Cleveland Clinic major growth - PD 5/4/2010 - and homelessness

The lead article in Cleveland's Plain Dealer was excitement concerning the 20 year plan for expansion of the Clinic. Sounds wonderful ! New buildings - more people employed - growing 'to the edges if its 168 acre campus'. WOW ! This area stretches 'roughly from East 85th to East 105 streets, and from Cedar Road to Chester Ave.' A fantastic plan - -changing the way the area looks - modern buildings - overhead walkways, etc.

But then I began thinking - - 10 or 15 years ago First United Methodist Church of Cleveland ran a shelter for homeless women and children. When we started there might be 15 or 20 women and perhaps 2 or 3 children. When the church finally had to involve other agencies it was because the church could no longer safely house 80 or 90 women and children. The growth in homelessness was dramatic.

I began to wonder where these homeless people were before becoming homeless. Then I remembered when Metro Hospital had that wonderful expansion which enabled it to become one of the leading health institutions of the area. And Metro truly does an outstanding work in bringing health to not only well insured people, but also to those with no insurance and no finances. It really does a magnificent job.

BUT - the expansion came because many of the older houses in the area were bought, razed to make the property available for the hospital. However, even though the houses were old - and perhaps not so well maintained - it did not mean that they might be empty.

I was working with Project Learn in that area and was teaching the adults basic reading skills. We knew men who had lived in the Metro Hospital area - the house where they had rented rooms was sold to the hospital - -and now the men had no place to live. They did not make enough to rent an apartment - - but one room in a house with several other men was within their reach. But now -- they were homeless. They had no address to give an employer - - no phone where they could be reached - - no place to hang their clothes - - and on and on. One slept with a friend who was a night watchman in a junk yard - - another just 'disappeared'.

I worry about the exciting developments of the Cleveland Clinic - and how many more homeless people it will create. And I have no answer as what to do about it. But there are many people - living on the edges of society - barely 'making it' - -people who need inexpensive places to be - - -.

The men I knew would not have liked an apartment-type dwelling. The 'rooming house' created a home for them. They were not isolated from others.

Someone - somewhere - should in some way acknowledge this relationship - - and start bringing solutions of homelessness into the planning of the exciting expansion of the Clinic. People are as important - and really more important - than buildings - - no matter how beneficial the new buildings might be.

HELP ! WHO WILL SPEAK FOR THE POTENTIAL NEW HOMELESS PEOPLE ?