Housing Justice
Housing is a Human Right
4/22/25: Today I attended a downtown Cleveland rally outside the County HQ, sponsored by four groups, (1) NEOCH, (2) the Fair Housing Center, (3) the Northeast Ohio Black Health, and (4) the Cuyahoga County Jail Coalition, and the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition. I’ll cover each group and their conribution below in turn. Channel Five was there from start to finish and ran this story.
(1) NEOCH, the local group that combats homelessness and is part of the national Housing Now movement, which annually has events aroung now done by the National Coalition Against Homelessness (and see FB for video of yesterday in DC). In 1989, while working for a housing justice movement agency in PA, we organized our workers and clients to go to DC for one of the annual rallies. The Trump administtation can try to cut the funding for these groups, but they are part of a movement which will fight back. It seems to me local governments should find a way to ensure they can continue their work. An inspiring young housing organizer spoke representing NEOCH abd delivered the following remarks:
Housing NOW! Day of Action. There are some items on the agenda today that I’d like to highlight:
- The County is set to authorize a contract with Cleveland Housing Network tonight: over $800,000 (in the next 2 years) in Down Payment Assistance for eligible home buyers. -
- They’re awarding nearly 10 million dollars to community-based organizations like Catholic Charities, CMHA, the Centers, and others.
- Frontline will be funded to run Coordinated Intake until February 2027. These are victories!
But another proposed $4.8 million will go toward the Justice Center Complex Project, though. Executive Ronayne is asking Council tonight to extend an already 6 year contract another 4 years - and another 5 million dollars. This just as Executive Ronayne moves to borrow another $40 million for our $1 billion jail. I mention this all as a microcosm of the County’s priorities. The money we see going toward housing and human services isn’t insignificant - it’s just miniscule in comparison to our investment in the “justice” system.
Some Councilmembers are trying to rein in this spending. Sunny Simon, Michael Gallagher and Michael Houser have introduced legislation that would effectively disband the Downtown Safety Patrol unit of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office. Last month, what started as a traffic stop for tinted windows turned into a high speed chase that ended in two civilian deaths. 24 year old Nigel Perry died in his car, swallowed by flames. 48 year old Tamya Westmoreland’s car flew off of the interstate, dropping 40 feet. She died in the hospital two weeks later. The Downtown Safety Patrol unit costs us about $1.2 million dollars a year. All that money and still the patrol officers didn’t have working fire extinguishers in their car - let alone supervisor permission to engage in a high-speed chase. These deputies remain on regular duty as the investigation proceeds. We put millions of our dollars toward policing. We give units like the Downtown Safety Patrol the ability to engage in high-speed pursuits for minor crimes.
We might not have laws that criminalize homelessness in the explicit ways seen in other cities, but it is still obvious that we prioritize HANDCUFFS over HOUSING. The County faces a $25 million budget deficit. It’s no small amount to make up. And the changes they’re considering tonight are just an indicator of County priorities. We the people operate with less than we need all the time - a power deficit. We pay our taxes and cast our votes and wait for the government to decide where the money will go. And it’s disheartening, doing the work that we do and living the lives that we live, to see Executive Ronanyne move to borrow another $40 million to build a new jail.
This is borrowing against all of our futures. It's an investment of our hard-earned money into a jail complex, into mass incarceration, into militarized policing. And with our limited budget, it’s a conscious disinvestment in housing and health. These are 40 million dollars we are committed to spend on a jail - in addition to the 1 billion already allocated. These are $40 million plus $1 billion dollars we won’t be spending on housing the homeless or alternatives to police response or stabilizing Cleveland’s families.
But we’ve made an investment, too. It might not be millions of dollars, but it’s a commitment to each other, to our community. It’s a commitment to keep fighting for housing as a human right. It’s a commitment to solidarity over division. It’s a commitment to keep up the work even when government shows it’s not a priority. Because what we lack in capital, we make up for in mutual aid. Our stories fuel us. Our belief in what’s possible carries us through. And community organizing can help us realize those possibilities. We’re building a powerful campaign right now to advocate for Fair Chance Housing ordinances, policies that limit housing providers’ ability to consider criminal records when selecting a tenant. We’re educating and empowering our neighbors to organize around the changes they want to see in their own buildings. We’re angling for Source of Income protections that would make it illegal for a landlord or property management to discriminate against anyone based on their legal income source - be it voucher, pension, childsupport or other subsidy. Because housing is a human right.
We know these changes are possible because they’re happening in communities all around us. With intention and engagement, we can have a hand in shaping political will. Without action, we’ll remain low on the list of priorities. We each have a voice. We each have our own strengths, talents, connections. We each bring a unique lived experience to the table. And even when those in power ignore us, especially then, we can’t ignore each other. Thank you for being here today and showing your solidarity. We demand housing NOW, not funding cuts, tickets, or shiny new jails. We demand policies that prioritize a stable roof over everyone’s head. Everyone.
(2) The Fair Housing Center in Cleveland, formally named the Housing Research & Advocacy Center, is a member of the National Fair Housing Alliance. Kris Keniray, Associate Director, delivered informative remarks about the state of fair housing in the area. Kris’s remarks follow:
Hi, all. I’m Kris Keniray. I’m here on behalf of The Fair Housing Center. We are here today in coalition on this National Day of Action, to uplift housing as a human right, to call for more housing, not less housing, to affirm that no human is illegal and that transgender people exist, and to support a vision for a future where we ensure safe, accessible, and affordable housing for all people. At The Fair Housing Center, we work to educate the community on their fair housing rights and responsibilities. We work one-on-one with members of the community to address their individual fair housing needs. We rely on the law in our work to protect folks from eviction, to stabilize housing, and to get folks in to housing they would otherwise be denied.
Less than 2 months ago, on February 27th, The Fair Housing Center, along with dozens of other nonprofit civil rights organizations like us, received letters by email sent after 8 o’clock at night, telling us that our federal fair housing grants - grants we rely heavily on to support the important work we do and services we provide to the community - were terminated, effective immediately. Our office had two grants terminated in this manner, a general community education and outreach grant and a specialized education and outreach grant intended to “advance racial equity.” These were grants that HUD had invited proposals on, we had applied for in a competitive application process, been selected to perform, and were working on under grant agreements in accordance with the proposals they chose to fund.
The termination letters stated: “The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), at the direction of the President of the United States pursuant to the Executive Order 14158, “Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’”, and at the direction of said Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), issues this notice of termination according to 2 CFR 200 subpart D. This notice serves to inform Housing Research & Advocacy Center that HUD intends to terminate the subject award effective February 27, 2025.”
And went on to say: “HUD is terminating this award because it no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.” That line has become a familiar refrain for federal grantees with grants from the Department of Education, to the National Institute of Health, and more. The Fair Housing Center and 3 other agencies filed suit against HUD and DOGE in federal court and sought certification by the court to proceed as a class action with all the impacted organizations. The court initially granted a Temporary Restraining Order, or TRO, to prohibit the termination of these active grants under which we were all performing work requested and approved by HUD with funds Congress appropriated for the purpose of fair housing. In the TRO, HUD was ordered to “immediately restore plaintiffs to the preexisting status quo by reinstating any Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) grants terminated by means of the February 27, 2025 Termination Letter.” So our grants got turned back on. But then, in a matter of weeks, following a Supreme Court ruling in another case, HUD called upon the court to dissolve the TRO and the judge did so.
We are still pursuing this matter in the courts, but we are back to waiting and wondering now whether we will be able to continue our important work at a time when housing is as important as it ever was.
We don’t believe the people want us to stop protecting their civil rights in housing.
We don’t believe the people want students, immigrants, or their neighbors snatched off the streets to be deported or imprisoned abroad.
We don’t believe the people want mixed status households to be forced out of their homes or out of this country.
We don’t believe the people want folks with disabilities and older adults to live in fear that their social security or Medicare will be cut.
We don’t believe the people want funding cuts to domestic violence shelters.
We don’t believe the people want to deny the existence of, threaten or harass transgender people.
We don’t believe the people want HUD to stop enforcing the fair housing rights of LGBTQ+ people.
We don’t believe the people want it to be a crime to be unhoused or to need to use the restroom.
We don’t believe the people want fewer employees working at HUD, providing essential public services and supporting our affordable housing programs, our emergency shelters, our Community Development Block Grant programs, our Lead Hazard Control Program which aims to prevent childhood lead poisoning, the Federal Housing Administration which underwrites home mortgages and increases access to homeownership for lower income homebuyers, or fair housing!
We believe that the people want reliable and affordable healthcare.
We believe the people want public education.
We believe the people want safe and affordable housing.
We believe the people want clean air and environmental justice.
We believe the people want to be able to afford their rent or their mortgage AND the food they put on the table.
We believe the people want diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We believe the people want accessibility.
We believe the people want more housing, more resources, more support and more human dignity.
That’s why we’re here to call for Housing NOW! [END]
(3) The Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition. The purpose of the groups is: “NEO Black Health Coalition’s vision is to achieve health parity (equality) in the African American/Black population. To create equity in the African American community addressing the cumulative health impact of racial, economic, environmental and social justice inequities in education, employment, housing and health by working to educate, advocate for and empower the community.” Its Executive Director, Yvonka Hall, MPA, gave remarks but no transcript is available at this time.
(4) The Cuyahoga County Jail Coalition, which my mentor and friend Ed McKinney long supported for its work for justice for those caught up on the county jail system. Evan O’Reilly spoke and the text of his talk is important not just for the Cleveland area but nationally as county jails are in crisis nationally due to growing us of huge corporations who contract to provide health services and food services to jails, the subject of one scandal after another. His remarks:
“Hello everyone, I am Evan O’Reilly, here representing the Cuyahoga County Jail Coalition. Since 2018, we have organized across our community to promote more holistic and humane approaches to public safety while confronting the abuses and neglect at our County Jail that have led to the deaths of 31 people since 2018, as well as the deep socioeconomic disparities that drive our system of mass incarceration. Homelessness is without a doubt among them. Today marks the anniversary of the Grant’s Pass case being introduced to the US Supreme Court, unfortunately a major landmark in our progression towards a society in which we try to solve all of our social problems through incarceration. According to a February report by the Prison Policy Institute, approximately 205,000 unhoused people are booked into local jails every year across this country, representing a little over 25% of the estimated total population of unhoused people. Although unhoused people are significantly less likely to be charged with violent offenses than the broader population, on average they are more likely to be booked multiple times a year and for longer stays. Advocates like those gathered here today have long argued that incarceration only perpetuates the struggles of people struggling with homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, and mental illness. A pernicious cliche has endured in our society that jailing unhoused people serves as a form of respite from the streets by providing “2 hots and a cot”. But the reality of deplorable conditions in our local jails reveal the absurdity of this outlook.
I want to uplift specific stories of a few community members who died in our county jail. In 2020, Lea Rayshawn Daye, a black trans woman, was found unresponsive in her cell at only 28 years old. Lea had spent the last 105 days of her life in the County Jail, after being booked at the 2100 Men’s Shelter after getting into a fight. Because Cuyahoga County lacked a reliable shelter that was safe for trans women, Lea was bullied and threatened by others at the men’s shelter and allegedly defended herself by throwing a brick. She was arrested and then taken to the men’s section of the jail for the rest of her life.
After her death, her mother found a letter she had written detailing the unsanitary and alarming conditions she experienced. She wrote that the food was cold, smelled bad, tasted like cleaning chemicals, and that the portions they served to inmates were too small.. “I think a six year old would [eat] more than that,” she wrote.
She describe that the jail failed to do inmates' laundry and provided no supplies so the inmates could clean their cells. Lea passed away from an apparent fentanyl overdose, and her cellmate was charged with manslaughter for her death, although the extensive availability of fentanyl within the jail is due to institutional corruption.
Last year, two more community members who had struggled with homelessness died in our County Jail, Fred Maynard, who was 60, and Glen Williams, Jr., who was 39. Glen had complained of chest pain for several days and been ignored by jail staff before collapsing in January of last year. He laid on the ground for 9 minutes before anyone administered CPR and was declared dead of a ruptured aorta. Fred Maynard was a double amputee who choked to death on a peanut butter sandwich within hours of being booked at the jail while staff watched. Recent reporting by the Marshall Project on their two deaths has revealed that jail staff are not receiving adequate training in how to handle medical emergencies at all.
These stories really only scratch the surface of the issues in a facility that has claimed the lives of two more people in just this last month, Jennifer Wade and Nathan Kinney, amidst additional reports that there has been a massive outbreak of legionaire’s disease among inmates and staff due to bacterial contamination of the water supply. The perpetual drum of deaths and other crises in county custody speak to deep institutional problems with training and management that the County has failed to resolve for decades. It is a policy choice to treat people this way and hold them under these conditions, and jail is no replacement for community services, safe shelters, and paths to housing for people living on the streets of our community.
Fortunately in Cuyahoga County, we have been lucky to have a robust ecosystem of nonprofits that cater to the needs of our unhoused population, as well as organizations like NEOCH that also advocate for their dignity and rights. Unfortunately, the funding for many of these resources is under threat due to cuts to HUD and other federal agencies under the Trump administration, which has never made any pretense of caring for the less fortunate in our society.
Meanwhile, our county is pushing ahead with a plan to construct a new County Jail in Garfield Heights to the tune of $889 million, funded by a sales tax that was extended in such a way as to deliberately exclude the opinions of voters. While we have been collaborative with the county as they attempt to develop a plan for a more humane facility with access to robust wrap around services, we cannot help but wonder if this new building represents a proper use of funds during a time of fiscal crisis, especially when the problems with the current facility cannot be blamed on its construction or location.
We are calling on County Officials to consider rescinding the legislation that restricted the use of the sales tax to only capital expenses related to the new Jail project. The impending funding cuts could be partly made up using his money, and ensure that there is a continuity of care and resources for our most vulnerable community members, including the unhoused. This will help prevent more stories like Lea Daye’s, Glen Williams, and Fred Maynard’s.
This is about the priorities we set as a county, and making the affirmative choice to center people’s basic needs. Investing in more incarceration when the foundations of our social services are being yanked out from underneath us will leave us in the long tea3½rm with incarceration as the only robustly funded and reliable tool for dealing with our housing crisis, which is sure to be exacerbated by economic downturns over the next few years.
It is my sincere hope that the County will choose to prioritize compassionate care in this hour of urgency, and see that we have options that will prevent that future from coming to pass. By prudently redirecting the use of funding sources that have already been created, we can maintain the health and safety of our community and weather the storm together. Together, we set the floor for how we treat our neighbors, and how we deploy our shared resources to uplift and protect the most vulnerable. We cannot allow the Trump administration to smash that floor out from underneath us all, and we don’t have to. Thank you.
4/22:25: See WAPO gift on how the Dems led public housing decline. 4/9/25: See the New Deal Forum’s new initiative. See my 4/22/25 entry under The Opposition for an account of today’s rally downtown for housing justice.
Introduction: Over the years, I supervised dozens of policy briefs related to housing policy. Also, for two years full-time 1975-76, I was a housing organizer in the Chelsea section of NYC, and continued after than to help organize tenants through the Chelsea Coalition on Housing. In 2021, I was an activist in Cleveland with the anti-eviction organizing of DSA, which also did some tenant organizing as well, although I was not involved in that. I recently read this interesting article in the Washington Post (one of my 10 gift links this month). It is about “co-living” facilities, where dozens of roommates team-up. Sort of the individual equivalent of “co-housing” developments. At the recent The Case for Cities event at the City Club, about the book of the same name, and by the way a book with two chapters on housing policy, in discussion afterward someone mentioned to me that some people advocate the value of changing zoning and development policies to eliminate rigid requirements for parking. This seemed to me to make a lot of sense, especially for development near public transit! But even in neighborhoods, given the fact there more and more bikers and people who ride scooters and so forth.
I have long wondered, as well, about why we do not see a revival of settlement houses in Cleveland. Why wouldn’t young people these days want to move to an urban area like I did and get involved in neighborhood improvement and development? Now, some might say that moving a few dozen “unwashed hippies”—just to hark back to a previous eras prejudices—into a neighborhood might hurt its traditional single family or duplex home tradition! That issue is addressed with another article I would like to recommend, which sits on my kitchen table, all marked up and highlighted, and which I consider essential reading on housing policy.
That is this Atlantic gift share of Yoni Applebaum’s How Progressives Froze the American Dream: The U.S. was once the world’s most geographically mobile society. Now we’re stuck in place—and that’s a very big problem. Focused squarely on a critique of zoning policies, it showed how our current policies discourage mobility, and we need to re-think them from the bottom up. Back in the day, when “hostels” were more available, you could always at least count on travelling to a big city and staying in a hostel. But that is temporary. The idea of co-living facilities, which presumably would have lots of turnover, would provide a longer-term ability to move to a city when you decide at the last minute to take a job or go to school.
There is also this gift Atlantic article on a solution to LA’s Housing Crisis. This is yet another “beat” with no linked Zotero bibliography, but I should be able to solve that over time. But it appears that not only my inner journalist, but my inner public policy wonk is coming out. I must need a real job! Seriously, this retirement thing is a ruse. But I think that advocacy for zoning changes that would ensure the ability to establish “co-living” houses would be really cool! It would be one step towards a more radical approach to housing policy, such as that recently published by the DSA Housing Commission. One, two, many co-housing, co-living and settlement houses in every major city would I think be a wonderful thing!