When the shelter at 2100 Lakeside was being planned it was supposed to be the solution for the overflow of men utilizing project "HEAT". Now 2100 Lakeside, the over flow shelter solution, needs a solution of its’ own to ease the consistently "over capacity" number of men seeking shelter and a meal at the facility.

The original plan for 2100 Lakeside, according to Phil Mason, Social Service Administrator at the Salvation Army headquarters, called for shelter "for approximately 120-150 beds, and that number was upped at the opening to 200 beds."

However, Bette Meyer, Deputy County Administrator, said that they had a contract with The Salvation Army that specified a 350-person capacity plus 25 personnel. "From early on though, Mason stated, the shelter was operating at over capacity numbers and because of their compassion for the homeless. The Salvation Army allowed the over crowdedness to endure."

On an average night the number of men using the facility was at 424, but on some nights up to 510 men would utilize the shelter. Early this January however, they made some changes and imposed a strict 410-person limit to the number of men seeking shelter there. Once the beds were taken the rest of the men would lie on mats on the hard floor or sit in chairs all night. Most were happy to be out of the cold weather.

A staff person who wished not to be identified at the Lakeside shelter told us they were given a couple weeks notice prior to the implementation of the 410 imposed limit. The staff tried to verbally inform as many clients as possible before hand that they might need to find other arrangements, yet written notice was not posted. All of a sudden long lines formed in early January outside the shelter hours before their doors opened and people were being turned away. This had never happened before and many of the clients were at a loss given either little or no notice to find other sleeping or meal arrangements.

This also made it difficult for some of the regular clients who worked second shift and were usually guaranteed a bed. In January things changed and by the time they got off work, later in the evening, the shelter was already at the 410-person limit. Some of the men who were turned away complained that they had to sleep in hospital waiting rooms or the lobbies of apartment buildings to keep warm and dry. Others said that they used RTA shelters or took up residence in dangerous abandoned buildings. Some of the men who use the facility less frequently did not know about the new policy and were left out in the cold.

Mason explained that the decision was not meant to hurt the homeless men or put them at risk but said, "the Salvation Army is being made to comply with legal counsel and risk management that forbids us from operating at over capacity levels from now on." He said they were worried about fire and safety risks for the men. One of the men responded by saying that if given the choice of their safety inside the shelter or outside in freezing temperatures, they’d take their chances inside the shelter.

Davis also met with Larry Goodman and John Ansbro from the Salvation Army. Goodman is the new director for 2100 Lakeside. In the meeting they discussed a temporary reprieve or short-term solution to the over crowdedness so that men wouldn’t be turned away during the cold weather and face possible death due to exposure on the streets at night. It was thought the problem was solved with this meeting, but men continued to be turned away the following week.

As a result of the sit in demonstration, NEOCH, the resident committee, the County and the Salvation Army struck a deal to prevent the men from being turned away.

As it stands at least until April, when 2100 Lakeside reaches its’ legal limit instead of turning people away they will be transported to other facilities. The Salvation Army shelter took most of the overflow from 2100 Lakeside shelter in a deal in which the County would pay a set amount for each person over the legal capacity. A staff person at Lakeside said that approximately 50 men were being moved into other programs.

· Rapid assessment of current client needs

· Reduction of the population at 2100 Lakeside

· Placement of current residents into more appropriate housing or shelter

· Engaging long term homeless into services and permanent housing in the community

The critical question that the group attempted to answer was: "How can your system/agency help?"

The City of Cleveland believes that the best way to reduce the current overcrowded conditions at 2100 Lakeside is to reduce the number of persons living there on a long-term basis. Bill Resseger of the City of Cleveland Department of Community Development stated that "the shelters were never intended as permanent housing for the chronically homeless. The optimal use of limited public resources is to assist the community-based partners in developing additional supportive housing resources rather than creating an ever expanding shelter system that warehouses people on a permanent basis." "To that end, the City of Cleveland is proposing to allocate $1 million from the 2002-2003 Consolidated Plan budget to use specifically for the development of supportive housing.

They do believe also that the inadequate physical condition of the Downtown Women’s shelter requires immediate attention and are proposing an additional $500,000 allocation toward an improved facility."

In addition, the City is strongly in support of efforts to involve the full spectrum of housing and service providers in both the following goals:

1)Helping those currently residing at 2100 Lakeside to find suitable permanent housing along with the services they need and

2) Assuring that agencies with responsibilities for the housing needs of their clients do not view 2100 Lakeside as an acceptable permanent housing alternative.

At the County level Deputy Administrator Bette Meyer had even more positive changes in store for 2100 Lakeside. Steps are going to be put into place to contract with Mental Health services Inc. and the Alcohol and Drug Services board to put services on site. They are also looking into benefits such as food stamps and other assistance that can be put on site.

A follow up committee was formed to handle the necessary action items, which were:

1) Profile of current population to better understand their needs

2) Provisions for alcohol and drug assistance at the shelter

3) Intake or assessment of all incoming clients

Meyers also said, "We hope that the shelter is a first step for the men to get them to wherever they need to be. There needs to be resources plugged in for the men to do whatever they need to do to get them into permanent housing." Her observation is, "that in the last year not as much attention was being paid to that as closely as it should have been and that’s probably why there’s so many men there. The way they see in controlling the numbers is to help the men to move on to permanent options and we think that that’s a good outcome."

If the numbers haven’t been reduced by then, the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County will need to develop an emergency plan to head off the potential emergency.

Back to menu

by Tim Schwab

Cathy Brown meets me in the Grapevine office. She’s dressed well in business casual with bright tawny hair and sufficient makeup, all of which give her a professional demeanor. Later I find out that her entire outfit is from the thrift store.

Before the questions had started, Cathy had already begun telling her life story. She was chatting with another Grapevine vendor about their experiences living on the street, and the circumstances which pushed each of them to homelessness at an early age.

As I talk with Cathy I’m impressed with her openness, and with her self-honesty. She speaks candidly about the mistakes she’s made in life—leaving her parents’ home at too early of an age and getting involved in difficult romantic relationships.

But Cathy draws on her experiences on the streets to make suggestions about solving the problem of homelessness. Cathy believes that certain social experiences as a youth have contributed to her becoming homelessness. For this reason, she emphasizes preventative measures, such as counseling for junior high and high school students, teaching them the reality of living on the streets, and the reality of trying to make it on your own. "Kids given community service to do shouldn’t be picking up trash on the side of the road. They should be learning about homelessness and AIDS," Cathy said.

Growing up in a small town outside of Seattle, Cathy first became homeless after she left home at 18 and lost the job she had. Unaccustomed to the bright lights of Seattle, Cathy made mistakes living on the streets. She’s experienced the benefits of communal living in the Seattle homeless camps in the 1980’s, but also has dealt with the seedier, more harrowing living situations that homelessness can force on you. She talks about the difficulties of being a woman on the street: "It’s harder for a woman. A woman has more needs…It’s not like being a man. He can lay his head down anywhere. A woman’s got to be more careful."

Cathy’s been in and out of homeless shelters and camps throughout her adult life. Just three years ago she was staying in a shelter in Columbus. The last five months, however, Cathy has found some respite from life on the streets. She’s found an apartment in Cleveland and a steady, supplemental income to her disability check by selling the Grapevine.

Cathy tells me she takes her job selling the Grapevine seriously. Four times a week she sells the paper, always attired in her blue-jeans and her Grapevine t-shirt. "It’s like a uniform for me, it’s what I always work in."

Judging the homeless as being lazy or inferior is a frequent, fallacious perception among non-homelesss people, according to Cathy, and she hopes the Grapevine will help change the public’s beliefs on this matter.

Cathy warns people who have never been homeless to try to understand the complexity of homelessness. "Don’t judge people out there on the streets. You don’t know why they’re homeless. It could be your brother, mother, sister, or aunt."

Although no longer homeless, Cathy keeps in the touch with the homeless through her work with the Grapevine and her friends at the West Side Catholic Center. When asked about the resources available to the homeless here in Cleveland, she speaks highly of the Cleveland Street Card, a card available to homeless people and published by the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, which lists free health and social services for the lowest income members of Cleveland.

There are drawbacks in accessing the resources, however, because the locations of clinics and shelters are so spread out. "If you don’t have money for rent or food, how are you going to afford $1.25 for the bus every time you need to go somewhere?"

Cathy would like to see a single resource center for homeless people, which would provide all services and a shelter in the same building. Another of her recommendations is to have a separate shelter for the working homeless. Many shelters enforce early evening curfews, which prevent many homeless people from employment that requires working nights.

Today, Cathy rents out an apartment, which she shares with her cats. The Public Housing Authority previously turned down Cathy because of her pets. According to Cathy, resources for the homeless are unsympathetic to folks with pets. Cathy believes that pets provide people with important social benefits and security. She’d like to see medicare available to homeless people and their pets.

Cathy’s final suggestions on helping homelessness are preventative. She believes in helping families and children with food resources and counseling before they become homeless. Provided with good models and adequate homes, Cathy believes, young people today can break the cycle of homelessness and succeed in life.

Back to menu

I hate the use of the term "enabling" with social services. It is often an easy way to withdraw services under the guise of not coddling the individual. I do not believe that social service providers, even licensed social workers, have the ability to draw the line between providing life sustaining help and enabling a person. Often decisions around enabling a person have nothing to do with a case plan as much as a funding decision.

The alcohol and drug system is so overwhelmed with men and women in need of help that they have constructed these artificial barriers to service and labeled them tools to prevent enabling. Is it enabling to provide a person a bed away from the drug culture that permeates all of our neighborhoods and give the person some time to work through their problems with drugs? Since we woefully under fund mental health counseling, it is rare that a person addicted to drugs or alcohol will ever get to talk to a mental health professional. There are so many environmental impacts on a person that lead him to attempt to work out his issues with drugs. The childhood sexual abuse, the beatings by a parent, the torture the child endured in school, and the horror she witnessed in her neighborhood fester for years.

So I self medicate myself. There is no one to talk to, so I turn to a quick and easy fix. Are the case workers enabling me because I have found a logical way to escape these painful memories? Then I face the corrupt and broken health care system in which profit is put above people. I cannot afford medication for my non-life threatening personality disorder so I self medicate. I then have to face the reality that all the residential treatment beds in the community were bought by the corrections department. I have to commit a crime, do some time in order to get a room. Then I see that my hard work as a laborer will not even get me half the rent for an apartment.

The final insult is that some young college graduate snot nose kid comes along and asks me to leave the shelter because he does not want to enable me with the thought that abusing alcohol is permissible behavior. I just want to drive this kid to the desert and leave him with this note: "I am sorry that I took the map, the water, and all your supplies. I did not want to enable you with these crutches. There are people who have made it back to civilization in your same situation. When you get back you will have the satisfaction of knowing that no one enabled you on your journey. Good luck."

All of us are inundated with images in advertising, television, and billboards that tell us how cool it is to drink. This legal behavior of consuming alcohol that is encouraged and rewarded in pop culture is condemned within the homeless community. The cheapest, most readily available mind altering drug in the community is a capital offense in the shelters. The alternatives (mental health counseling, prescription drugs, stable housing, and family) are too expensive or not available. Is there no justice?

Social workers are fooling themselves if they think that allowing a person the dignity of sleeping inside a shelter when they are drunk is enabling. Those born into poverty or forced to endure poverty in the richest country in the history of the world are too accepting of archaic rules and phony academic theories about enabling. Homeless people too often accept termination from programs that are supposed to serve them. Homeless people do not want to rock the boat out of fear that things will only get worse. In my experience, it cannot get much worse. It is time to rise up and turn the tables on these career social workers. For too long homeless people have enabled social workers by allowing them to keep their jobs in spite of their condescending approach to serving their clients.

Homeless and low income individuals have allowed programs to exclude more people then they serve. They have allowed shelters to only serve the easiest to serve alcoholics, and they have allowed the blurring of the line between corrections and social service. The only way to correct this misguided notion is through civil disobedience at the first hint of the word "enabling." After the social service industry solves the mental health crisis, affordable housing crisis, health care crisis, and long term care crisis they can use the word enabling again. Until that time I accept that viewing the world through the rather blurry haze of a Rolling Rock is a sane way of dealing with this crazy world.

Back to menu

Now that LTV, TRW, the County, Regional Transit Authority and the City of Cleveland have laid off thousands of workers, we need to welcome some of them to our part of the world—homelessness. The first thing you need to know is how to make the program. Many of the new homeless will probably leave the city out of embarrassment, or they think there will be better job opportunities elsewhere. No matter where you are, you will have to know the program. The very first thing you will have to deal with would be your alcoholism or drug addiction. What’s that you say, you’re not addicted to anything. Well sorry; come back when you are. The programming is centered around alcohol and drugs.

Being poor and homeless is not enough to get you into a shelter. In a lot of emergency shelters, you can get in for a few days, even up to thirty sometimes. The shelters say that you don’t need to be addicted, there are very few that don’t have to claim it. The shelters make their money by working with alcoholics and addicts. If you don’t make that category, then just come back some other time. The Salvation Army shelter at 2100 Lakeside would be happy to take you for as long as you want to stay, but how long can you sleep with your shoes on. If you want a locker you got to have an addiction. Keeping both hands in your pockets wouldn’t be a bad idea either, even for a little bit of change.

Please don’t mind the mentally handicapped, as they make up about 60 % of the population. No one seems to be doing anything for them, so when you need something yourself, know what the answer is ahead of time. Counselors are there for the same reason as anyone else who has a job. They need pay checks. Usually the newer ones come in with some gusto, but lose that after dealing with the true addicts, or mentally handicapped. The games that they play are very petty, but can suck up any resources that should rightfully go to someone trying to find work.

When dealing with the shelter staff, you will quickly realize that they are generally not nice people, except when they are talking to their employer. If you feel like you have been wronged in any type of way, the best thing to do would be just smile and walk away. You have the right to file a grievance that most shelters offer, but definitely watch your back from there. People are sometimes awakened in the middle of the night and told they have to leave with no recourse whatsoever. The first thing to mind would be violence or the threat of violence. That will give them more reason to make you leave.

Remember, even though the shelters go through hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, and the money is meant for them to help you. They will be very swift in telling you that your staying there for free, so you need to get with the program.

Back to menu

The Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies (OACAA) released in January a new statistical analysis documenting that the recession is causing widespread human suffering in the state of Ohio. In its fourth annual State of Poverty report, OACAA reported that over one-fifth of Ohio’s preschool children are poor, with this fraction rising because of continuing job losses. It can only be deduced that the total number of poor children exceeds 20%, since all Ohio counties have poor families who receive no public assistance.

The analysis was conducted by George Zeller, senior researcher for the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland (CEOGC), the community action agency serving Cuyahoga County. Zeller points out that income inequality is still rising in Ohio. Incomes rapidly soared during the last 14 years among every one of Ohio’s 15 richest communities where average incomes range between $85,000 and $208,0000. Conversely, incomes fell at the same time in 14 of the state’s 15 poorest communities, where average incomes range between $21, 000 and $27,0000.

Despite the good 1990’s economy prior to the current recession, the average taxpayer’s income fell during the last 14 years in almost all of Ohio’s urban centers, including Lima, Toledo, Cleveland, Dayton, Mansfield, Youngstown, Warren, Springfield, Akron, Zanesville, Lorain, Canton, Elyria, Middlefield, and Hamilton. Income increases of 8.6% in Cincinnati and 1.0% in Columbus were the only positive exceptions. Incomes stood still in Steubenville.

In addition to growing inequality, for the first time in history Ohio’s economy suffered from job growth below the national average for six consecutive years between 1991 and 2001. Ohio’s slow job growth rate is now worsening as the economy rapidly shrinks. New claims for unemployment insurance soared in Ohio counties during 2001 by 44%, the fastest rate of worker layoffs the state has experienced since 1980.

Ohio’s economy was in a recession and the state lost jobs throughout 2001. Several sections of Ohio entered the recession during the latter months of 2000, with six counties losing jobs throughout 2000 and 2001. Virtually the entire state is suffering from economic decline.

Cash welfare caseloads declined sharply during all months of the recession in Ohio. Poor families on public assistance lost their cash benefits even as their communities lost jobs. Statewide in Ohio, 72% of all poor children on public assistance no longer receive even a penny of cash assistance.

According to Phil Cole, executive director of the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies (OACAA), "The best way out of poverty for a family is a good job that pays a living wage. It clearly is alarming that instead of employment growth we are now seeing huge jumps in unemployment claims, job losses, and recession. This means that poverty is growing as incomes fall in our state. It is time for us to assist the victims of the recession, who are suffering today."

Other key findings include:

¨ For the first time since World War II, Ohio’s poor face a dramatically negative economy without a safety net. Ohio’s three-year time limits for cash welfare expired in October for most recipients, just as the economic recession gathered steam.

¨ Ohio’s official monthly measures of employment completely missed the impact of the recession, and will be downwardly revised early this year to reflect an additional unmeasured loss of 100,000 Ohio jobs. Ohio’s official unemployment figures, which changed little during most of 2001 despite zooming unemployment claims, also failed to detect the recession in a timely manner.

¨ The report notes that public policy should begin assisting low-income victims of the current recession. Steps normally taken to assist the jobless during recessions have not been implemented. The state has been in recession for over a year without such policy responses.

Back to menu