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'A Home for Every Neighbor': Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb presents new initiative to support city's homeless

Bibb presented a new initiative that aims to improve collective efforts and expand options for Cleveland’s unsheltered community.

CLEVELAND — Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb announced a new targeted initiative to support the city’s homeless population on Friday morning. 

The initiative, "A Home for Every Neighbor," will put housing placement at the center of the city’s intensive and targeted outreach approach to address homelessness. Cleveland will be partnering with Cuyahoga County and its Office of Homeless Services in the effort. 

“We all recognize that since the pandemic incentives and funding have subsided, we have seen an increase in those in our cities who are unhoused. There are a lot of key factors for that: inflation, cost of housing, and the rise of mental health issues in our city. We recognize that for us to address this in the city of Cleveland, our city needs to have a more focused strategy,” said Bibb during the announcement.

The Strategy

City leaders say the strategy behind "A Home for Every Neighbor" consists of four key components:

  • Engage – "Adopting and implementing an intensive, tailored engagement strategy that will consist of deploying various street outreach teams to targeted areas to connect unsheltered residents with resources and emergency, temporary, or other short-term housing options."
  • Collaborate – "Working with the County’s OHS, and other providers in the Continuum of Care, to facilitate information-sharing, jointly evaluate programs, and make improvements to services based on data-driven results. The City will also leverage public-private partnerships to obtain additional funding, build up programming, and improve workforce and educational opportunities."
  • Incentivize – "Linking housing repair programs with landlord incentives as a recruitment tool to increase participation in rental assistance, utility assistance, hotel/motel vouchers, and other related programs. The City will also work with developers to ensure that certain criteria is met in an effort to make projects more accommodating to residents exiting unsheltered situations."
  • Build – "Renovating existing facilities, rehabbing and converting repurposed buildings, and constructing new affordable housing units. The City will also explore ways to improve overall services that may be provided during the course of the housing process (e.g. transportation, meal boxes, legal aid, case management, health provider options, childcare, etc.)."

"Cuyahoga County is committed to tackling homelessness through a collaborative approach with the City of Cleveland and partner agencies," added Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne. "The City of Cleveland's Home for Every Neighbor proposal demonstrates the city's dedication to Cuyahoga County's Office of Homeless Services Unsheltered Strategic Plan and the City/County Continuum of Care. By working together, we can develop a long-term response to homelessness that will lead to successful outcomes for those we serve in our community."

Goals

City and county leaders hope the new initiative will rehouse 150 or more unsheltered Cleveland residents within the first 18 months. Once fully implemented, the initiative aims to decrease transition time between unsheltered status and a successful permanent housing placement to 30-60 days, part of which will be accomplished via a “Housing Surge” process of four to six weeks.   

“I’m excited about this collaboration, I’m excited about your passion and commitment, and I know that we can do this collectively as a team,” said Bibb to Ronayne and other stakeholders at Friday's announcement. 

Bibb pointed to models that the former mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, used to house over 30,000 people since 2012 while reducing overall homelessness by 60% in the last decade as evidence of potential success in Cleveland.

“In Cleveland and across Cuyahoga County, what excites me about this issue is that it is a solvable problem and we want to make sure we can nip this issue in the bud before this becomes a systemic issue,” said Bibb. 

The city is also hopeful that with external support, the initiative could increase housing options. That could include:

  • Building permanent supportive housing units, with at least 25 within the “safe haven” model
  • Developing affordable housing units to meet specific needs of those exiting unsheltered situations, with low-barrier accommodations in place
  • Development of a full-season centralized Navigation Center that will serve as a specialized intake location for short-term crisis response with on-site health services to meet unique immediate needs, while also helping develop long-term sustainable housing plans upon exit

Officials say the initial investment will be an RFP (Request for Proposals) for $2 million.

The full press conference can be watched below: 

Friday's presentation came as both the city and the county have taken recent steps to address the problems of homelessness. 

Last month, Cleveland City Council approved emergency funding to help house the homeless, allocating $225,000 to shelter the homeless at night through April.

On Jan. 19, Bibb and Ronayne announced a combined $3 million that will go to seven local agencies working to combat homelessness. The funds will come from the city's Department of Community Development as well as the county's Office of Homeless Services. Cleveland city leaders also told 3News that an additional $2.2 million in federal grants is being used for rapid rehousing and current shelter programs. 

Cuyahoga County has also recently introduced "REACHing for New Heights," a $3.9 million initiative to prevent and end young adult homelessness.

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