Cover Letter for Cuyahoga County Health and Human Services

This is an abridged version of my cover letter to Cuyahoga County officials making the case why they should hire me to work to reduce poverty.  They have posted a job for Director of Health and Human Services who is typically a person that can administer large systems.  They would never hire a community organizer for this position, but they should.  Here is my submission for this position.  

Dear Sharon Sobol Jordan
County Executive Chief or Staff

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County has been among the top 10 in the United States in number of people living in poverty since the early 1990s, and we do not have a concentrated effort to reduce those numbers. There is no one person working in the City or County that the media or the average taxpayer identifies as working on reducing poverty or even building trust that government is here to address problems associated with poverty.  You have posted the position of Director of the Health and Human Services position, but the job qualification seem to be trying to find another Bill Denihan.   You seem to be looking for a suit who is going to be a good administrator of this huge department as the talented Mr. Denihan did for so many years.  This is one strategy that County has tried for the last 20 years, but I believe a better path is to look for someone who is going to work every single hour on improving the income, health and housing stability of taxpayers. There are so many experts in this community who have great ideas for reducing poverty such as Dr Lolita McDavid, Amy Hanauer, and John Corlett, and we do not seem to be listening to them.  It is time to turn these great minds loose to experiment, change public policy, and force collaborations as the Cuyahoga County brain trust to increase the standard of living. The sole evaluation measurement of the Human Services Director should be a steady decline in the number of people living in poverty. Every policy, public dollar, and agency should be evaluated on moving people toward stable housing, consistent income and healthy households as quickly as possible. 

I think that you should select someone like me who has worked in the trenches serving homeless people for 23 years.  I do not have a Master’s of Public Policy, but I can see the big picture and how all these systems fit together from my discussions with poor people for the past two decades.  I can take the problems that people face every day and translate them into public policy. I believe that I can restore confidence in County government, especially the programs that the largest number of people have contact with in this community.   I can pick talent to run these systems effectively, but I want to bring the affordable housing, healthcare, entitlement programs, and the jobs program together to move the 230,000 people currently living in poverty in Cuyahoga County to a level of stability that is sustainable. 

I could think broader than just managing the County Health and Human Services organizations to working with all the anti-poverty groups on solving problems.  I could figure out why the 14,000 households who win the housing lottery with a CMHA voucher do not then move out of poverty.  I know that I could figure out a better way to serve the “frequent flyers” at the emergency rooms across our County.  I believe that Food Stamps/SNAP benefits could be an entry point for larger discussions with a family on what they need in order to move into a higher income bracket.  Why are human services workers not interacting with students at the Community College to assure their completion of a degree and that they do not need public assistance after graduation?  Why isn’t the County using its Community Re-Investment Act authority to get banks across Cuyahoga County to work with citizens to reduce debt and improve home ownership rates now that the housing crisis is over? Why isn’t the Juvenile Justice Center more integrated in the County Welfare office to surround those families with assistance after their children make that first cry for help by becoming involved with law enforcement?  For too long the County Health and Human Services Department has been compartmentalized and not integrated into the community.  For example, there are so many resources that the foster care system could take advantage of, but is so caught up in paperwork and protocols that they do not reach out for help when they find a mom living in an abandoned house with her young child. 

Cuyahoga County is the logical group in the community to lead the effort to reduce poverty because they can change public policy and have influence over critical poverty fighting institutions such as MetroHealth and Youth Services.  The 18% of the population living in poverty have regular contact with the County with the Food Stamp program, Medicaid, Child care subsidies, foster care, Child Support, Re-Entry, Job Training, and all the senior programs.  Someone needs to bring all the County groups together with the Community Development groups, the researchers at the universities, the big School Districts, Hunger groups, Neighborhood Centers, ADAMHS Board, CMHA, religious leaders, the unions and the City of Cleveland on a weekly basis to actually move people out of poverty.   It seems that the vacancy at the Health and Human Services Department is the perfect opportunity to forge a new path forward and you could then actually champion your efforts to solve real problems in the community. 

I want to dedicate the last 10 to 15 years of my work career in an area in which I can improve the lives of people. I was frustrated at my job at the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless that we were seeing a retreat of the progress we had made with family homelessness exploding and the community leaders had made no attempts to reduce poverty.  There was no urgency and there were systems in Cuyahoga County that were actually creating more barriers for its taxpayers.  There are some County institutions or County funded groups which actually exacerbate the barriers that people have toward finding stability, and my experience is that no one in authority ever listens to the problems expressed by those who struggle with finding a job, housing or behavioral health care.

Here are some of the skills that I bring to an organization:

• I understand how policy and funding is allocated at all levels of government having worked regularly with both Cuyahoga County and Cleveland City Council.  I have lobbied in both Columbus and Washington for administrative changes, budget allocations as well as legislation.
• I am able to bring out the talents in people and fully realize those talents. 
• I have done research and put together reports on homelessness, voting, the importance of outreach and much more.
• I have the ability to bring diverse interests together in collaboration for a common purpose. 
• I have done some public speaking and public relations work, including press contacts especially with my previous experience in radio. I have also engaged members on social media and targeted engagements.
• I have set up systems in which people who are disenfranchised and feeling broken can sit down with someone to listen to their concerns and then put in place policies that respect and effectively respond to complaints. 
• I have developed sustainable programs that demonstrated positive outcomes for the community such as the hundreds housed while reducing the vacancy rate at the housing authority.  I can also use human service data to craft public policy initiatives like I did to reduce the number sleeping outside with the coordinated outreach program.

I hope that I can talk to you more about my suggestions for improving the lives of Cuyahoga County citizens and put in place an effective anti-poverty program.

Sincerely,

Brian Davis