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Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, March 6th.

My name is William Tarter Jr.

I'm the director of the Office of Civic Engagement for Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry and president of the Cleveland Branch NAACP.

What an honor it is to introduce today's forum, which is part of the City Club's Local Heroes series.

It's a series that spotlights champions right here in Northeast Ohio, whose hard work changes the way we view ourselves and our community.

It's a nice day today, but make no mistake, this winter was cold.

In fact, it was one for the record books with a brutal 18 day stretch of extreme cold that we have not seen in decades.

And when temperatures drop or there's someone in need of shelter.

Northeast Ohio Coalition for the homeless, or NEOCH, is there.

Since 1987, NEOCH continues to defend the civil rights of unhoused people to access public space to vote, and to secure shelter and housing.

In early January this year, New York opened a seasonal homeless shelter located at 1530 East 19th Street.

It offers a warm place to go for up to 45 adults during the coldest months of the year.

Still, within weeks of opening, it was at capacity.

The demand for shelter is real.

Yet shelter is more than just a roof and a bed.

It's also comfort, a warm meal and access to additional services.

At LMN, we consider NEOCH a true partner in our work.

We share Newark's passion for the cause of ending homelessness.

Building affordable housing for all individuals and the elimination of barriers, especially for individuals reentering the community after incarceration in all seasons, but especially in the case of extreme cold, like we all just experienced this last year.

The work that NEOCH does is quite simply, life saving.

Our speaker today, Chris Knestrick, originally joined NEOCH as its sole employee before taking the role of executive director in 2017.

Since then, he has grown the organization into one of the most trusted resources and partners for unhoused organizing, advocacy, street outreach, and education.

Today, we will hear directly from Chris and learn more about the organization's challenges, priorities, and how we can end unsheltered homelessness today.

Before we begin, a quick reminder for our live stream and radio audience.

If you have a question during the Q&A portion of our program, you can text it to (330)541-5794, and City Club staff will try and work it into the program now.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Chris Knestrick To.

Crowd.

Whoa!

Good afternoon.

Thank you to the City Club of Cleveland for creating a space where we can have hard conversations and and pursue the truth.

One thing they didn't mention in their introduction is that I'm also a busy father of three wonderful kids, Jonah, Micah, and Juniper, and a husband to an incredible partner and mother, Julie Myers.

Juniper.

Juniper asked me to share something with you all.

She said we could end homelessness if we just put hammers in people's hot hands and built more homes.

And you'll see.

I think she's pretty much right.

Before I begin, I stand here today with deep gratitude for my mentors and teachers.

There's one person I must acknowledge by name.

My mother, Betsy Nash.

Strike!

In the late 80s, when I was just eight years old, my mother took me and my brother to an Aids hospice house on the west side of Cleveland to care for a dying man inside an old Victorian home.

My mom walks me and my brother into a room.

A man is dying of Aids.

His voice is shaky.

His body so thin I could see his bones.

His partner is sitting on his bed, holding his hand.

I am curious and surprised as my mother reaches out and holds his gaunt face.

My brother and I break the silence of the house as we run around asking everyone to try the lasagna my mom had us make for the residents when she took me to visit the hospice house that day, my mom confronted fear, stigma, and widespread discrimination against LGBTQ people at the height of the Aids epidemic.

I have never forgotten that man's name.

Bobby.

I have carried it with me for some 37 years.

My mom taught me that when we love people, we come to them at their greatest time of need.

I believe my mom still has super powers.

And one of those super powers, fueled by our deep belief in the living God, is unconditional love.

Some 15 years later, when I began my work in homeless services, I lived at it and worked in a house of hospitality on the near west side of Cleveland.

My housemates and I lived with anywhere from 3 to 10 previously people, previous people previously living on the streets.

In the big house, we shared everything in common.

We would beg for food at the West Side Market to make soup for the to serve on the streets.

I was a 20 something radical who knew everything about changing the world.

Honestly, I believe we could end the war in Iraq, close the prison camp in Guantanamo, and end homelessness if we just protested more and showered less.

It was a solid attempt to be the change you want to see.

And I thought my mom's last sentence has gotten through to me, but it turns out she had more to teach me.

Most of the time the hospital hospitality worked, but sometimes, despite our best efforts, we had to ask someone to leave.

In those moments, simply living our values and offering people a place to stay was not enough to heal.

Years of trauma.

In one case, we asked a man to leave for smoking crack in the bathroom and hoarding rotting food and urine filled bottles in his bedroom.

A few days later, I go to my mom's house down the street to cut her grass.

My mom was at work, so I walked into her house to find the person I had just kicked out.

Sitting on the couch, his feet up, watching television.

He was now living in my mom's home.

I got so mad at her.

I called her immediately and yelled, we cannot live.

You cannot live in your house.

You don't know this person.

You must kick him out and just let them live on the streets.

My mom's side.

I already knew what she was going to do.

She believed that in his greatest time of need, people deserved second chances and a safe place to sleep.

Many of you who know me may know my mom in this room, the underground social worker at Kirby Manor, the forever faithful believer in unconditional love and the ultimate practitioner of second chances.

My mom is here with us today.

Mom, thank you for everything.

It is important that we understand people's stories.

So I want to tell you a bit of mine.

I believe in a God that is bigger than four walls of any church, and always sides with the poor and suffering.

She requires that we not only tend wounds, but also dismantle unjust social, economic, and political structures.

I owe this faith to nuns that gifted me with an ungodly amount of Catholic education.

Grad school at Saint Luke's High School at Saint Ed's, College at Mercyhurst University, and eventually a seminary degree.

I don't tell people often that when I went to college, I wanted to become an FBI agent.

I bet you didn't see that one coming.

September 11th and the subsequent U.S.

invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq shaped, shaped my early life goals.

Thankfully, at college, I met some radical nuns.

Their mentorship and teaching were transformative for me.

By the time I graduated, I had a degree in religious studies and a criminal record.

By then, the FBI would want nothing to do with me.

And the feeling was mutual.

I never served in the military, but I understand the cost of war.

My father was a Vietnam veteran, 100% disabled, two tours and a prisoner of war.

I remember my dad picking up the phone in our house to get news that another one of his friends had committed suicide.

Other times I watched his face turned white and his eyes go blank as he was having a flashback.

I remember standing alone in our school parking lot waiting for him to pick me up, sometimes walking home wondering why he never came.

I now know that in Vietnam, I'm going to the same place at the same time to get you killed.

That survival skill was somethin In some ways, becoming an antiwar activist in college was not a hard sell for me.

And my sophomore year, I stood outside the federal building in Erie, Pennsylvania, holding a sign that read our grief is not a cry for war.

Thinking about my father, I made a commitment that I would not stand by while more lives were sacrificed to war.

Standing next to me was a five foot two, 90 pound Benedictine sister.

She looked up at me and asked, are you ready to stop a war?

She grabbed my hand.

We sat down and we blocked the doors.

That day was the day I learned that if we want to do solve, we want to be able to solve problems that seem immovable, like ending homelessness.

We all have to have the courage to dream it and believe that it is possible.

We will need to upset some people and take some risks.

Most importantly, we are going to have to find a community that hold your hand while you're trying to do it.

I hope that everyone here has that community and if you don't and want it.

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the homeless is here for you.

In 2024.

There was 771,000 people experiencing homelessness in the United States.

It was a record breaking year for our country, driven by soaring rental costs and the end of pandemic era protections.

That number is hard to imagine.

But I want you to try.

I ask you to close your eyes and try to picture 771,000 people.

Go ahead.

Give it a try.

It is really hard.

And the fact is that numbers allow us to talk about homelessness at a distance.

People always want numbers, but they never want stories.

I think it's intentional.

Stories bring us close to the pain.

They enable us to get to know a person.

Gustavo Gutierrez asks us a haunting question that proves this point.

You say you love the poor.

Name them.

How many people of the 771,000.

Can you name?

Stories have the ability to restore scale.

They demand a relationship.

And when your relationship with someone, you begin to enter into their suffering and react.

We have a saying.

People are not problems to be solved or cases to be managed.

They are friends, to be loved and journeyed with.

Niarchos houses over 100 people every year.

The team is amazing.

Many of you are here, but you want to know our secret.

We received a gift of a relationship with someone in pain and struggling, and we share in it.

22 years ago, I was working at a drop in center on Cleveland's west side.

It was a modest place that smelled funny, not because of the homeless guests who came in to play cards and got a cup of coffee.

The smelliest people were me and the volunteers that never showered.

We had grilled cheese nights, a pot of soup that contained the vegetables we bagged at the West Side Market.

Honestly, the food wasn't very good, but the relationships, they were real.

I had known my friend Lisa for about three years.

We met when she was living in a community garden close to our house.

Over time, we built a friendship at the drop in center.

We talked about our families, our dreams, and what life could look like beyond survival.

Lisa was a tall, blond woman whose beauty was stolen from years on the street.

She survived a major heart attack.

Her doctor warned her that if she used heroin again, she would probably die.

One night, I asked how she was doing.

She told me things were bad.

We walked for a while and she thanked me for our friendship.

We hugged and we said goodbye.

I didn't know it'd be the last time.

The next day, her body was found behind a fast food restaurant alone.

No one there holding her hand.

No one there with her during her dying breaths.

Saying prayers to their God.

She died alone next to a dumpster.

This work is not abstract to me.

Lisa was not a number.

She was a friend.

And she's not alone.

There was one found in an abandoned building in Slavic Village Ken down by the Muni lot.

Mike on East 18th.

Tara Marie murdered on Cedar Avenue.

The writer on Andy Roy reminds us to love, to be loved.

To never forget your own significance.

Insignificance.

To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar despair.

To be a life around you.

To never look away.

I do this work because I can't forget.

I will not look away when people die alone behind buildings.

I will not tolerate a system where people fall through cracks so wide they become graves.

No one is homeless because they made a bad choice.

Homelessness is not a result of individual failure.

It is an outcome of policy choices.

We have the resources in Cuyahoga County to end unsheltered homelessness.

If we choose to do it.

The same racist systems that have shaped this country through redlining, mass incarceration and economic exclusion continue to determine who has access to housing and who does not.

For most people outside the homeless system, the pain and suffering is too much to engage.

I get it.

Life is hard for many of us.

However, we cannot let that cause us to blame people experiencing homelessness for becoming unhoused.

You all have heard it.

People do it.

That person uses drugs.

They're refusing help.

They are shelter resistant.

They want to be homeless.

But I know that people are not refusing help.

They're refusing impossible choices.

Suzanne was a six year old woman.

She loved to talk about her travels and family.

Everything she owned was inside her bags.

Family pictures, cherished memories and important documents.

She could only bring one bag to the shelter.

She had to.

She chose to keep her belongings and remain outside.

I know a married couple who told they must separate to enter shelter.

Recently evicted.

They lost everything they owned.

They were not going to lose each other too.

They chose to stay together and slept outside.

I know a young queer person forced into a gender binary shelter system.

They chose dignity over danger and found a place to camp.

People are not choosing homelessness.

They are not choosing a place to.

They are choosing a place where they feel safe.

They are choosing survival.

They are also choosing dignity.

I love Cleveland.

I was born and raised here.

I actually have the Cuyahoga River tattooed on my arm.

I love that the city is rooted in activism, where organizing has always pushed us forward from unions and workers rights, environmental activism, to racial equity.

We live in a city that gave rise to black political power and the Environmental Protection Agency.

We are a city that will never forget the name Tanisha Anderson.

Thanks to organizing, the city recently passed a new law, and now we have a non-police response system for those experiencing a mental health crisis.

We are resilient and we show up for one another, and we also demand justice.

In March 2020, we stood at the corner of Columbus Road and Carter Road, Columbus and Carter Road in Tremont.

Our cars lined up on the curb, filled with 50 tents and 50 sleeping bags.

We were all wearing masks, some with face shields and terrified of Covid 19.

The seasonal shelter had closed and a stay at home order was coming.

We were left with a choice create a mass encampment or find a solution for individuals.

We knew that adding more people to a congregate shelter would be a mistake.

But how do people stay at home when they don't have one?

Nyack made a decision to serve the people in front of us.

We put every person in a hotel room that day.

We had no funding, no staff, no idea what was to come, and the community responded.

Money came in.

Volunteers showed up.

Medical providers stepped forward.

People found safety.

People got care.

Many found housing.

We did that together.

Many of you in this room.

For years, public institutions and private groups who supported the homeless, who supported the homeless, worked together to create an ad hoc solution to seasonal shelter during cold months.

Those solutions were scrappy, and they saved lives.

They also left too many cracks in the system.

That is why in 2025, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the homeless purchased a building on East 19th to operate a dedicated seasonal shelter.

In January, we opened a 40 bed shelter in a recently renovated space.

Since then, seven days a week, we have given no questions asked hospitality to about 90 people.

We opened the shelter twice.

We opened the shelter because our front's response to winter should be as predictable as the season itself, and it exists because of the collective actions of many of you in this room.

The community of West Foundation supported us and gave us guidance.

The Gunn Foundation grant gave us confidence to make the decision.

Our City Council members supported the efforts.

The county supported operations.

The Nyack Board took the risk.

Our staff members worked tirelessly.

Community donated and volunteered.

And we did it just in time for the 18 consecutive days below freezing, most of them below 17 degrees.

Again, we did this together.

All of us.

And thank you.

Alongside the city and county, we are working hard to improve the homeless system.

While there are still gaps, the truth is we do homeless services pretty well.

Here in Cuyahoga County are.

Each year a system serves 12,000 individuals with approximately 6500 accessing emergency shelter every year.

Most people that enter shelter figure out housing on their own and only spend a few days or a week on housed.

For others, if you're experiencing homelessness, it's a little bit harder, but we are able to get you access to housing.

It takes time, often too long, but it works well.

Unsheltered homeless has sharply increased around the United States in our community.

It has steadily declined, steadily declined.

According to HUD and the Act's own internal tracking.

The recent decline can be attributed to lessons learned during Covid and a commitment to evidence based practices and outreach.

This work received fuel from programs like the City of Cleveland's Home for Every Neighbor, which is housed over 188 people directly from the streets.

New York.

New York has been a key partner in this work since its inception, leading outreach efforts and walking with people as they become stably housed.

Last year, York worked with residents in one encampment next to a used car lot.

They were struggling with fentanyl and psilocybin use and a particular gruesome combination.

The camp was covered in used needles and overdoses were happening daily.

Our team brought everything Narcan, peer support, treatment options.

Most residents did not want behavioral health services, but when offered housing, no strings attached, they said yes.

Today, many of those individuals are housed and engaged in services.

Some of them got sober.

The fact is that people do not heal from living on the streets.

That process starts with a door and a key.

While we've made some progress in ending unsheltered homelessness locally, nationally we have been moving in the wrong direction.

The Supreme Court's grant decision in June 2024 eliminated federal protections for unhoused folks.

Sadly, some communities have used that decision to ramp up efforts to criminalize and displace unhoused people from public spaces.

San Francisco, for example, has targeted more than 1000 individuals in its campaign to clear the streets.

Federal policy is increasingly being used to advance an agenda rooted in punishment and erasure, rather than dignity and stability.

The Cicero Institute, a light right leaning organization established by conservative billionaires, has spent years promoting policies that prioritize criminalization and eliminating permanent housing options.

They have.

They have the era of Donald Trump, and these ideas are now influencing the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Over the last month, HUD has actively eliminated Housing First, expanding involuntary commitment and establishing work requirements to access housing.

They are destroying the homeless system that took decades of advocacy to build, and Salt Lake City leaders aligned with the president are moving forward with a 1300 person involuntary shelter, an involuntary shelter where people would be forced to be worked conditioned.

The people behind these policies simply want people they dislike to disappear.

Honestly, it is the stuff of nightmares, and we're going to have to fight like hell to defend best practices and homeless services like Housing First.

Harm reduction and person centered approaches.

Thankfully, here in Cleveland, I know that whatever happens federally, our homeless service community won't stop working to serve the people because we know that housing is the solution to homelessness.

The challenge before us today in Cuyahoga County is to move from Housing First to Housing Justice.

Housing justice is about moving upstream, adopting strong policies and systems that prevent housing exploitation, discrimination and displacement.

Housing justice demands we acknowledge that housing is part of the common good.

We must stop looking at housing as an investment strategy that seeks profit.

The market cannot determine who gets to be safe and who does not.

Moreover, we should judge our housing system not by the financial wealth it generates, but by the number of people it protects.

After I graduated college, I worked in Skid Row in Los Angeles.

Skid row is a 50 block area, or one of the largest concentrations of unhoused people in the United States.

Lives.

If any place, if any place is an example of why housing needs to be human, right, it is right here.

There.

I like to say I did some of my most important work in homeless services.

I cleaned the porta potty.

I would go every morning dragging a hose and a bottle of bleach.

I would knock on the door of the porta potty and two people would walk out.

I would say hi and apologize for the interruption.

Two more people.

I would pull the porta potty out from the wall and two more people would walk out from behind.

I would say hi to them to every morning this happens, and sometimes the simple things that brick need to do to others in profound ways are the most important.

Now, my other job in Skid Row was to hop on a bicycle and follow around the clean and safe ambassadors from the local improvement district.

They would wear a gray uniform with a bright yellow bars, or presented to them as having authority.

They would prowl around the neighborhood to steal the shopping carts of people living on the streets used to store their possessions.

My job was to wrestle the carts out of their hands.

Sometimes we would like play tug and war, pulling the carts back and forth between us.

But little did they know, I had gone to the best wrestling high school in Ohio.

One time I jumped and sat in the cart, called the police waiting for, waited for them to come and the police told the clean and safe ambassadors.

They did not have the right to steal this person's possessions.

Unfortunately, it's just not in LA that so-called improvement districts punish homeless people.

In January, weeks after we opened the seasonal shelter on East 19th in the middle of the coldest month of the year, I got an email from the Superior Arts District claiming a partial level analysis by the New York City Independent Budget Office found that residential properties within 500ft of emergency shelters sold for approximately 6 to 7% less in their email.

They demanded the city shut us down and I was pissed.

But I immediately saw the silver lining.

That same email also said that the lease to lease vacant units that are located close to shelter landlords must often reduce rents.

So I was glad that New York's new building was helping, making downtown just a little bit more affordable for just about everyone.

By February, during the longest prolonged cold snap in over 100 years, the Superior Arts District demanded we meet with them in a room in City Hall with the biggest table I've probably ever seen.

The board of the district side by side with Downtown Incorporated and their fancy looking attorney, walks in as organizations so concerned about people living on the streets.

I explained to them that the guests now live in shelter were previously sleeping in the improvement district, providing them a safe space indoors.

Sounds like an improvement to me.

They didn't seem to care.

I asked if there was any issues with our guests.

There didn't seem to be any.

Nonetheless, they demanded that everyone get kicked out onto the freezing streets that night.

Thankfully, we have a renovated building that meets zoning requirements and occupation occupancy requirements.

There is not much that can be done to shut us down, but I like to think that maybe they heard the rumors of my wrestling matches in LA.

Seriously though, housing justice caused us to build systems that make life more dignified for people.

Too often our systems enable the opposite.

Hotels refusing to allow people experiencing homelessness to stay there.

Nimby neighbors in Ohio City preventing youth drop in centers.

And this most recent attempt to shut down the first permanent seasonal shelter in Cleveland.

The work of housing justice does not give one inch to those who value profit over people.

For us to be a housing justice community, we will need to build more, significantly more truly affordable housing.

The fact is, we do not have enough of it.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there are about 85,000 extremely low income renters in the Cleveland metro area.

But only 32,765 affordable units.

That means that for every 100 families, there are just 37 available homes.

We cannot solve a sorted shortage with small pilot projects or market rate apartments with a handful of affordable units.

We must make a sustained public investment into affordable housing that is under public, nonprofit and cooperative tenant ownerships, where residents are protected against unjust evictions and predatory rent increases.

And most importantly, meaningfully participate in how their building and community is run.

The Tenants Union Federation calls this social housing.

I'm going to be honest here.

I don't know how to build social housing.

That's not my expertise.

What I do know is that there are people in this room today and in our community together and together.

We are capable of making this happen.

It will require political will and a real belief that housing is a human right.

Across the country, we have seen communities find brilliant ways to build social housing.

For example, in Seattle, voters passed a millionaire task tax that raised 115 million last year.

They're putting all that money into city run social housing developer who would develop, own and lease and maintain mixed income housing for people priced out of the market rate housing.

We have come together to solve hard problems in this city, and we must do so now for the Fair Housing Justice.

Housing.

Justice.

Mandates.

Access to housing.

It recognizes that we must increase access to the housing currently available.

People struggling with housing stability or homelessness get vouchers and rental subsidies.

Landlords all too often refuse to rent to them.

Right now, it is perfectly legal for a landlord in most parts of Cuyahoga County and the city of Cleveland to discriminate against renters or buy or buyers based on their source of income.

Everyone should have the right to use their earnings and benefits on housing.

No one should be sleeping on the streets or forced to stay in a shelter because a landlord doesn't want to accept a voucher.

If we want to end homelessness, we need source of income protections.

Now.

Housing justice also recognizes that too many people are screened out of housing because of past convictions.

In 2020, New York helped review more than a thousand property based section eight properties in Cuyahoga County, the most affordable units in our community.

What we found is that over 78% had policies allowing them to deny applicants with misdemeanor convictions, often based on a lifetime background check.

We must enact fair housing legislation that limits the use of bans and discriminatory screening practices.

People directly impacted by the criminal legal system in our community are doing amazing work and advocating for the end of collateral sanctions, like this one.

People like Mike Jones from New York and many of other people here today.

I invite you to talk to them to learn more.

Housing justice means second chances, and access to safe home must be part of that promise.

I know my mom would agree.

Just outside this room today, we have a table with information about this work.

One small action you could do today is sign on to this campaign to enact fair chance Housing on our website or at the table before you go.

Fair chance housing and source of income protections are key parts of ending homelessness and building housing justice.

They recognize permanent exclusion from housing undermines public safety, economic mobility and family stability.

It will create access to a basic need.

In the words of Maria Smith, a mentor to many of us, we are human beings and we live in housing.

We are human beings and we live in houses.

This work acknowledges that policy alone is not enough.

Today, landlords and real estate owners have more power than tenants, and they use it to their advantage all the time.

In 2025, dozens of national corporate corporate landlords settle a federal class action lawsuit after the Department of Justice accused them of colluding to keep rents artificially high.

Housing justice demands we shift the power in the direction of tenants.

Working class and poor folks navigate our housing systems and our closest to the problem.

They are also closest to the solution.

We must build a citywide tenant union of renters in Cleveland that will allow renters to collectively advocate for safe conditions, to fight for stronger protections, and to bring the accountability to abusive landlords.

New York has spent the last two years organizing tenant unions and associations across Cuyahoga County, and we have seen that see what happens when tenants come together.

When the United Residents of Euclid Beach formed a tenant union with support from New York, they won significantly more in relocation.

When the Mother Teresa mayor tenant, Mother Teresa manor Tenant Council, expanded their rent escrow campaign.

They got long overdue repairs to their building, and when the Kirby Manor Residents Council organized complaints and requested accommodations, they secured disability support for residents.

In Minneapolis, tenant organizers have stepped up amid increased Ice enforcement and its economic fallout.

With trusted community relationships that have courted mutual aid campaigns and helping families stay housed through the newly formed union, they are now organizing what could be the largest rent strike in recent history, demanding that an eviction moratorium and protections for renters unable to safely return to work amidst a federal occupation.

A citywide tenant union in Cleveland would build collective power and transform housing from a transactional relationship to a democratic one.

When tenants come together, they are no longer isolated.

When they are organized, they become a powerful community capable of shaping the conditions of their homes, defending their neighbors, and demanding a houses.

Housing systems are rooted in dignity and fairness.

The truth is, no one is coming to save us.

Not Washington, not the market we are have.

We are going to have to build a community inside the rubble.

Housing justice will not arrive because someone gives it to us.

It comes because ordinary people decide that their neighbors, all of us, especially in our greatest time of need, deserve a home.

Housing justice will come when we get organized and when we refuse to stop until it becomes a reality.

I believe in Cleveland.

I believe in you and me.

I believe that we can love so fiercely that homelessness is unimaginable and housing justice is a reality.

We have already done incredible things.

So let us grab each other's hands and continue the work.

Thank you.

I never got a standing ovation.

Yeah, I've never got a standing ovation before.

I find that very surprising, but well overdue, if that's the case.

We are about to begin the audience Q&A.

For those just joining via our live stream and radio audience, I'm Cynthia Connolly, director of programing here at the City Club.

Today we are hearing from Chris Knestrick, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the homeless, or NEOCH, as we know it.

This part of the City Club's Local Heroes series.

We welcome questions from everyone City Club members, guests and those joining our live stream at Cityclub.org or live radio broadcast at 89 seven KSU Ideas stream public media.

If you'd like to text a question, please text it to (330)541-5794.

Again, that's (330)541-5794, and our staff will try their best to work it into the program.

First question do that right now.

Our first question is a text question we receive from the audience.

How many veterans of Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan wars do you treat?

And does the VA provide any help with their homeless situations?

They deserve all the help our government can provide.

No matter how much it costs.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You know, we have we there's a lot of amazing work happening around ending and ending veterans homelessness.

And a lot of this happens at the SS, the Ssvf program at frontline, where they are doing kind of the most amazing work, both tracking inflow and outflow of the homeless system of veterans.

And they partner really deep, with the VA to get housing access for each veteran that are experiencing homelessness in our community.

And so I think if any work is a model for us to look at, actually, is the veteran homeless work happening in our community?

I mean, there was a period of time where they were kind of at a functional zero for a short month of really being able to offer housing to every veteran that was experiencing homelessness in our community.

And I think one of the things is that the veterans have, the most amount of resources available to them to be able to quickly end homelessness and get access to housing.

And so I think some of that work for us as a model to look at, to be like, how do we do this work to end unsheltered homelessness in our community?

Thank you.

Hey, Chris.

Kevin Clayton with the Warriors.

Good to see you.

So I have a preface and then a question.

Yeah.

Thank you for everything that you said.

There are three individuals that live outside of Rocket Arena that we have gone to.

Ask them, how do we help?

We bring them food.

They tell us that they don't want to go to a shelter because they're afraid to live on.

On Tony, Ontario one lives in an alleyway alley off of Huron.

When we talked about those 18 cold days, they slept over the RTA ventilation vents.

That is not how they want to live, but they're afraid to go to a shelter.

So my question is one what can we do?

But I'm sure there's others across this community that have found that way of living, that way of life for them.

What can we do?

Yeah, I think, when you say we I mean, I think our community I mean, I know, I think we know those three individuals, we outreach them pretty regularly, and they have lots of barriers to housing.

Right.

And so the task of our team here is to figure out how do we eliminate those barriers and get people into housing.

There's lots of reasons why people don't go to shelter.

I know that I think some of those people have gone to our seasonal shelter when we opened up early on, and then has have decided to go back out to where they feel most comfortable.

I think as a community, we really need to figure out how do we continue to get people from the streets directly into housing as quickly as possible?

Right.

And so and I think the other reality is many times it's it takes a long time to build a relationship with someone you know for them.

I think you might not trust the system, but I think for us it's around trust our team that they can help make the system work for you.

And so I know that we're prioritizing our services to them, and sometimes we don't know what will happen that allows them to be like.

Yeah.

Now, today's the day.

But it's about making sure you're there and ready for when they say yes to housing.

And I think our plan is to continue to reach them.

And I think for our community, as to be in relationship with them, you know, make sure they're safe.

When are they sleep out there, make sure they're not going to die or freeze to death.

And I think that work for us is the most important.

And trust that you know that whether it's the shelter system, whether it's our outreach teams, whether it's the permanent supportive housing available, that when they're when they recognize that housing is they have access to housing, that we can get them there as quickly as possible.

Good afternoon.

Chris, how are you doing?

Well.

Michael Diemer from, Downtown Cleveland Inc.

and also the Superior Arts Improvement District, we want to wrestle.

I don't, but I do want to agree with about 99% of what you had to say today.

Certainly disappointed in the the characterization of the positions that that my organizations, took relative to the seasonal shelter, fully supportive of getting people, out of the cold and into shelter.

Fully supportive of the mission to, end unsheltered homelessness and overcome the barriers that you just alluded to in response to the previous question.

It's my question, for you today.

And this is something I was hoping to talk with you over coffee about next week.

But my question for you today is, in light of our shared, goals and the fragmented system of services that we have across downtown in the campus district in particular, would you be willing to join our organizations in creating a comprehensive, coordinated plan for how services, are delivered across downtown?

And would you join us in trying to find a permanent, increased source of funding for a home for every neighbor?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I thank you so much.

I appreciate this question, and I'm looking forward to coffee.

And I think it's important to understand that Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services has a plan to end unsheltered homelessness and that we are, however, coordinating services that it aligns with that plan in our community, because I think we put a lot of work into that plan.

Our outreach team put a lot of room.

A lot of people with lived experience put work into that plan to really give us the pathway.

And part of that plan was to, you know, build, have a permanent seasonal shelter and also a navigation center.

So what I'm thankful for is that we are in the process and have the funding to move that space into a full time navigation center for our community.

And so it's going to be part of that.

We coordinate services, and it's a I think we align on the fact that neither of us want to have people on the streets in our community.

Right.

And how do we have that goal?

Be our guide stone, from which we coordinate services in our community, and that we can work together on that goal?

And I'm very hopeful for that.

And, need a lot of NEOCH work is already coordinating those services, particularly for unsheltered people.

So how do we make sure that we're, in line with what you all want and what we want?

I think for us, it's that we need to prioritize people all the time in their greatest time of need.

And that is the most important thing that we need to do.

And that, and I, I mean, 100% we are, you know, out there working to make sure that, the home for every neighbor is adequately funded and continues to get funded in our community because we believe that it is a program that is working to solve homelessness, in our community.

Hello.

My name is Brenda, former minister Brenda Farmer.

Chris, my brother from another mother.

I love you dearly, dearly, dearly.

You work so hard.

Your team.

Everything is to make.

The more you do, the further you go back.

Four steps back.

the question is, what can we do to to stop this homeless because everybody's homeless situation is different.

Job situation, mortgage, car, they can't deal with what was piling up in between a lives.

Everybody got a story to tell.

Everybody in this room.

So what can we do, Chris?

To, stop this homeless and everybody.

So.

Well, Osama.

So out there in the streets stop because you might be on the street when you talk about that person.

If things can get pointed back, you as my mom and dad, he will say, you point a finger at one person, three going get pointed right back at you.

So we got to be very nice to each other.

Thanks, Brenda.

I'm not going to read my whole speech again to answer your question, but, I, I do think that, the question to answer your question, and I think this is why our work is so important and kind of what I alluded, that is that the solution we need to build the system that functions and gets people housing.

But that's not everyone.

Is that a walk through that system in the same way?

Right.

People have different barriers.

People are complex.

We're talking about behavioral health issues.

We're talking about criminal backgrounds.

We're talking about people that have a lot of barriers to housing.

And so we must recognize that the system we created is not going to work for everyone, but we have to be nimble enough to make sure that it's working for everyone.

And so I think that is we have to treat each person as an individual, while at the same time recognize the gaps that are happening where people can access it.

Hi.

I was just wondering, you had mentioned harm reduction, but I was wondering what are the ways that you guys try to focus on pushing harm reduction within the seasonal shelter that you guys opened?

Yeah.

Thanks.

I mean, I think at the biggest concept, seasonal shelter is a harm reduction model, right?

Like it's cold outside, people will freeze to death.

We need to increase capacity, make different, points of access for people.

You know, I think we have pets in our shelter.

We have couples, you know, so that the model itself is based out of a harm reduction model.

I think, secondly, making sure that our staff is trained in and Narcan and use, and substance use, things to make sure and then that it is also a low barrier shelter.

So it's not making sure that people that are actively using can stay there, you know.

And so I think a lot of those things are harm reduction models that we've implemented at the seasonal shelter level.

And that not a lot of those aren't necessarily new either in our community.

You know, our shelters are, for the most part, are low barrier and, you know, there's no screening for requirements to enter.

You just have to show up.

And so I think harm reduction is really, under attack right now, you know, so they I think it's something that we should be worried about because, you know, when we're no longer able to hand out clean needles or allow, people to use safely in our community like we're done, I continue to see more people dying.

And that's really worrisome.

But our community has been, you know, on those kind of the principles of harm reduction, very solid.

That's a great question.

It was.

Thank you.

Chris.

So, good afternoon and thank you again for your for your remarks today.

Really appreciate it.

One of the things you talked about was the policy change that can happen at the county level, as well as what policy changes are happening at the federal level that will impact, the homeless, issues that we're, that we're examining today.

My question is, is advocacy at the state?

What role does the state play in helping to address some of these issues?

What role can advocates play in helping to elevate the arguments that need to be made at the state to help solve some of these policy issues?

Yeah, I really appreciate that question.

You know, our advocacy of the northeast, our College of the homeless, has really focused hyper locally.

And then also at the federal level.

And we don't dabble much at the state, mostly because it's very difficult.

Maybe, but I think, the state plays a really important role.

I think, we, I think it's particularly when we're talking about building affordable housing in our communities, right now we only get, you know, you get to low income tax credits a year from, to be able to build to buildings, affordable housing.

Like, we need to get significantly more, tax credits to be available to our community.

And so I really appreciate everyone that's doing state advocacy work in our community.

And I know our partner agency, Co Ohio down there is doing what they can to influence those policies.

But I'm not the expert on state policy.

And.

All right Chris thank you so so much.

So we're going two for two here.

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The City Club would like to welcome guests at the tables hosted by the Campus District, the center for Community Solutions citizens, the city Mission Community West Foundation, Cuyahoga Community College, Eden Inc, Enbridge Enterprise Community Partners, Frontline Service, the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, NEOCH, and the NEOCH Board of Directors.

What a list.

Thank you so much for being here.

Next week at the City Club will be back at the Happy Dog in Gordon Square on Wednesday, March 11th for an evening conversation on the current situation in Iran.

Ambassador Ambassador Gina Abercrombie, Win Stanley and Case Western's Avi Kovar will join us.

The forum is free and walk-ins are welcome.

Hope to see you there and then next Friday, March 13th at the City Club, we will host the 2026 High School Debate Championship, Charlotte Clyde with Hathaway Brown School and Anshul Sharma with University School.

We'll debate the topic resolved.

The United States military ought to abide by the principle of nonintervention.

We did not plan this.

This is how it happened.

You can learn more about these forums and others at Cityclub.org.

Thank you once again to Chris Knestrick and our members and friends of the city Club.

I'm Cynthia Connolly and this forum is now adjourned.

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