BY JANE PRENDERGAST |
JPRENDERGAST@ENQUIRER.COM | source
OVER-THE-RHINE - For three decades, Cincinnati's Drop Inn Center homeless shelter has given a bed and meals to all comers, few questions asked. The largest shelter in the region, it harbors as many as 250 people a night.
Off and on for all that time, the shelter has weathered scrutiny for everything from its mission and funding to its location.
As the Drop Inn celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend, it faces those questions in a new, possibly tougher context - the unprecedented redevelopment effort under way in the neighborhood, hailed by many as the best thing ever to happen to long-struggling Over-the-Rhine.
The Drop Inn, at 12th and Elm streets, sits across the street from the site of the new $72 million School for Creative & Performing Arts, pitched as the priciest development project in Over-the-Rhine since at least World War II.
It's also just across the street from Washington Park, which officials plan to upgrade with concessions, areas for dogs and better restrooms - in part because of the expected influx of new residents in the hundreds of condos being built and renovated.
So some are asking: Should the Drop Inn Center move?
The shelter's director, a former Over-the-Rhine resident, says it's not planning to move, nor should it.
• Comment: Should the Drop Inn Center move?
"We're the open door for the region," said Pat Clifford. "Where else would you have these people go?"
It's a politically unpopular question - nobody wants to appear unsympathetic to homeless people. So Councilwoman Roxanne Qualls is asking it differently: How can a homeless shelter be a good neighbor to new condos?
She's among those who started asking questions last month as the Drop Inn's annual $236,000 federal grant came before council for approval.
"The goal wasn't to cut their funding," she said. "Rather, it was to raise serious questions as well as to get some answers."
Her concerns: the quality of the Drop Inn's efforts toward moving people into homes and whether the shelter will continue to try to be a good neighbor and take responsibility for clients who hang around Washington Park.
LITTLE CITY LEVERAGE
The biggest player in Over-the-Rhine redevelopment efforts, the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC), is pumping millions into the neighborhood, buying dozens of old buildings, renovating and building hundreds of new housing units. Steve Leeper, president and chief executive officer, says the group is focused on helping make the neighborhood mixed-use, mixed-income and racially diverse.
In a written statement, he called caring for the homeless "a dilemma that every city in the country faces," and said the community needs to work harder to ensure the best ways of caring for homeless people are being used.
"At the same time, we need to be cognizant of the impact that large homeless facilities often have on the adjacent neighborhoods. It is incumbent upon us to insure that the provision of homeless services and revitalization efforts within Over-the-Rhine remain compatible."
Councilman Chris Bortz, who comes from the Towne Properties development family, speaks more strongly about the situation.
He wants the Drop Inn to require clients to enroll in treatment programs, believing that would cut down on the number of people who hang around outside throughout the day. If that doesn't happen, he said, the shelter should move someplace where it's not "putting enormous pressure on an already unstable neighborhood."
The Drop Inn has held too much political sway for too long, Bortz said, and he'd rather put money aside to move the place than give it more for current operations.
"People may have that right (to choose they don't want help), but that doesn't mean we have to pay to help you," he said. "I think they enable self-destructive behavior."
He said the grant is the city's only leverage over the shelter.
But the council helped last summer with much bigger amounts of federal money - a 15-year, forgivable $880,000 loan of HOME Investment Partnership Project funds to Over-the-Rhine Community Housing. That and another $950,000 in HOME money were approved to pay for the construction of 12 new transitional housing units on McMicken Avenue nearby.
'IT JUST DOESN'T WORK'
Mike Morgan, executive director of the Over-the-Rhine Foundation, opposed those deals because he felt they were done too quietly, without input on the Drop Inn's overall mission and operations.
The Drop Inn Center, he notes, is one of more than 100 social service agencies in Over-the-Rhine that together draw thousands of needy people, swamping the small neighborhood of about 7,000 residents.
"You can't take everyone in Hamilton County that has some kind of problem and move them all to one place and expect it to survive," he said. "It just doesn't work."
Clifford, the Drop Inn's boss for 10 years, has heard all this - and more - before. He's not unreceptive to listening. His philosophy is just different.
Cincinnati needs a place like the Drop Inn, which aims to take anyone, sober or not - "low-barrier" and "unconditional," he calls it. That mission, he said, is what makes this city a place where you don't see a lot people sleeping on sewer grates and in alleys.
That said, he would love to put more clients in treatment and into transitional and permanent housing. The shelter does some of that, with temporary housing for 80. But the shelter would need more funds to do more such programming.
The Drop Inn applied to the city last year for $30,000 for a counselor, but got half of that. That's the only city money the shelter gets.
It's not practical, Clifford said, to simply say the shelter should be moved where it might be more palatable. Homeless people, he said, can't always take the bus, and they need to be close to other service providers, which generally are centered around downtown.
"When you think of what else we can do, you can lose sight of all that we've done well," he said. "We don't have the luxury, as a community, to just say, 'Get rid of it.' "
'I'D HIDE IN ALLEYS'
Living here is better than living on the streets. Jacquie Eaton, who lived in Pleasant Ridge until she got evicted, will tell you that. She has been homeless five times in two years, she said, and has lived at the Drop Inn - this time - since September.
Without the shelter, "I'd hide in alleys, anywhere to keep out of sight so I don't go to jail."
While she waits for help with permanent housing, the 49-year-old has her three pairs of shoes and turquoise fuzzy slippers piled at the end of her bunk on top of a plaid bedspread. On her pillow: two stuffed animals.
The Drop Inn moved to its current spot under cover of darkness during the Blizzard of '78. The "midnight move," supporters called it - they wanted to do it without the city knowing. It worked. It took days for city officials to learn The People's Movement had taken over the former Teamsters union hall. The Shelter House Volunteer Group Inc. now owns that property, valued at $259,000, and 14 others around it.
The People's Movement was then led by the feisty Buddy Gray, who started what became the Drop Inn in his own house in 1973. He was well-known for his long pony tail and denim overalls, and controversial for staging protests at City Hall and allegations that he blocked redevelopment efforts by stockpiling buildings.
Gray was shot to death at the shelter in 1996 by a mentally ill man he'd tried to help.
Clifford, who took over the top job after Gray's death, would protest if he thought that was the best course of action. But he presents a much different public face - often in khakis and a sport coat.
He said he understands that people trying to redevelop the neighborhood don't like how loitering looks. Though he can't stop clients from going outside, he is working on a plan for an outdoor courtyard on the property so smokers won't have to leave the premises to light up.
Drop Inn supporters can celebrate today with the expectation that the federal grant will be approved Monday by council's finance committee and Wednesday by the full council. But Qualls, among others, wants to spend the year focused on whether the shelter's doing everything it can to get its clients into permanent housing as well as to be a good neighbor.
"It sounds like a real conversation is possible," she said. "And that's different. Very different."