CLEVELAND — Ward 6 Precinct F Committee Member, Myra Simmons, is fed up. She said her beloved neighborhood off East 93rd Street is crumbling.
“I want to know what’s going to be done,” said Simmons. “I was born and raised in Cleveland, and this is where we bought our first home, and I bought many more homes to put families in them because I felt the need for it.”
Simmons said there’s a list of issues that continue to go unresolved. Some are, crumbling curbs, unpaved roads, unkempt shrubbery, overgrown trees, abandoned houses, lots and buildings, and even out-of-control groundhogs.
“It makes me feel like no one cares. They don’t see it,” said Simmons.
She said elected officials aren’t helping.
“I call them again and again, and the situation is still the situation still hasn’t been solved,” Simmons added.
Ward 6 Councilman Blaine Griffin said he’s aware of the complaints and said Simmons isn’t alone.
“We have had a problem with services this year,” added Griffin. “Me, myself, and my colleagues have really been pressing the administration hard to be better as far as grass cutting, lot cleaning, and demolition of housing, and road repaving repair, and everything else,” said Griffin.
But ultimately, it’s the city’s issue since those are city services.
“We are going to ask some hard questions to the administration to really understand, do they have what they need or should we try to find alternative ways to ramp up services,” Griffin added.
Griffin adds certain areas are taking president over others as abandonment is an issue in every ward. One in every four properties in Cleveland is a vacant lot or building.
“You have to be strategic on where and how you make those investments, especially with the small pool of resources we have in order to do that,” said Griffin.
Simmons hopes the love she feels for the neighborhood is restored with better upkeep from the city and possibly renovations, not exactly demolitions.
“I want someone to buy them up and put families in them,” said Simmons. “That's what I would like.”
We reached out to the City of Cleveland for a comment about improving services, and we are waiting to hear back.
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