CLEVELAND — For years, News 5 has been following through on the child placement crisis and the efforts to address the problem.
Friday morning was the groundbreaking ceremony for The Centers H.O.P.E. Campus (Healing Opportunities Partnership Empowerment) as it begins the third and final phase of its capital project.
It has been taking shape since early 2023 at the former Cleveland Christian Home at 11401 Lorain Avenue on the city’s West Side.
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The H.O.P.E. Campus is part of Cuyahoga County's solution to the child placement crisis, a problem not just at home but across the nation.
It is working to increase residential treatment beds after hundreds were lost over the last decade in Cuyahoga County.
That loss has led to children with the highest needs experiencing delays in access to care and suitable housing.
“These are our kids," said Eric Morse, president and CEO of The Centers. "These are our community’s kids, and I feel like we as a community we have a responsibility to try and fix that problem. If we don’t take care of these issues now these kids are going to struggle when they’re adults.”
The groundbreaking is the latest chapter in the work to build better futures for children with complex needs not being met by the system.
Morse said that the H.O.P.E. Campus restructures those systems for better outcomes.
It is a collaboration with the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services, Juvenile Court, the Board of Development Disabilities, ADAMHS Board, and more than a dozen other community partners.
The county and The Centers will staff the welcome center for the H.O.P.E. Campus.
"As kids come in, the goal is to try and get them back home or try to get them in kinship care," said Morse, talking about their rapid reunification team. "And if we have some clinicians who are working to solve whatever the issues are that may be getting in the way, we’re hopeful that we can prevent kids from coming into the system at all.”
He says there will be several community partners with office space at The Centers' H.O.P.E. Campus, which can help triage, assess, and provide treatment for the child or family.
News 5 has brought you to the campus multiple times over the past two and a half years, reporting on the progress of transforming the 125-year-old building.
Including the opening of emergency bed space in early 2023.
RELATED: Short-term, emergency bed space for teens in crisis opens
To then newly-elected Cuyahoga County executive Chris Ronayne announcing the creation of the child wellness campus on site late that year.
RELATED: Cuyahoga County partners with The Centers for new Child Wellness Campus
We returned Friday as The H.O.P.E. Campus currently houses 16 children and builds towards welcoming 50.
There are six newly renovated wings that each can house upwards of eight to 10 children and serve a special population.
"We are on what will be the all-girls intensive therapeutic unit,” said Dawnya Underwood, executive director of The Centers H.O.P.E. Campus. "I would say impacted by either trafficking or having been vulnerable to trafficking.”
Spaces are designed to be safe and secure but still warm and welcoming, Underwood said.
She said everything from the paint color to layout to daily schedules are chosen to help reduce trauma.
"This is where their hope is restored and where they begin to heal," said Underwood.
As previously reported, the placement crisis has also led to extended stays at the county's Department of Job and Family Services Jane Edna Hunter Building in Downtown Cleveland, which has caused staff to raise safety concerns for themselves and the children.
"We've made tremendous improvements," said David Merriman, director of the Cuyahoga County Department of Health and Human Services.
Merriman credits work done by the DCFS staff, community partners, and the H.O.P.E. Campus, which, once fully open, will end the drop-offs of kids in crisis at Jane Edna.
"There will still be 24/7, 365 services in this building," Merriman said about Jane Edna. "But what will be different is that a child doesn’t have to await their next step; they don’t have to sit in a childcare room awaiting placement. Instead, they’re going to be in a center designed to meet their needs.”
It will also keep them in the community.
Currently, about 10 of the roughly 2,100 children in county custody are in out-of-state residential treatment beds because those were the closest available placements that could be secured, said Merriman.
"Right now, the 10 is lower than it was last year," he said.
He expects that number to decrease as more beds open at The Centers H.O.P.E. Campus.
"The kids have as close to a family as they could possibly have when they live here with the dignity of space, with a bed, a room, with specialists who care, with a teacher and with kids they can recreate with," Ronayne said at Friday's groundbreaking.
Ronayne made the campus a priority when he took office
"This has become a state model that was referenced by the governor in the legislature through the budget process that this will multiply in other places in Ohio, but Cuyahoga County leads the way as a leading model for the future.”
The H.O.P.E. Campus is expected to fully open in the spring/summer of 2026.
They have about half a million left to raise of the $14 million project.
