The Plain Dealer posted the story of the four candidates who are running for District 10 Cuyahoga County Council. Whatever you do don't read the comments section--bunch of haters. Here is the letter I sent applying for the job.
Dear Councilwoman Brown:
I would like to apply for the District 10 Council vacancy created
by the resignation of Anthony Hairston.
I live in Cleveland Hts. in the district and do intend to run for the office
in the primary in 2018. I have
interacted with the County for 20 years and I am intimately familiar with the
workings of government, having served on a number of County boards. I have testified before both the County
Council and the previous County Commissioners in my role as executive director
of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. I was an effective advocate for my
constituency of homeless people, and I believe that I can bring my community
organizing skills to effectively represent residents of Cleveland Hts, East
Cleveland, University Hts, and Cleveland Wards 8 and 10. I have
registered thousands of people to vote in Cleveland. I put together a Get Out the Vote campaign
for low income people, engaging 1,200 voters in 2016 and over 2,000 voters in
2008 and 2012.
I believe that the County Council can realize the goals of those
who developed this co-equal branch of government. I understand
that many agencies received cuts in the 2018 budget process, and there is not a
lot of room for big initiatives led by Cuyahoga County. I realize that the County has an inability to
borrow funds in order to put in place a capital project to lead to job
creation, but County Council can take the lead in putting in place policies and
private sector initiatives to improve the lives of its residents. There is, however, the bully pulpit that
every Councilperson can use to advocate for innovative ideas. They can interact with politically active
voters in ward clubs or community centers or the local religious congregations
to engage them in solving problems. The
County Council can bring experts together to improve local services for those
struggling and those in need of county funded essential services. County Council members can push County
departments to streamline assistance to efficiently move people out of poverty.
If selected, I would focus my energy on three issues that the
County could have some impact by facilitating these discussions without
spending additional resources.
·
Restoring faith in government. I believe that the reason the current
President is in office is that progressives did not push back on Ronald Reagan
and Bill Clinton’s drumbeat against government and the social safety net. The
County currently touches the lives of hundreds of thousands with an impressive
social safety net, but all of these programs are done in isolation and within a
specific silo. The people who sign up
for shelter do not get offered food stamps and the families involved with the
child support agency do not get offered housing assistance. The County could stitch together a more
comprehensive social safety net using technology to offer a full menu of
support to our citizens.
·
The segregation and inability
for African Americans to reach economic equality within the County. In 2015, Huffington
Post used 24/7 Wall Street data to identify Cuyahoga Metropolitan data as
the #1 most segregated large city in America, and what have we done to change
this situation? The shelters are vastly over-represented
with African Americans constituting nearly 80% of the shelter population when
compared to only 30% of the population of the County. We need to have a plan to end this
segregation, but instead we are going the other way, with more people falling
into isolation and forced to live in neighborhoods of deep poverty.
·
The inability to reduce poverty
locally for decades. 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. I believe in this vacuum, the County Council
could take the lead in opening a discussion on how we can move our residents
out of poverty. It is time to turn the great minds in our community loose to
experiment, change public policy, and force collaborations as the Cuyahoga
County brain trust to increase the standard of living of every resident. I
believe that every policy, public dollar, and County agency or County funded
organization should be evaluated on moving people toward stable housing,
consistent income and healthy households as quickly as possible.
I am not sure that you know the specifics of my background over
the last 23 years at the Homeless Coalition; I believe that I can show real
results. I worked with the County Office of Homeless Services to dramatically
improve the local shelters, which were primarily mats on the floor when I
started. I negotiated an agreement with
the City of Cleveland that prevents police from engaging homeless people with
the threat of arrest for purely innocent behavior. This survived the Republican National
Convention and all the work we did to protect homeless people in July 2016. I constructed a system to coordinate all the
outreach teams locally to keep hundreds safe who made the decision not to use
the shelters. I brought an affordable
housing website to Cleveland, allowing millions of people to search for housing
in Cuyahoga County over the last dozen years, and I helped to create an
identification program for every homeless person in Cuyahoga County which
regularly assists 3,000 individuals a year with obtaining
documents.
I think that I could help the County 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.
I believe that the County is missing an opportunity to have human
services workers regularly interact 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 especially
with minority borrowers 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? I think I could help Cuyahoga County
integrate all their anti-poverty programs to address real issues in the
community such as the mammoth amount of help a pregnant mom needs when she is
found living in an abandoned house in East Cleveland.
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 regular 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 the County Council could be in the
lead in getting all these groups together to solve real problems.
I am including my resume, but in case you are not familiar I have
23 years working within the human services network and pointing out the
problems facing residents of Cuyahoga County.
I want to be part of the solutions to those problems as a member of
County Council. 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 have often been criticized for my
forceful advocacy, but I was representing an often forgotten constituency and
my role was to amplify their voices. In
most cities in the United States there is not a dedicated homeless advocacy
organization and there is not an effort to find a shelter bed for everyone who
asks. 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 I would not be doing my job if I did not take
those complaints to leaders in the community.
I have the ability to bring diverse interests together in collaboration
for a common purpose as is seen in the collaborative outreach program where
there was one number to call if you found a homeless guy on the street that you
were worried about and a worker would come out that same day. 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.
Sincerely,
Brian Davis
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