All 12 Unsheltered Neighbors Staying at These Two Sites Accepted Offers of Housing
Friday, September 6, 2024 — Cleveland — Today, Mayor Justin M. Bibb announced the results for the first month of the City’s “A Home for Every Neighbor” initiative. During its first 30 days of implementation, 12 highly vulnerable unsheltered neighbors who were experiencing long-term homelessness and dealing with untreated disabilities were engaged, housed, and are now receiving ongoing support. The initiative’s strategy identified two target areas for the first month of implementation where 6 unsheltered residents were living at a site in Canal Basin Park and 6 others were living at a site near West Side Catholic Center. All 12 unsheltered residents – i.e. 100% of those living in these initial target areas – accepted offers of housing.
“It’s encouraging to see that every resident our teams engaged with accepted an offer of housing,” said Mayor Bibb. “We know through data from other cities that an overwhelmingly majority of our unsheltered population will choose housing when it is immediately available and this success we’re having here locally further affirms that. This is a solvable problem and although we’ve taken a good first step, this is just the beginning. We have a lot more work to do but we’ll continue to keep our foot on the gas to get all of our unsheltered neighbors housed as quickly as possible.”
Earlier this year, Mayor Bibb launched this brand-new initiative with the City taking on a co-lead role to provide more resources, increase options, and accelerate the housing process for unsheltered residents. Within just the first couple of months, a Request for Proposals was issued, multiple responses were vetted, and a consultant was chosen – who then refined the City’s strategy based on best practices from model cities and tailored it to Cleveland-specific strengths and community partnerships.
The finalized execution strategy included identifying geographic areas for targeted housing-focused outreach; documenting unique needs specific to each neighbor in these areas; recruiting landlords with signing bonuses and twelve months of guaranteed rental payments; aligning and collaborating with various partners for health, employment, transportation, and other services; intensive and compassionate engagement with neighbors during the transition process; and ongoing case management along with additional support following move-in. In July, the strategy was implemented in the first two target areas with a 100% success rate as all 12 neighbors now have homes.
The teams implementing the strategy are currently working on other site locations across the City and continue to look for ways to improve procedures and streamline processes so that unsheltered neighbors can get access to housing more quickly.
The early success of the “A Home for Every Neighbor” initiative builds on the Bibb Administration’s commitment to supporting the city’s unsheltered community. In January, the Bibb Administration stepped up to fill a funding gap that supported emergency seasonal shelters and related services for unsheltered residents. That same month, the Bibb Administration announced more than $3 million in funding to seven local agencies for rapid re-housing efforts and various programs designed to support all residents – youth, families, and older adults – in shelters. The City has also opened several of its recreation centers as both warming centers this winter and cooling centers this summer during extreme cold and heat conditions, with thousands of visitors utilizing these sites so far this year.
