waiting lists in Cleveland are 5 to 7 years long.  Paying the emergency housing costs of all of those individuals including food, shelter, and the additional health care costs is a lot more than the cost of providing a housing voucher. 

Brian Davis

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One Million Searches

NEOCH is co-administrator of the website, Housingcleveland.org along with 211/First Call for Help.  This affordable housing website contains around 2,000 available units.  Last week we reached a milestone with over 1 million searches having been conducted over the last year.  There were over 140,000 unique users who conducted these searches.  We had been getting close to the one million mark at the end of the year, but did not reach it until last Wednesday March 28, 2012.  Here are some statistics on Housing Cleveland.org.  We need to congratulate all the organizations including the City and County who met eight years ago to find the funding for the site.  We have now gone over one million searches over the last 12 months and more than 3.25 searches since the site went live in 2005.  We could not have done it without Nina, Meghan, and Van at Social Serve.com who manage the site along with the housing search websites in over 30 states.  This is an amazing service for the community and a tremendous deal for the community.  For under $30,000 per year, we get the website, a call center, and special needs functions for case workers to use in the community.  Your tax dollars at work helping people find housing in our community.

Brian Davis

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