Up and Coming, Out and Going

I have been visiting Cleveland my entire life. I live about an hour from the city, an easy drive to see the Cavs or a concert. I have had family members living in Cleveland for several years as well. Additionally, my college education brought me to the outskirts of Cleveland, about twenty minutes away from downtown. I love it. I adore the city. There are some really cool places to go, amazing food, and always some type of show to see. Cleveland is no longer “The Mistake on the Lake” that it was a few years ago. In fact, “The Land” is rated as an up and coming city that people ought to visit.

But, at what cost?

Yes, Cleveland has gotten a face lift. Ohio City and Tremont in particular have seen massive changes in the past five years. Buildings are receiving renovations, roads are being redone, new businesses and fancy restaurants are popping up everywhere. But, what has left in order to make room for our swanky apartments, steak houses, and coffee shops? People. Perhaps you are familiar with this concept, which can be labeled as gentrification, but I personally was totally ignorant of the issue until last week. Last week, I went on an immersion trip to downtown Cleveland. I talked to a wide variety of people, from the Homeless Congress to the magistrates in eviction court. For an entire week, I was presented the numerous flaws that Cleveland, and other cities, face. I learned an insanely overwhelming amount of information, but I want to focus on just a few things. Mainly, gentrification, eviction (CANO laws specifically), and federal funding. 

Okay, so what is gentrification? One of the definitions on google reads, “the process of making a person or activity more refined or polite.” That in itself is pretty freaking disturbing. The other definition reads, “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.” I like that definition better. Essentially, gentrification is taking a lower income city and making it middle class. By doing so, you raise prices on apartments and such, thus excluding people who cannot afford exorbitant pricing. Further, you build business like Panera and Starbucks; higher end fast food chains that stereotypically attracts middle-class white folks. If we want to get to the heart of the issue, gentrification is racism. On its face though, it is about wealth classes. This is extremely prevalent in Ohio City and Tremont. These two cities used to be low-income cities that did not attract many people. Now, these two cities are trendy hotspots that attract hipsters and craft beer drinkers. On the sociological side, there is a believed trend that gentrification is cyclical. Meaning, a city is inhabited by wealthy folks until lower-income people move into the city for job opportunities or just as a desired place to leave, and the wealthy people leave. Then, later, wealthy people will come back and force out the lower income folks by jacking up prices. According to a lawyer at Legal Aid that I met with (a group of lawyers that do pro-bono work with tenants getting evicted), America is one of the only countries in the world where wealthier people live in the suburbs and the lower income population live in the city. Usually, business people live in the city near their place of work. So, essentially, the gentrification happening in Cleveland is America reversing itself back to the norm. But, in the meantime, it is leaving people homeless and with little opportunity to work or even find some cheap food.

I do not know how to solve this, honestly. It is a classic example of animals marking their territory and fighting over land. I just was not aware of the term before this week, and I enjoy spreading information. This is happening everywhere, and I had no clue it was even happening in my own city. Another thing to note, just as another example, is “Millionaires Corridor.” This street, by Cleveland Clinic, used to be CMHA (Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Association) housing, but was taken away and renovated to be huge town houses that are likely all owned by doctors from the Cleveland Clinic. CMHA housing is subsidized housing (government sponsored economic assistance program aimed towards alleviating housing costs and expenses for impoverished people with low to moderate incomes). So, essentially, middle to high income people decided they wanted their town to look a certain way and contain certain people, and removed people from the town to do so, rendering people homeless and potentially jobless. 

Okay, hopefully that makes some sense. Hopefully I am not butchering information. If someone wants to fact check me, I encourage it. I learned a lot in one week, and things can get kind of jumbled. Let’s move on to something my group focused on a lot and something that deeply disturbs me: eviction.

Lots to unpack under this umbrella. First off, let me say that before you can even live in the apartment, landlords can stop you from signing a lease with them. So, there is this thing called the Fair Housing Act, which means that people cannot discriminate against families, race, sex, sexual orientation, or disability. However, according to the law, landlords are completely justified to discriminate against low-income people. How? This thing called Section 8 housing. The easiest way to think about this is to think about it like food stamps but for housing. Essentially, if you qualify for Section 8 housing, the government pays for your rent, leaving you to only pay 30% of the rent (according to HUD.gov). So, your landlord would still get money. However, they assume that a certain type of person is on Section 8 housing, and thus deny “those people” to live in their complex. If we really want to get down to it, this is just a roundabout way to let racism still exist in today's society. The Fair Housing Act SHOULD protect people living on Section 8 housing. Alas, people suck.

Okay. Let us start with the basics of eviction. There are a ton of reasons why a landlord can evict you. The main reason, though, is tenants not paying rent. However, you can also be evicted for breaking a lease’s agreement or other stuff. So, how do you even get evicted? The landlord has to give you a 3-day notice. They have to tape this on your door, mail it to you (using a specific form of expedited shipping that I do not know the name of), hand deliver it, or slide it under the door. The catch? Legally, and this is according to the magistrates at Cleveland’s eviction court, the tenant does not need to SEE this 3-day notice… messed up. Anyway. After the three day notice is given, but potentially unseen, you have three days to pay rent or talk it out or what not to fix the problem with your landlord or leave the residence. If none of those actions are taken, you get served. Courts take a while, so you usually have like a week or two before your court date. But, then you go to court and are essentially screwed. If you miss your court date because the RTA (Regional Transit Authority) in Cleveland sucks, you get evicted. If you do not have a lawyer, you are likely getting evicted. However, if you do get a lawyer, you have a 90% chance of NOT getting evicted. Unfortunately, most tenants cannot afford a lawyer, and Legal Aid only has three lawyers to work 5 counties (or something like that). So, chances are, you are getting evicted if you get served, even if your landlord is just being a jerk. In one one-hour docket, there are usually 40-50 cases seen… you have about a minute and a half to plead your case to the magistrates.

The most repulsive reason for eviction is something called CANO (Criminal Activity Nuisance Ordinance). If you receive two “nuisances,” which are written up by the police, in one year, your landlord has the legal ability to evict you. I should mention that landlords commonly evict people unjustly after receiving down payment, first month, and last month payments. So, essentially, they receive three chunks of payment without housing a tenant for more than a month. Okay, so. CANO. How do you get a nuisance ordinance? Lots of different ways. One story in particular really messed with me. A man in Lakewood, Ohio (Lakewood and Bedford are the worst, other cities, like Akron, have abolished this ordinance once people learned it was happening) had his house broken into. Obviously, he called the cops. The police went to his house. That is one nuisance against him (every time the cops come to your residence it is a “nuisance”). Later that year, the gentlemen called a suicide hotline. The cops came to his house to check on him. That was his second “nuisance,” filed against him by the cops and his landlord used it to evict him. Let that sink in. A victim who reached out to authority for help was evicted because he was a “nuisance” to the cops who should just be doing their job. Now, hopefully you are deeply disturbed by that alone, but it actually gets worse. Other things count as nuisances, and they do not even have to happen on your property. They just have to happen in your county. So, if you litter at a park a few miles from your home, a cop can write you up. If you then loiter later on that year, you can get evicted. Littering and loitering are two most common nuisances that happen outside of your property. Again, if we look at the root of the problem, CANO is just a way to mask present day racism. As a white female, I will likely never get written up for littering. However, a young African American may not have that luxury.

Alright this is already getting long. I do not want to write too much, because I want people to actually read this and get pissed about it. These things need to be known and understood before they can be changed. You have to know what and who you are fighting before you pick your weapons. So, I will just briefly skim the issue of federal funding. If you have any questions or know that I stated something wrong, feel free to hit me up. I would love to talk about these issues and other issues that our country and city are facing, so feel free to get coffee and have a depressing chat about how screwed up this world is. Sounds appealing, right? I’ll buy your drink. Not everything has gone to shit, though, I should mention. I still have faith in humanity. For every bad thing in the world, ten good things exist.

Okay, so. Federal funding man. Federal funding is the goddamn mafia. We played a lot of mafia on my immersion trip (love y’alls), which is this game where the townspeople, cop, and medic have to figure out who the two mafia players are in order to save their town. As a townsperson in Cleveland, I have determined that federal funding is the mafia. Now, based on your own personal politics, you may confront this issue in a few different ways. You can ask the government to increase its funding, or, like myself, you can call for your fellow citizens and businesses to privately fund things. To care. To enlighten their ignorance and be called to action. To not turn the other cheek. To extend a hand and work to actually fix this place. There are a lot of ways that federal funding is fucky. Education and transportation are big ones. But, an issue that I actually know the numbers to are HUD’s (Housing and Urban Development) funding to the city of Cleveland for the issue of homelessness. Annually, HUD gives Cleveland 29 million dollars. Of this pot of cash, 90% is distributed to permanent assistive housing, which only “chronically homeless” people qualify for (those who have been homeless for a year or experienced at least 3 different instances of homelessness within four years that equals at least 365 days, have a mental illness or disability (addiction is a mental illness), and are single). Obviously, not every homeless person is chronically homeless. Some are domestic violence victims, victims of marrying someone with addiction, victims of wrongful eviction … etc.. So, the government only funds a very specific type of homeless person. The other 10% of the 29 million dollars pays for shelters and preventive programs. AKA, no money is given. Shelters are so under funded that they are not opened for 24 hours a day. Instead, every day, people staying at the shelters are kicked out into the cold after 8 am and not allowed back in until 2:40 or 4 depending on which shelter they live in. Not to mention the food and mattresses within the shelters... The living conditions do not exist. If you are the victim of domestic violence and are homeless by no fault of your own (e.g. abusive spouse steals everything you own and your job does not currently pay enough to pay for an expensive residence in the newly gentrified Cleveland), you are not taken care of. You are shoved into a flawed system and left to be forgotten until Christmas rolls around and suddenly people feel called to help…

Alright, I think that is enough depressing information for one post. Seriously, feel free to reach out. I would love to continue this conversation and answer any questions or clarify my points. Further, I would love to discuss options for what you can do to help. This is not a flaw that cannot be resolved or at least worked on. Have hope, chin up, and have faith in your fellow humans. 

Some serious shit is secretly happening in our society. It is time we all step up. As our city transitions from the Mistake on the Lake to The Land, we need to keep in mind all of those individuals, businesses, and families that paid for the transition (both literally and figuratively). Yes, it is great that Cleveland is “up and coming,” but, who is out and going?