Community-Wealth City: Cleveland, Ohio

In the 2000 census, Cleveland had a population of 478,000. Just over 50 percent of the city’s population is African-American, 41 percent is white, and about 7 percent Latino/a. Once derided as the “mistake by the lake,” Cleveland has had a remarkable recovery. After 30 years (1960-1990) in which the city’s population declined by 40 percent, population stabilized in the 1990s. Nine neighborhoods have had gains, including downtown, which grew by an unprecedented one-third. The poverty rate fell, and concentrated poverty declined markedly.

Community wealth building institutions have played an important role in the city’s turn-around. In the late 1970s, Cleveland created a land bank to handle tax-delinquent properties, directing many of the properties to community development corporations. Consistent access to land, and the city's commitment of local and federal dollars helped make Cleveland 's community development industry one of the most productive in the nation. According to Living Cities, a national consortium of community development funders, over the last decade Cleveland CDCs have rehabilitated 7,600 homes and built 6,300 new ones—80 percent of the new homes in the city. Below are some of Cleveland’s leading community wealth building organizations.

Community Development Corporations

Cleveland Housing Network
www.chnnet.com
Cleveland Housing Network, founded in 1981, is a coalition of 23 CDCs that develop affordable homes and provide training and counseling services to help Cleveland families escape poverty and build wealth. Since 1981, Cleveland Housing Network and its member CDCs have helped generate over $250 million in investments in Cleveland neighborhoods.

Famicos Foundation
www.famicos.org
Founded in 1969 in response to poverty and civil unrest, the Famicos Foundation has acquired, renovated, or constructed over 700 units of affordable housing. The CDC owns and operates 326 units of affordable housing in Cleveland and also manages 276 Cleveland Housing Network lease purchase homes.

Neighborhood Progress, Inc.
www.neighborhoodprogress.org
Neighborhood Progress is a regional organization that acts as a local intermediary, raising funds from corporate, foundation, and city sources and offering operating support and technical support to CDCs throughout the city. It currently provides $1.5 million per year to Cleveland CDCs, as well as up to $5 million per year in low-interest loans for neighborhood development. Over the pasts 10 years, Neighborhood Progress and its local partners have developed over 3,400 affordable homes.

Community Development Financial Institution

Shorebank Cleveland
www.sbk.com/bins/site/templates/splash.asp
A subsidiary of the nation’s largest community development bank (based in Chicago), Shorebank has invested $75 million in Cleveland over the past seven years. The bank has financed over 1,400 new or rehabilitated affordable housing units in Cleveland, as well as more than $3 million in higher-risk loans for locally-owned and operated businesses.

Cooperatives

Ohio City Bike Co-op
http://ohiocitycycles.org
In the spring of 2001, a volunteer group of cyclists began an informal Earn-a-Bike program, teaching neighborhood kids bike repair and safe riding skills. In 2002, incorporated as the Ohio City Bicycle Co-op (OCBC), the group secured a storefront where it could renovate and sell its surplus of donated used bikes to cover expenses, and started a membership program to attract additional volunteers. Over time OCBC has expanded its Earn-a-Bike program, and is now teaching courses at schools and recreation centers, primarily on a fee-for-service basis.

Steiner House Cooperative
www.cwru.edu/affil/steiner
Founded in the 1940s, Steiner House is a 21-member university student-run housing cooperative at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The 60 year-old cooperative regularly attracts international students from around the world. Its present membership includes Case Western students from Ethiopia, Thailand, Syria, India, Panama, Egypt, Bulgaria, the United States, the Netherlands, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Greece, Turkey and Germany.

Employee Stock Ownership Plan Companies

Chilcote Company
www.chilcotecompany.com
The Chilcote Company, established in 1906, produces a variety of photography, printing, and presentation-related products and has annual sales of $55 million. Chilcote’s 400-plus employees own a 33 percent share in the company. In 2004, the national ESOP Association recognized Chilcote as its ESOP Company of the Year.

Oswald Companies
www.oswaldcompanies.com/history.aspx
The original Oswald Company was formed in 1893. In 1985, the insurance broker company established an employee stock ownership plan for its employees. Oswald’s 100-plus workers now own 30 percent of the company.

Municipal Enterprise

Cleveland Public Power
http://www.cpp.org
Founded in 1906, Cleveland Public Power is Ohio’s largest public power company and the 35th largest in the nation. In the 1970s, the city was almost forced to sell the company. In 1977, then Mayoral candidate (now Congressman) Dennis Kucinich (D) ran on a platform to stop the sale. Two years later, city residents voted 2-to-1 against privatizing their municipal power system. In 1986 then-Mayor (now U.S. Senator) George Voinovich (R) introduced legislation to enable the utility to expand its service system. Today, Cleveland Public Power is one of the country’s leading public power companies, with power reliability rated at 99.99 percent.

Program-Related Investments

George Gund Foundation, Program Related Investments
www.gundfdn.org/grants/grants_investments.asp
The George Gund Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to investment in Cleveland, is a leader among regional foundations in using program-related investments to leverage foundation assets in support of community wealth-building projects. The Foundation’s first PRI was made in 1984 when $333,000 was loaned to the Famicos Foundation for construction of the Lexington Village Project, a 183 unit housing development in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland. Since then, nearly 25 separate PRI transactions have been completed. Currently, the Foundation has over $8 million invested in 13 active transactions.

State and Local Government Innovations

Cleveland Department of Community Development, Land Banking
www.city.cleveland.oh.us/government/departments/
commdev/cdneigdev/cdndlandbank.html
Cleveland’s land banking program, established in 1976 and then expanded in the late 1980s, was a pioneer among Rust Belt cities looking for a way to organize underused land to promote urban redevelopment. As the city’s web site explains, “When a number of City-owned lots and tax-delinquent properties in the foreclosure process are located in close proximity, the City will bank lots until the foreclosed lots come into the Land Bank. The lots are then consolidated to allow for new development.”

University-Community Partnerships

Center for Nonprofit Policy & Practice, Cleveland State University
http://urban.csuohio.edu/nonprofit
Cleveland State University has been a national leader in university-community partnerships, with efforts dating back to the 1970s. The Center for Nonprofit Policy & Practice (CNP&P) at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University, arose from the College's involvement with community and neighborhood organizations. The CNP&P was founded to support and foster local nonprofit activity. The Center provides training and technical assistance to support area nonprofits, conducts scholarly and applied research, and runs education programs in the leadership and management of nonprofit organizations.