Fish Out of Water

Monday was a bad day. I had a embarrassing episode in front of a historic review board. I had been helping a neighbor who bought a very small vacant building to rehab. He wanted to make some changes that were not very compatible with the historic nature of the building. I didn't really agree with his proposal, but he is a good friend, and I was helping him turn a vacant building into a home.

So, last fall, I did a quick drawing for him and he submitted it for permit. Online we could follow the process of the permit through the approval process, and in early November we were pleasantly surprised to see that the reviewer had approved the plans and that I wouldn't have to modify the drawing. But it turns out that he didn't even look at the plans so this approval was a mistake that would come back to bite us.

So Monday, months after construction started, my wimpy drawing ended up in front of a discriminating board. I was so embarrassed because I know better. But this was a minor addition on a minor building on a side street, and my friend knew what he wanted to do, so I drew it ...and the board rightly rejected it.

After the meeting, I dejectedly took a walk with my son around the blocks around our house and all the construction sites and vacant buildings. It was a beautiful sunny day, but there weren't that many people around because... well there just aren't that many people here anymore...at least around Washington Park, most of the buildings are vacant and/or under construction. And I had this overwhelming feeling that I was not in my neighborhood anymore, that a wave has washed over the hood and some of us fish are left flapping on the shore.

There was a time when I felt like I knew everyone and everything that happened here. Maybe it was also a time when I was more relevant to the neighborhood. We were doing things, saving buildings, and building a community. But now all that stuff we did seems so small and irrelevant under the wave of huge projects with big 3CDC budgets.

For example, I posted once about a small building that I helped rehab in the 1990's. It was a difficult project: condemned, no money, partially collapsed and a community that sometimes didn't seem to care. I and many others spent a good part of two years on this dinky little project, and at the end the mayor at the time, Dwight Tillery, did come and cut a ribbon. Woohee. Back then, it seemed like it was all a Sisyphean battle. If there were 500 vacant buildings, and each one took 2 years of work, and each month another one was demolished, well.. it just seemed impossible. It also seemed more crowded, and loud... and crazy.

At one time it seemed like not many other people were against demolition. I mean people and groups like the CPA, the OTR Foundation etc were against demolition, but they just couldn't make any headway and their voices seemed drowned out of a bigger political economic picture. But today there are lots of people fighting this fight, ....and 3CDC will rehab a dozen buildings like 1425 Elm in half a year. (They will also demolish a few, which is another story.)

So with feelings of irrelevance in my head, my son and I were climbing around the construction sites and collecting bits and pieces of trashed cell phones and soft bricks for a science project, and I noticed that these unfamiliar people were walking past us. They were youngish with tight pants, dress shoes, sunglasses and talking on their phones. 3CDC just moved into their new offices at 14th and Race, and it was 5pm and they were all leaving for the day. It seems like they just started rehabbing that building a few months ago, and already they are moved-in, fully furnished and staffed.

So here I am feeling a bit down, a bit out of place, when we came upon the Homeless Coalition's fliers that were posted all over and I felt sympathy for their weakness, their powerlessness in the face of this wave. I also felt stupid for being so self-centered in my feelings about the neighborhood. I mean, here I am, secure in my job and house, while others have neither....


But I'm not homeless, and I only had my injured pride to heal. So by Wenesday I was recovered and in a better mood. The sun was out and the hood seems so clean and fresh like spring. And my wife and I attended an event packed with dozens of friendly faces. I talked with others who also feel uncomfortable with some of the developments. It used to be that we would take any improvement, any rehab we could. Now we can be critical of the decisions being made by executives that none of us have even met like: why are they building so many parking lots and why does every storefront have to be bronze aluminum...

I say to myself, face it, neighborhoods do not stand still. They are either moving moving upward and getting more expensive, or they are getting cheaper and suffer disinvestment. Sometimes it may happen so slow that it is unnoticeable, and other times like now it will happen like a whirlwind and knock a lot of people over.

While the changes are happening, it it is an exciting mixed neighborhood. I am attracted to this mix, even one more on the poor side..., but I'm wondering how long it will be before this place has gone too far for me, or am I changing to fit the place?

I love Over-the-Rhine and I love downtown. But no one person owns it or designs it in his own image. The clash of intentions is part of what makes cities so interesting. Yes, I would prefer that development happen one building at a time, one quirky family at a time. But that is a hard way to save hundreds of large vacant and expensive buildings when one organization with all the political and corporate power can make it happen, and they can even make it look easy. Unfortunately they cannot do it right... kinda right yes, but not really right, with the character and passion that this unique place deserves.

The Old Washington Park

Late on a weekday evening I hear drunks singing, bottles breaking, an intermittent crazed scream and loud voices bragging and cursing. People have moved the park benches from the pathways of Washington Park into the grass to create living rooms of a sort amongst the brown grass and cracked clay soil of this unusually hot and dry October. In these gathering spots, and along the perimeter, there is a late night party every day. Every day, till long past midnight.

Since Bang's closed it is now at least a 2 block walk to buy junk food or liquor. Some entrepreneurial women have running an black market pony keg out of their SUV every day for the past month, selling pop and snacks, all the while smoking pot and dancing. Their patrons leave litter everywhere and the rat population is exploding.

When walking back here from a trip downtown, it is shocking at the depravity, the litter and even the plain darkness of the streets around the park. It is the last throes of the old park. The maintenance man still comes every day to sweep up and empty all the cans, but it seems like a token gesture of upkeep. No one is maintaining the grass, re-arranging the benches or locking the toilets at night. No one is really policing the place either. It feels like everyone is just gave up and is letting things go. Why try to improve a place that is scheduled to be completely under construction next month? Let the people throw one last month-long drunk party in the park, ...then close it up.

Thankfully it has not been violent. The atmosphere is mostly jovial.

I hear that the Drop Inn Center has become more restrictive on who they admit, and in a month or so it will be cold and rainy, and heavy machinery will take over much of the park. Then what? Some people drive here for the party, so I assume there is an apartment of some kind at the other parking space. But others here are at the bottom, with absolutely nothing to their name. When the weather gets colder, yes I will selfishly appreciate the quiet. But will my peace come at the painful cost of some of these poor souls? Come December the only warm these guys may have will be in their memories. Memories of this unusually hot October, when they sang and drank until late into the night.

Drop Inn Center Blog

The Drop Inn Center just entered the blogosphere. Since there is so much talk about their possible move and various issues such as sex offendors, I look for this to be a place for some straight talk, straight from the source:

...It is important not to mistake rhetoric for reality. In the end, no ultimatum given by the City, the School Board or any other group will compel us to move.

3CDC has offered to help us both with improvements to our facilities and exploring new possible sites. We realize the DIC is part of a whole community effort and we also realize it is important for us to explore any opportunity that could potentially benefit our residents. The Drop Inn Center Board and staff are deliberating all possibilities carefully and all policies will be implemented in an appropriate timeframe. As always, the needs and requirements of our residents come first...

Metropole Should Stay

An article in the Business Courier and Streetvibes both report that a deal is in the works to close the Metropole Apartment building and convert it to an expensive boutique hotel. I think this is a big mistake, and I will explain why.

In my short memory, downtown once had many of these kind of places. Now there just two, the Metropole and the Dennison. Sometimes called Single Room Occupancy (SROs) or coldwater flats, these are small apartments, often with shared toilet facilities and minimal if any kitchen facilities, often charging rent by the week. They are just about the cheapest housing to be found. Charging by the week allows the landlord to classify the rooms as hotels and thus avoid leases and lenghty eviction procedures. If the tenant doesn't pay that week, the lock can simply be changed.

The people who rent at places like this are often single and just one step above homelessness:

Often, they are people without family help. They may be collecting social security or they may be dishwashers at a downtown restaurant. They may be a panhandler or an alcoholic. But they live among us day to day and 99% of them cause no harm to other residents or visitors to downtown other than to pass us on the sidewalk and look unkempt or ask for a cigarette.

Like I said, at one time there were many SRO apartments downtown. There was the Milner Hotel, which was on Garfield with 115 units. It was demolished and replaced by Towne Properties' Greenwich on the Park in the 1990s.

There was also the Fort Washington, on Main Street. The Lafayette on 8th, and of course there was the YMCA, which closed it's SRO just a few years ago.

I encourage you to read this Enquirer article from 1999 about the possible closing of the Fort Washington. It paints an honest picture of the people involved.

Fort Washington overall:

Thirty years ago there were over 1700 SRO type units in the CBD. That number is now 325. If the Metropole is closed it leaves only the Dennison with it's 105 rooms and 60 baths:

The back of The Dennison:

There is some cheap housing in the CBD like these units on Court Street. Not really an SRO, but if you can manage a lease, monthly payments and utility bills, this is an option:

But the problem is that many of the people who live in SROs cannot make it in standard rental housing. They cannot sign yearly leases. They cannot collect a month's deposit. They cannot get utilities on in their name, and they especially cannot pay higher rents. And you could blame them as another blogger has and say they are lazy or shiftless, (maybe some of them are) but the fact is they are human beings and this kind housing serves their needs. Without this, many of them will be on the street:

In fact I believe that the continual removal of this type of housing is one of the major reasons for an increase in people staying at shelters like the Drop Inn Center.

Commentors on the Enquirer website don't know it yet, but downtown Cincinnati is changing and growing a lot. Between the Banks, Queen City Square, the new offices, dozens of new restaurants, a constantly packed Fountain Square and the hundreds of new condos, things are moving fast. It is a great place to live and getting better.

Look at this graph of Downtown Residential Growth made by DCI:

In two years they project that the CBD will have over 7,000 residents, and the trend is upward from there. My question is can't we commit to at least 5% (350) of them being very low income people? I don't think that is unreasonable.

After all SROs make the most sense downtown. It is downtown where single men can walk to their jobs at the stadium or as janitor in an office building. It is downtown where a guy can walk to half a dozen places and get a free dinner. Even if someone were to build a new SRO, which I don't think anyone is, why would you build it in Price Hill or Avondale? Yes the land is cheaper, but does it make sense?

In progressive cities, SROs are being newly built as part of an overall housing strategy. See L.A., Chicago, and Portland among many others.

One of the things that attracts people to an urban environment is the diversity and jumble of people. I personally love rubbing shoulders with everyone from the beggar to the councilmember. The older man in the photo way uptop, we met at Skyline, and as we were leaving, we literally bumped into ex-mayor Charlie Luken. I love that. Happenstantial meetings are what a vibrant city is all about.

And many people say they want this diversity, but when the places that house the poor are being removed (and not being replaced) people say "well that is the market". I'm not so sure that this hotel will not receive city funding, but either way, do we want the market to continually drive up prices and drive out people until we have the same segregated type neighborhoods that typify the suburbs? I say no.

Here, we have a place where over 200 poor people live mostly peacefully, next to some of the most upscale places in our downtown.

Kids playing next to the Metropole:

The Metropole should be rehabbed, but not as a hotel, rather it should be rehabbed as a better SRO for the poor.

I think a Boutique Hotel is also a fine idea. There are several vacant buildings nearby that would work well:

Or this block:

Living with all kinds of people is part of the reality of living in the city and I really want people to think about this issue. It goes to the heart of what kind of city we want Cincinnati to be.

Your opinion?

Erotica to Help Homeless

In Columbus, a group helping the homeless could not get city funding, so they turned to selling erotic castings and paintings.

Foreclosed Homes Shelter Homeless

Sheriff Jones in Butler County has stopped evictions, and then this interesting article in USA Today:

...a homeless advocate, runs a controversial program in Miami that helps families squat in homes vacated because of bank foreclosures. Using Internet listings and a team of volunteers, Rameau and his Take Back the Land foundation matches homeless families with empty homes.

...he doesn't choose homeless residents with severe problems. Families selected for squatting are required to pay to turn on the electricity and water, he says. The family lives in the house until they save enough to move into another home or until the owners show up with police and force them out — whichever comes first, he says.
....
Advocates in Cleveland are trying to use city money to buy abandoned homes and rent them to the homeless...

Norman Vincent Peale

The Christmas Tree was jsut delivered to Fountain Square, and the skating rink is being put together this week. This reminded me of a post I've been meaning to make about Norman Vincent Peale, Cincinnati Christmas Memories. He was born in a small town, near Xenia, but lived in Cincinnati during some of his formative years.

I have searched in vain for an article that I read maybe 20 years ago in a dentist office waiting room. It was a Home and Garden Magazine and the article was of his Christmas memories. I cannot find the story, but my recollection is this:
Norman and his childhood friends in Over-the-Rhine, would call out and tease a dirty man, whose job was to oil the streetcar. They would call him "greasy Joe" or some such name. Then on Christmas Eve, he went with his father to visit sick people in the hospital, and there in one of the beds was greasy Joe. It was then that he realized that this was a poor but proud man, with a family that depended on him.

Instead of that memory, I did find this one. Does anyone know in which house on Liberty St he lived?:

Some of my most impressionable years were spent in Cincinnati. I still remember the huge Christmas tree in Fountain Square--the gleaming decorations, the streets ringing with the sound of carols. Up on East Liberty Street where we lived, my mother always had a Christmas tree with real candles on it, magical candles which, combined with the fir tree, gave off a forest aroma, unique and unforgettable.
One Christmas Eve when I was 12, I was out with my minister father doing some late Christmas shopping. He had me loaded down with packages and I was tired and cross. I was thinking how good it would be to get home when a beggar--a bleary-eyed, unshaven, dirty old man--came up to me, touched my arm with a hand like a claw, and asked for money. He was so repulsive that instinctively I recoiled.
Softly my father said, “Norman, it's Christmas Eve. You shouldn't treat a man that way.”
I was unrepentant. “Dad,” I said, “he's nothing but a bum.”
My father stopped. “Maybe he hasn't made much of himself, but he's still a child of God.” He then handed me a dollar--a lot of money for those days and for a preacher's income. “I want you to take this and give it to that man,” he said. “Speak to him respectfully. Tell him you are giving it to him in Christ's name.”
“Oh, Dad!” I protested. “I can't do anything like that.”
My father's voice was firm. “Go and do as I tell you.”
So, reluctant and resisting, I ran after the old man and said, “Excuse me, sir. I give you this money in the name of Christ.”
He stared at the dollar bill, then looked at me in utter amazement. A wonderful smile came to his face, a smile so full of life and beauty that I forgot that he was dirty and unshaven. I forgot that he was ragged and old. With a gesture that was almost courtly, he took off his hat. Graciously he said, “And I thank you, young sir, in the name of Christ.”
All my irritation, all my annoyance faded away. The street, the houses, everything around me suddenly seemed beautiful because I had been part of a miracle that I have seen many times since--the transformation that comes over people when you think of them as children of God, when you offer them love in the name of a Baby born two thousand years ago in a stable in Bethlehem, a Person who still lives and walks with us and makes His presence known.
That was my Christmas discovery that year--the gold of human dignity that lies hidden in every living soul, waiting to shine through if only we'll give it a chance.

Homeless on River

Flag staked on river:

 

Tents:

 

Continuum of Care for Homeless

Interesting Article in Streetvibes about Roxanne Qualls' initiative to re-structure services to the homeless:

The goal is a major overhaul...

“The recommended plan must not look like the current shelter and service delivery system,” ... “We are not seeking to achieve minor reform. Rather, the Continuum of Care should use this opportunity to plan for homeless individuals by starting with a ‘blank slate’ and designing from the ground up a new system that would substantially decrease the number of homeless persons requiring shelter services each night.”

...the plan could include “a safe haven, more shelter for single women, additional substance-abuse services including housing, housing that would target specific sub-populations, a de-concentration of the Drop Inn Center and a statement of need for more permanent supportive housing.”

The goals are ambitious...

“The plan should result in a national model that guarantees the highest standards of care for the homeless …

Where Can Offenders Stay?

 

 

Poor Beating the Poorer

Saw 7 kids taunting and throwing things at homeless men in the park last night. I heard a crash which turned out to be one man's shopping cart full of aluminum cans, that they tipped over. They were running through the park looking for people sleeping to kick or tease. so cruel.

It gave me a flashback to an afterschool TV show that aired in the 70's about a boy in the ghetto who adopts a stray cat. There was a terrible scene in the show where some older boys tease the cat and throw it by its tail.

UPDATE: I found the TV show I was remembering "J.T." It is apparent from the comments that many other people vividly remember this one-hour episode. Paperback book of the story here.

UPDATE: I changed the header because my initial title of this post was dumb and bothered me. Does anyone else remember seeing that show JT?

Larry Winslow Lives in Alley

A while ago, I signed up to receive notices when sex offenders move into my neighborhood. It is not something that I am overly concerned about, but the emails are sometimes thought provoking. I noticed yesterday for example that Larry Winslow states that he resides in the alley behind the Drop Inn Center.

The Drop Inn Center does an important job with a limited budget, but pressure has been growing on them to change their operations. One change they have implemented is a 3-strikes policy, in which people repeatedly ticketed within 500' of the center will be refused services. They also have been turning away sex offenders. To me this is backwards. If Mr. Winlsow, who is a 58 year old homeless "tier III sex offender" cannot get a bed here, where could he possibly go? The whole point of the DIC is to be a place of last resort. If the DIC starts getting too picky about who can sleep on a mat, the result will be more people in the alleys and possibly frozen to death this winter. Is it getting to the point where we need another shelter, one that just takes the addicts and sex offenders?

Meanwhile, concerned people in cities like Chicago have been building beautiful, green homeless shelters. See article here and details here.

Read the whole article to see how nice the building is (it has a greenhouse, 2 gyms, library and sleeps 1,400) but also notice this part about the trouble they had expanding:

For years, Pacific Garden Mission had been pressured by the city Board of Education to vacate its men's facility on South State Street in the former Skid Row. As the neighborhood gentrified, the site was increasingly eyed for expansion by Jones College Prep, an adjacent public high school. Mission leaders were willing to relocate, but each time they pursued a site for a new shelter, a wave of NIMBYism swelled up from nearby residents.

... "The mission treated these people with great respect and dignity," ... "They are not referred to as indigents, but as overnight guests."

... set out to help find a new site. Ultimately, the combination of strained neighborhood politics and the mission's desire to build an ambitious multipurpose shelter led to the selection of a parcel south of the Loop at 14th and South Canal streets, surrounded by commuter rail tracks and parking lots for UPS trucks. ... The site was selected primarily because of its availability, adequate size, and reasonable proximity to the old site a mile away.

A quick anectode to end this post:
The weather being beautiful we walked down to Fountain Square last night. Since it was a school night we were just intending to walk past. But two booths were set up on the square selling barbecue, and and the square was lively with businessmen and people from the Baptist Convention, so we ordered some pork. I was short $2 for the meals, and the man said, "hey we're family, that's ok, just take them", which I really appreciated. While eating a very cute redheaded girl, maybe 6 years old came up and started playing with my daughter. They bonded so quickly that they were crying when we had to separate them 20 minutes later. The mother and father said maybe they would see us again downtown soon. In the small-talk as we were leaving, I asked where they lived, and they replied that they were staying at a homeless shelter. They said the one they were staying in had special quarters for families.

Drop Inn Center Spruce Up

Volunteer have changed the DIC from yellow to green over the past 2 weeks:

Front courtyard, possibly to be expanded:

Mostly vacant building to West:

Detail:

Streetvibes Online

Streetvibes has a new online presence:

http://streetvibes.wordpress.com/

Life Improvement Event

 

Another Portland Post

This time not about streetcars.

I just saw a 21 minute video by the CBC, advocating that the city of Victoria replicate the successful Housing First program that Portland, OR has implemented. The plan is a 10 year plan to end homelessness.

Although kinda long, the video is worth a look for the human dimension and the snapshots of the transitional housing buildings.

Sitting in the Cold All Night

At 1208 Race Street, is the First English Lutheran Church. A few homeless people have taken up residence on their steps for the past few months, and one of them got stabbed a few weeks ago (this from their mouths).

This morning, the coldest morning of the year (it was near zero, and blustery) most of them had retreated to find warmth, however, one of the men was still there! He is within sight of the Drop Inn Center, and there are a few other places I could think of where he could go and keep warm. Why sit up in freezing weather all night? Is it pride? Addiction? Stubborness? Mental illness?

The Drop Inn Center

This week, council is expected to approve the Drop Inn Center's Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) money. Articles in the paper and bloggers seem to be chiming in about whether or not the DIC should move.

Memo to all these pundits: The DIC is not moving. They are a private non-profit that receives minimal city money. Their Board of Directors does not want to move. They have built and expanded their facilities at the current location over thirty years. Their location fits their mission.

Some of the animosity about the DIC centers around crowds loitering, smoking and drinking in public. However, I believe that a lot of the animosity towards the DIC is a result of bad blood from battles that occurred years ago.

At it's birth and teenage years, The Drop Inn Center was like a radical and rebellious child. buddy gray, led the organization as if under constant siege. And like a self-fulfilling prophecy, it often was under siege. But today, that rebellious adolescent is in middle age, and trying to come to terms with their legacy while also trying to figure out how to be a good citizen. And at the same time, with limited money, they are trying to continue on their mission to serve the most destitute in the City.

The most common complaint of neighbors is the crowds of people hanging-out around the shelter on the sidewalks and in the park. I think it would be helpful to examine successful shelters in other cities to see how they handle this problem. I have not done this, maybe someone has. Part of the solution may be the creation of a more private gathering space, like a private courtyard where people can get outside and smoke in a more pleasant environment than the sidewalk.

Other changes may be programmatic, such as developing more "transitional" housing in which the homeless are housed in a supervised environment. Maybe the site at 12th and Elm becomes a shelter for people in the recovery program only and a second site becomes the "no-barrier" shelter, thus in effect expanding the DIC and giving them a positive choice, not just punishment. I definitely am not an expert on this issue, but I think the current leadership at the DIC has the expertise, and they are willing to try different approaches. Whatever path they choose, they must do what is best for their clients; and this should have the added result of helping the DIC become a better neighbor.

[Where: 217 West Twelfth Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

Homeless Shelters Banned from Covington?

Maybe I missed this story, or maybe, no one locally is covering it. The Lexington Herald has an article and it mentions that Covington rewrote their zoning code to specifically not allow homeless shelters anywhere within the city. Existing shelters can remain, but cannot expand. Can that be true?

... organizers looking to re-establish northern Kentucky's only emergency shelter have been unable to find a suitable facility.
...
The shelter shutdown earlier this year amid complaints from local officials and the neighborhood. Raterman's group has pledged to run a managed shelter, but has yet to find a location.

It may be impossible to resettle in Covington after the city commission changed the zoning code last year, specifically banning homeless shelters within city limits, said City Manager Jay Fossett.

...The closest other shelter, the Drop Inn Center in Cincinnati, is operating beyond capacity, said general coordinator Pat Clifford.

...(the Drop Inn Center) often exceeds its 250 limit, averaging 270, with guests sleeping in the center's lobby, and that was when the Emergency Cold Shelter in Covington was open.

..."Everyone thinks there should be 'somewhere' for people to go" he said. "But its always somewhere else."

Free Lunch and a Bible Tract

 

Church groups come regularly to Washington Park to hand out lunches, and sometimes to hand out used clothing. They now hand-out on the sidewalk after apparently being asked to leave the park by city officials.