CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland launched its “A Home for Every Neighbor" initiative in February. The program's primary goal is to combat the city's unhoused issue, which hasn't slowed for years.
The city admits that it was off to a slow start. After analyzing the city’s needs over the past six months, the administration realized to reach the program's goals, funding and efforts needed to be ramped up.
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Six months later, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb’s Senior Advisor for Major Projects, Emily Collins, said the program is finally in motion.
“There’s no question across the board it’s [homelessness] increased in the city of Cleveland and the county,” said Emily Collins, Senior Advisor to Mayor Justin Bibb for Major Projects. “It took us a little longer than we had hoped to get to that point, but we are now at the stage of a soft launch.”
The initiative’s primary mission was to rehouse a minimum of 150 unsheltered people in 18 months. Collins said despite the slow start, the city is now projected to reach that goal by the end of 2024.
“It’s a fast clip soft launch, but then once we are confident in the workflow, confident in how we can quickly resolve someone’s crisis, then yeah, we think we can come along pretty quickly,” Collins said.
Due to emergency legislation passed by the Cleveland City Council in June, the city is now authorized to enter partnerships with a national unsheltered consulting firm and other local nonprofits to develop a plan to make that goal obtainable. City Council President Blaine Griffin said the council also recently allocated around $2 million of 2023 “leftover funding” to get the ball rolling.
“Right now, we're in the summer months, but let's make it clear at the end of the day, we really, really have to prepare for what we know is going to happen in the fall season into the winter season,” Griffin said.
Griffin believes this is a good use of taxpayer dollars because the issue is impacting each corner of Cleveland.
“We put several dollars into this project because once again, this is not just a downtown or a central business district issue,” Griffin said. “We're starting to see this in the middle and edge neighborhoods like Lee Harvard, neighborhoods like Shaker Square.”
Collins said this is a problem the city can’t ignore and must continue to face head-on.
“People will continue to become newly unsheltered, so we need to make sure we are offering support on a continuing basis, how we do that is very much a question,” Collins said.
The city said if unsheltered people choose to be a part of the program, they will be placed in housing with subsidized rent. From there, the individual will work with local non-profits to get proper government identification, job placement, and a steady income.
“What we are doing is securing better housing, becoming better brokers essentially for our unhoused neighbors, so we can participate in the marketplace to obtain housing,” said Collins. “Ensure they have a secure stable place, with wrap around support, to keep them in housing to make sure their trajectory is one of upward economic mobility.”
The city hopes to have at least 150 unsheltered people in housing by the end of 2024.
