CLEVELAND — Growing tent encampments set up in downtown Cleveland by the unsheltered homeless have homeless advocates, city and county leaders working to find solutions.
Loh, who is homeless and also a homeless activist, told News 5 more unsheltered homeless are now living out in the open because they are being moved out of other parts of the city. Loh states funding is desperately needed to address the unsheltered homeless and their many needs.
“We need healthy, livable housing for people. Why do you think that people taking the streets," Loh said. “When people get marginalized for such a long time staying on the streets, their health, physical health, mental health all get deteriorated.”
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Chris Knestrick, Executive Director with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, told News 5 that his agency is part of the Cuyahoga County Unsheltered Work Group, which is getting close to finalizing the 2023 Cuyahoga County Strategic Action Plan to Address Unsheltered Homelessness. A plan that hopes to solve the growing issue by 2027.
“Last two years, we’ve seen numbers rising, so we’ve been coming together to build a strategic plan to address some of the unique needs of people sleeping unsheltered," Knestrick said. “You know it’s no wonder that we’re seeing tents lining up on Superior Avenue or Payne Avenue because when you remove 40 people from the airport, we’ve got to find a place for them to go.”
Knestrick said the county plan includes the creation of a permanent auxiliary shelter to replace temporary, seasonal facilities and refining a coordinated intake process to better help unsheltered homeless to potential housing options.
“We need a specific location that is geared to the unique needs of unsheltered people," Knestrick said. “One of the plans is to really build a navigation center or something that really brings together the best practices of street outreach, combined with the best practices of emergency shelters with our experience of housing so many people."
Dennis Ashton, who is a coalition outreach worker, has visited the tent encampment of Superior numerous times. Ashton told News 5 that the homeless at that site felt they had no choice but to move out into the open to help improve their safety.
“They definitely don’t like it because there’s no place to go," Ashton said. “At this particular point, we can’t just move them into housing, so now they have to move their tent and find some safe spot.”
Cleveland Ward 7 Councilwoman Stephanie Howse-Jones told News 5 that state funding is desperately needed no matter which county plan finally gets approved, and she plans on submitting her funding request to District 23 State Senator Nickie Antonio in the coming weeks.
“We’re not short on plans, we have many plans, we know what to do, it’s how do we invest in the plans, that is where there is a disconnect,” Howse-Jones said. From the state, the initial investment, where looking a total of about $5 million to transition people to some type of supportive housing.”
“So, where can we get the resources, and on top of that, winter is right in front of us,” Howse-Jones said. "We just don’t want to go back to a place where people are literally freezing to death because there is no place for them to go."
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