Derelict Paradise: Homelessness and Urban Development in Cleveland, Ohio

Chapter 7: Open Penitentiaries

200 | Chapter 7 Open Penitentiaries You may see them seeking refuge in the Greyhound Bus Station on Chester Ave . . . huddling in a solitary corner of the vestibule at St. John Cathedral . . . or walking aimlessly up and down W. 25th St. . . . Members of a woeful sorority, they wander the city streets and alleyways carrying all their possessions layered on their backs or in shopping bags and cheap suitcases. . . . Some call them Bag Ladies. Others know them as Suitcase Annies. Cleveland Press, January 10, 1982 In the early 1980s, a public spectacle emerged in downtown Cleveland —people sleeping in doorways, sidewalks, and public parks. Few understood what was going on. In an article that appeared in May 1980, the Press introduced “the homeless” to the general public: “The homeless are the old and confused, the alcoholics, and the ‘shopping bag’ people who sleep regularly in public places, unless severe weather forces them to look for more adequate shelter.” In a subsequent article on “Bag Ladies,” the paper concluded that many of these “homeless” women were “outcasts by choice” and others because of the “fell clutch of circumstances .” While it was clear that the women didn’t “trust people,” the Press insinuated that this distrust stemmed from mental illness rather than past experience. A reporter asked several of the women where they used to live. “You can’t tell much from the addresses they give,” the paper concluded, because many “turn out to be vacant lots, abandoned homes, or simply non-existent.” Rather than connect the story to the destruction of low-cost housing units in the city throughout the 1970s, the paper implied that the women had lost touch with reality. Open Penitentiaries | 201 The women’s realities, however, reflected decades of urban plans and economic transformations.1 As early as the fall of 1979, social workers operating the loose-knit, decentralized, and uncoordinated halfway homes, shelters, and domestic violence safe houses in Cleveland recognized that a significant new housing crisis was developing in the city. A coalition of thirty social service agencies formed the Emergency Shelter Coalition in the fall of 1979. The representatives of the new organization declared that they were “weary of the endless struggle to find refuge for people running from abusers, evicted by landlords, or dumped by families, nursing homes, and mental institutions .” The group argued that people in need found themselves “bounced from agency to agency in futile search for a solution.”2 In May 1980 the city’s halfway houses and social service agencies operated a total of twelve shelters that provided beds for 356 people. Within its first eight months, the shelter coalition successfully lobbied the state to increase marriage license fees by $10 to support shelters for abused women. Furthermore, Vincent Lombardi, Mayor George Voinovich’s Community Development director, promised $500,000 to purchase and convert a downtown warehouse into an emergency housing facility.3 Although the Emergency Shelter Coalition succeeded in expanding shelter space in its first few months, the group failed to recognize or confront the economic and political forces that were producing the growing pool of unhoused people. Unwittingly, the coalition, while seeking to provide needed services, ended up colluding with these forces in establishing and reinstitutionalizing homeless shelters in downtown Cleveland. Even though social service providers played an important role in setting up shelters, they received material support for their proposals only when their plans coincided with the visions of Cleveland’s business and political leaders. During the 1980s, corporate heads reasserted their control over the city and aggressively sought to shape its future. To make way for their blueprint, large downtown construction projects demolished the last remnants of the cheap rooming houses and hotels. The city turned the other way as affordable housing continued to go up in flames, and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority eliminated one-quarter of the public housing units in the city. While the city, state, and federal government subsidized the corporate restructuring of Cleveland, a “meltdown” of manufacturing wages coupled with the elimination of public assistance programs wreaked havoc on the lives of working people. Scores of innercity residents became economically dependent on the exploitive day-labor industry. 202 | Chapter 7 Continued aggressive policing strategies and an unprecedented growth in the state prison system ensnared disproportionate numbers of African Americans in the criminal justice system. As many parolees discovered, the homeless shelter stood in close relationship to the prison; the shelter...