Cleveland Tenants Organization Closed February 5, 2018

I loved the Cleveland Tenants Organization, and cannot believe that they closed abruptly.  It is the perfect venue for community organizing, and the best place to start a movement.  I worked for the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, but that constituency of homeless people is not a good place for community organizing.  People without housing are more mobile and once they get out of their housing crisis they never want to relive that pain.  Organizing people at their home by trying to balance the inherent inequality between the owner of a building and the people who live there is the perfect place to provide a voice and show tangible outcomes.  Plus, Spencer Wells, long time director for the Cleveland Tenants Organization, took a chance on me when I was volunteering for the Homeless Grapevine and hired me as program director to keep NEOCH in business.

Disclaimer:  I have a significant bias about CTO and so take that into account when you read this piece.  I was a board member of CTO for about 10 years (ending in 2013) and submitted my name to be the executive director in 2013.  I was told that I was too controversial by a few friends on the board, so I have not had much to do with them in the last five years.  They wanted someone who could raise money and would not be hampered by a past of stepping on the toes of elected officials.  No one likes the guy who tells you that you are not doing your job very well.  In fact, I would say they will go out of the way to preserve their job by attacking and undermining the critic.

I was volunteering at the Homeless Coalition for a couple of months and then the director left.  The paper was sustainable on its own with the cost of each paper purchased by the vendors at 10 cents each covering the cost of the printing of the paper.  We operated for about a year with just volunteers. I came in during the day because I worked at night, wrote stories, and held office hours to sell the paper to vendors.  I also settled disputes between vendors and set up a system to provide ID to the vendors.  While all this was going on, there were two lawsuits making their way through the courts involving the Coalition, including one over the street newspaper sales on the streets and the right to charge vendors $200 to buy a city issued license.  Then in 1995, a large grant came through for the Coalition to place 10 AmeriCorps VISTAs in collaboration with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.  It was an application done in early 1994 and made it through the federal bureaucracy by 1995.  There was no one staffing NEOCH, but the Board was still meeting and trying to decide what to do.

The NEOCH Board had contracted with CTO to oversee the administration, write the checks, and pay the rent to keep the organization alive.  Spencer Wells decided that his job would be much harder if there was no director at the homeless coalition to organize and advocate for the growing population of people who wanted to be tenants.  I was on staff of CTO so I got to go to their staff meetings, board meetings and trainings.  I got to work with Mike Foley and Mike Piepsny, Cheryl, Scott, Gladys, and the many others who answered the phones.  Spencer had put together a good staff who cared and actually made sure to respond to callers.  I always tried to have a human answer the phone at NEOCH when we went independent again. If a homeless person or low income tenant reached out for help, the non-profit organization might as well close if they cannot even answer their constituents.  We are provided dollars tax dollars, which means that people can donate in lieu of paying taxes, so the least we can do is responsive to those taxpayers.

Their main service was to answer questions by tenants (not landlords).  I know that the last few directors felt that they need to be responsible to landlords and more wealthy people, but I always thought that those guys could pay for the service.  If a landlord wants advice then they should pay an attorney or at least make a sizable donation to the organization every year.  There is a limited amount of time in the day and that valuable time should be reserved for those who cannot pay.  I believe that this is an essential service in the community and government, foundations and others should want to pay for the service.  I mean, what is the use of having a landlord-tenant law if the end user (the tenant) does not understand their rights?  If tenants do not realize that landlords need to keep the place in good working condition, keep the heat on, and keep the water running, more people will become homeless.  Why have the protections if you do not realize that a three day notice is not an order to leave in THREE days?  For the small amount of money to hire someone to answer the phone, a community can save thousands on court costs, evictions, and putting furniture out on the tree lawn.

CTO also organized tenants--a service that stopped after Mike Piepsny left the agency. They conducted voting campaigns and staged candidate nights.  They held a tenant conference which regularly drew 250 tenants.  CTO staff helped with elections inside buildings to cultivate leaders who then became the eyes and ears of the agency.  These tenant leaders became the "mayors" of large buildings and would assist other tenants with problems.  Tenant leaders testified at City Council and many were critical in Council elections.  CTO also had a number of volunteer lawyers who could assist tenants if the landlord needed a little more of push to be fair.  CTO staff were experts on the landlord tenant law and helped write and get passed the local Cleveland landlord tenant law with the help of Council President Frank Jackson. They could look at a lease and make recommendations for problems.  They could review Public Housing and voucher program rules for tenants, and they could publicize problems when landlords fell down on their responsibilities.  My wife volunteered at CTO by helping to answer the phones or entering data, and the staff were family friendly, allowing the toddlers to come in and play or hang out while Tanya volunteered.

The loss of CTO is huge for the community.  When I would visit other cities, low income advocates knew about the Cleveland Tenants Organization as a model for community organizing.  What went wrong?  Here are my observations and they are in the order of importance.

• Government funding mostly from federal sources were significantly reduced since 2007. But local champions of the agency like Mayor Frank Jackson, Phyllis Cleveland, and Nickie Antonio could not find state or local resources to make up the loss of federal dollars.  The County, esp. the Office of Homeless Services and County Department of Development, really turned their backs on the organization.  None of these elected officials saw the essential value of the organization and how much it was needed.  I never understood why they would not want an agency in place to at least answer the calls from the 22,000 eviction notices that go out in Cuyahoga County every year.  If not a staff person at CTO answering the phone, then it is going to be the staff at Cleveland City Hall or in Cleveland Hts, Lakewood or Euclid City Halls. 
• United Way funding was around $48,000 and was lost.  The previous director took a gamble to expand her request without securing her original allocation to the new priorities that arrived with the new United Way administration.  This gamble failed and really hurt to not have that base funding. 
  
• The Board (of which I was a part) really did not help the agency.  They meddled in the day-to-day operations; sometimes second guessing the director.  They did very little to bring in funds, but often they felt that they knew better than the director.  CTO had the worst of both worlds.  The Board focused too much in areas that staff did not need, and not enough help in areas they needed the help.  They also did not recognize the difference between volunteering and the fiduciary responsibility of a board member.  The CTO Board did a poor job in preparing for leadership changes and they really did not understand what it takes to run a non profit. CTO never attracted board members who could bring in dollars for all the good work they did. 
• The directors got into a crisis mentality where the raising of funds became the sole reason for their job.  They felt that it was better to focus on raising money than to step on toes.  The power of CTO was always that when they entered a room, they knew more about the law then anyone else, and they would go to the wall for their clients.  A landlord was scared if CTO was involved and would get the water on or get the heat on as soon as possible.  Elected officials could call CTO for help on tenant issues they did not understand, and the Director could call an elected official to express concerns over safety in the neighborhood, police response time or funding concerns.  The CTO Director could ask, "why is there money for repair of the Q, but not money to repair the Zelma George Community Center?"  CTO staff could blast an owner on TV or in the the Plain Dealer if they were a slumlord,  if they were maliciously evicting a mom who just lost her husband, or for refusing to fix the elevator at a senior building.   Once the directors got into the business of serving landlords or trying not to annoy elected officials, they should have closed.  They could no longer serve their mission and they had no reason to exist.  Tenants are angry over conditions or the law favoring the owners, and CTO needed to reflect some of that anger if they were going to effectively serve their mission. 
• The Housing Courts were not very supportive, especially in the suburbs.  Judge Pianka was a huge supporter and his passing last year hurt CTO.  The municipal courts in the suburbs never really offered financial help to the organization.  If a government cannot offer an attorney to the 22,000 people facing eviction they could at least support the advocacy organization that attempts to educate tenants.  A small increase in the fee to file an eviction could go to the Tenants Organization to help those struggling with their housing.  

I detailed in another post the loss of social justice infrastructure in Cleveland. We all know how social justice has taken a body blow at the federal level under the Trump administration, and of course social justice is outlawed in Columbus at the State House.  The loss of CTO is not the canary in the coal mine since we are at the end of this near total collapse of social justice in Cleveland.  There are a few groups left, but most of us are on our own on these issues.  When a mentally ill person is left for a half hour to die in the custody, it is up to family to find justice.  After families are found living in vehicles, there is no one who can push the County to put in place a safety net.  If you can no longer work because of a disability, you need to sue to get any public assistance.  There is no longer a group working to reduce the wait times and force a better process to determine eligibility. Without these strong institutions like CTO, anger, frustration, and resentment grow on the streets of Cleveland.  When a community does not have a venue to express concerns about injustice, people turn to violence, burning down buildings, and riots.  Will politicians regret that they did not support CTO when the next Hough or Glenville riot breaks out?

Brian Davis

PS 2/12: There was another article in the Plain Dealer today about the value of the Cleveland Tenants Organization, which is positive but a day late and a dollar short.  No articles about the value when the County dropped their support or when the City significantly reduced funding.  There were no articles about how the agency was attempting to cut costs in 2014 and 2015.  Nothing about the needs of the agency when they lost their United Way funding or the staff who were laid off at the time.  It also has to be mentioned that Neighborhood Housing Services did all they could to keep the organization alive.  CTO moved in with NHS and shared many resources, but it just was not enough.