Neighborhood News Archives ~ 2007

Neighborhood News Archives ~ 2006

'Birthdate' of Jan. 1 bonds African refugees

From the Friday, December 29, 2006 Cleveland Plain Dealer
Robert L. Smith
Plain Dealer Reporter

Salvator Kagoma and his wife, Helena Ntihabose, left behind more than birth certificates when they fled Burundi.

In the madness of civil war, they lost four children, including two boys who were shot while walking home from school.

So swift was the family's flight, they packed nothing, and carried only babies.

Eleven years later, in a refugee camp in Tanzania, a U.N. resettlement officer told the couple that America would take them but that the U.S. government ex- pected an official birth date.

Someone typed Jan. 1 beside their names, and Salvator and Helena joined a tragic and grateful club.

On Saturday, the couple and their six children will gather with about 200 other refugees, mostly Africans, to celebrate the New Year and one thing more - a birthday weighted with meaning.

If you're an African immigrant and your birthday is Jan. 1, other Africans know you almost certainly experienced a refugee's odyssey.

You have losses to grieve and a new life to pursue. And you found some peace in Northeast Ohio.

"We thank God that he brought us here from Africa, because we had no place to go," Salvator Kagoma, 59, said through his 17-year-old daughter, Esperance.

The birth date, so casually assigned, came to connect him to people much like himself in a world he never imagined. It came to be something to celebrate.

Among the professionals and volunteers who help to acclimate refugees to Cleveland, the import of Jan. 1 dawned over time.

The West Side United Church of Christ hosted the first New Year's celebration last year for a refugee community growing on Cleveland's near West Side. Organizers decided to make it a birthday party, too, hoping to unite a disparate group.

The Cleveland Catholic Diocese has helped to resettle about 700 refugees from Africa, Afghanistan and Russia in the last four years. The Africans, the largest group, hail from several different nations, cultures and language groups.

Jan. 1 soon emerged as their common denominator.

Some of the refugees came from places where record keeping was lax or where things like exact birth dates are not important. Others lost everything when their village burned, or they were born in flight.

"I haven't come across too many refugees who have their birth certificates," said Amanda Cannon, program director of the church's new Refugee Family Center.

Her previous job with Migration and Refugee Services of Catholic Charities had clued her in to a reality of becoming American. Everyone needs a starting point.

"If you don't have the date of birth, Jan. 1 is the default," said Leslie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, which approves refugees for admission.

Once assigned, a made-up birth date is hard to change. It goes on your driver's license and medical records. It's a date that myriad forms demand.

And so the African immigrant community has come to accept the designation as something both humorous and important, a bit perplexing, very American.

"Other people say, 'Wow, how come all of you have the same birthday?' " laughed Ayan Mohamud, a Somali from Kenya, who will turn 25 on Jan. 1. "For the refugees, it's no big deal. They know the reality."

The first New Year's birthday party drew more than 100 people. Word has spread, and organizers expect double the crowd this year.

Salvator and Helena plan to bring their six children, including Esperance, who was raised in refugee camps and is now an honors student at Lincoln West High School.

The teenager knows and uses her real birth date, but she says the birthday assigned to her parents carries more meaning.

Jan. 1 meant they were going to be safe. They were going home.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

rsmith@plaind.com , 216-999-4024


© 2006 The Plain Dealer© 2006 www.cleveland.com  All Rights Reserved.

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New, redone theaters to anchor Gordon Square Arts District
From the Friday, December 29, 2006 The Palin Dealer
Joe Guillen

Plain Dealer Reporter
 

From the outside, the old Capitol Theatre on West 65th Street is practically invisible.

The theater's anonymous set of green doors, boarded-up ticket booth and archway lined with empty light bulb fixtures easily are hidden among the surrounding storefronts in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood.

But beyond its nondescript exterior, the Capitol Theatre is a cornerstone of an ambitious plan to revive the once-struggling neighborhood with a new arts and commercial project, called the Gordon Square Arts District.

It will become the Capitol Movie Theatre and screen independent and art films. Renovations are to be finished in early 2008.

Labeled the West Side's version of the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights, the Capitol is among a trio of theaters that will anchor the venture, which is on a half-mile stretch of Detroit Avenue, from West 58th Street to West 73rd Street.

The Gordon Square Arts District can become as identifiable as New York's Greenwich Village or Washington's Dupont Circle, boasts the leadership team behind the project.

Cleveland Councilman Matthew Zone, whose ward includes the district, said it is the neighborhood's "single most important economic development project" in nearly 90 years, since the Gordon Square Arcade was built.

"I don't believe there is a more catalytic project going on than the arts district," he said.

A variety of shops, restaurants and art galleries will complement the core of theaters. With the district's proximity to downtown and decades-old buildings, Zone compared it to an authentic version of Westlake's Crocker Park.

The community's face lift is already under way, with an art gallery in place and a coffee shop and an Irish pub set to open.

"We have a real identity; it's not a place that's created," Zone said.

Plans for the Gordon Square Arts District also call for the Cleveland Public Theatre to be renovated, construction of a new building for the Near West Theatre and a new Detroit Avenue streetscape.

Cleveland Public Theatre founding Director James Levin said he envisioned such an intersection of culture and commerce when he chose the site of the theater on Detroit Avenue more than 20 years ago.

"Now it feels, after all these years, the Gordon Square Arts District is really going to happen," said Levin, who also is co-founder and executive director of Ingenuity, Cleveland's festival of art and technology.

The plan gained momentum, Levin said, when the Near West Theatre decided to relocate to the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. The new location for the theater will be on West 67th Street, within walking distance of the two other theaters.

The Near West Theatre - now in a cramped space at St. Patrick's Club Building in Ohio City - uses theater to build awareness and self-esteem in young people, Executive Director Stephanie Morrison-Hrbek said.

Construction of the new Near West Theatre hasn't started, but the goal is to open the 300-seat facility in 2010.

The entire Gordon Square Arts District project carries a price tag of around $20 million. Three organizations - Cleveland Public Theatre, Near West Theatre and the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization - are uniting to drive a fund-raising campaign.

"Competition in Cleveland for philanthropic dollars is tough," said Joy Roller, director of the Gordon Square Arts District committee.

Some of the money for the project is on the cusp of being secured, or is already in the bank.

Restoration of the Capitol Movie Theatre, owned by the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, will cost $6 million. A "prominent" Cleveland bank is in negotiations to provide most of the money in exchange for tax benefits, said Jeffrey Ramsey, executive director of the organization.

The new Detroit Avenue streetscape will cost about $3 million, which is in the coffer. Improvements include a narrower street, wider sidewalks and buried utility wires. Construction will begin next summer.

Exact costs to restore Cleveland Public Theatre and build a new Near West Theatre aren't yet nailed down.

Zone, Ramsey and other stakeholders said the Gordon Square Arts District is a can't-miss venture, pointing out the public and private investment in the neighborhood. Examples include:

Battery Park is a $100 million housing development under construction at the former Eveready Battery Plant site. The development will include more than 300 housing units with prices starting at about $170,000.

City and state officials are drawing up final designs for a $50 million to $70 million project that will convert the West Shoreway (Ohio 2) into a 35-mph boulevard by 2011, providing residents better access to Lake Erie and sparking interest from residential and commercial developers.

The city is also chipping in $500,000 toward the Detroit Avenue streetscape improvements, Zone said.

Despite what appears to be a widespread, concerted effort to reinvigorate the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood, a reputation for drugs and crime that developed decades ago lingers.

In August, a string of five homicides in a week's time shook the neighborhood. Among the victims were two artists shot by a neighbor in their condominium building at the corner of Detroit Avenue and West 75th Street.

Community leaders said the violence is not typical of the neighborhood, nor did it ding the confidence of investors. "That was something very freaky," Ramsey said.

Zone recalled how the community banded together during the turmoil. More than 300 people gathered for a peace vigil to remember the victims.

While striving to erase any indications the area is unsafe, community leaders are adamant about maintaining other aspects of the neighborhood.

A priority of the Gordon Square Arts District steering committee is to maintain the neighborhood's economic and racial diversity and preserve its affordable housing options.

The Gordon Square Homes project is one of the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization's affordable housing programs. It will provide 85 housing units, some of which already are rented by artists in a building adjacent to the site for the Near West Theatre.

"What we believe we're doing here is the new American neighborhood," Ramsey said.

Buzz about the project is beginning to spread.

Nate Coffman, executive director of the Home Builders Association of Greater Cleveland, has lived in the neighborhood for about seven years. He said the new Capitol Movie Theatre is "going to be immense."

"I think it's one of the hottest neighborhoods for new development and rehabilitation in the city," he said.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

jguillen@plaind.com, 216-999-4675


© 2006 The Plain Dealer© 2006 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.

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Cleveland Mediation Center celebrates 25th Anniversary

From The Plain Press

On Thursday November 16th, Cleveland Mediation Center (CMC) held a 25th Anniversary celebration at Massimo da Milano on W. 25th and Detroit Avenue. Originally called the Cleveland Youth Mediation Program (CYMP), the organization was founded in 1981. CYMP was modeled after a program from Scotland first introduced to the neighborhood by a worker at the West Side Community House. Some of the early board members took a trip to Scotland to see the program first hand.

In 1982 CYMP trained its first mediation class. In 1985, peer mediation programs and family school mediations began in Cleveland schools. In 1986 CYMP became a United Way member.

In 1990 community cases increased beyond youth cases. The organization began to mediate some larger neighborhood wide disputes such as the proposed expansion of St. Herman’s facility to include a dining hall and the merger of Near West Housing and Ohio City Redevelopment Association to form Ohio City Near West Development Corporation.

In 1992 Cleveland Youth Mediation Program changed its name to Cleveland Mediation Center to reflect its growing community work. In 1998 the center received funding from the Office of Homeless Services to help mediate evictions cases between landlords and tenants.

Today Cleveland Mediation Center offers a wide variety of mediation services including couples mediation, divorce mediation, training in conflict resolution and mediation skills, group facilitation and workplace intervention, training in cross cultural communication and dissolution of marriage kits. The organization still works with youths to resolve conflicts and has initiated the School Attendance Project which uses mediation to work with families to help improve school attendance.

Cleveland Mediation Center Board of Directors President Lisa Gaynier presented Cleveland Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka with the first ever CMC Community Service Award saying Pianka helped to make the court system “more humane.” She praised Judge Pianka’s work to create the selective intervention program which helps the indigent and elderly avoid eviction.

In accepting the award, Pianka said mediation was a “win-win situation that allowed the parties to keep their dignity even if they were falling off the last rung of the housing ladder.” Pianka noted that the Cleveland Mediation Center’s staff regularly reviewed the area’s 11,000 annual evictions to look for prospects for mediation in the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program.

Recounting a conversation from 22 years ago, Cleveland Mediation Center Executive Director Dan Joyce said he still remembers the conversation with Marita Kavelec, CYMP’s first executive director. Joyce said it was a cold snowy winter day and fifteen people showed up at the West Side Community House for mediation training. Joyce wondered why the volunteers had braved the elements to attend the training session. Kavelec said a common belief that the status quo was not good enough bound people together to work for change.

Joyce believes that CMC has been part of that effort for change over the past 25 years empowering people and giving a voice to the voiceless. Mediation offers an alternative, he says, showing that “blame, shame and punishment is not the answer.”

For more information about the Cleveland Mediation Program call 621-1919 or visit the Cleveland Mediation Center website at: www.clevelandmediation.org.

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Proposed Nuisance Abatement Legislation expected to take effect in November!

Are you wondering how the ordinance will affect landlords/renters/nuisance property/established businesses/etc.

Please join us at a Landlord Tenant Law Workshop

Presenter: Michael Piepsny, Executive Director Cleveland Tenants Organization

DATE: Tuesday, November 14th

TIME: 6:30-8:30 pm

PLACE: St Ignatius ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, 10205 Lorain Avenue

COST: FREE

REGISTRATION REQUIRED: Call 432-0617 RESERVE A SPOT!!!!


Councilman Joe Santiago
(216) 664-3706 office
Executive Assistant Sister Alicia Alvarado 664-4569
City Hall Email: jsantiago@clevelandcitycouncil.org

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West Side Community House
Dedicates New Building

The West Side Community House, a fixture in our Ohio City/Near West Side neighborhood for over 100 years, has relocated. to serve a shifting client base. Pastor Allen and Ann Wolf were present for the November 9 Dedication Ceremony and Open House in the new, $2.6 million building at West 93rd Street and Lorain Avenue. A buyer expects to redevelop the old building, at Bridge Avenue and West 30th Street, into condominiums, according to Dawn Kolograf, executive director.

She said the organization decided to move because at least 75 percent of people now using its services live west of West 65th Street. The new location is also on a major bus line and just off the freeway.

The building, which officially opened the previous Monday, allows the consolidation of the senior citizens program from the Bridge site with West Side's satellite seniors operation that has been in Simpson United Methodist Church, at West 86th Street and Clark Avenue, for about 20 years. The new site includes a computer lab and game room for the seniors, as well as a learning lab for youngsters and a spacious dining room and kitchen. There's also a playground out back for kids who attend the day care program for school-age children, and an indoor playroom. Two rooms are for family visitation with kids in county foster care.

Kolograf estimated that the center serves about 400 people a day through the senior citizens programs, Meals on Wheels to homebound elderly, the day care and other family services.
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Gordon Square rehab done

By David Plata, West Side Sun News
Staff Writer

Nov. 23, 2006

CLEVELAND — After getting under way at the start of the year, work was essentially completed this week on Gordon Square Homes, a $12 million residential and commercial rehab of four 1920s-era buildings in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood.

All told, the project consists of creation or preservation of 85 low-income apartments and 6,000 square feet of commercial space.

"We've renovated four buildings that have been vacant and blighted on Detroit Avenue," said Councilman Matt Zone, D-17, in whose ward the properties are located. "And we've restored 85 quality affordable housing units to the market."

Mayor Frank Jackson and a coterie of officials attended a dedication of the project Monday at Near West Lofts, 6706 Detroit Ave.

Formerly known as the Conrad-Balsch-Kroehle Building, the property once was the site of Lou's Furniture and consists of eight apartments fixed up as live-work artist's space and 5,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

At one time, Near West Theatre, which is planning to build a new theater behind the building and move from the Ohio City neighborhood, was going to rent the ground-floor space as well. Instead, the theater group will sublet the space, possibly to a restaurant.

Stephanie Morrison-Hrbek, theater director, said a $20 million fundraising campaign is aimed at making the move possible in three years.


For the rest of the story, see your local Sun newspaper.

© 2006 Sun Newspapers
Go to The Sun News www.sunnews.com  home page

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Feature Article at Religion & Ethics Newsweekly: Mentoring Inner City Boys
Find the full article at:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1008/feature.html#

Synopsis: At Jireh Sports in Indianapolis, African-American boys from one of the city's poorest neighborhoods are receiving spiritual guidance and emotional support through a special faith-based and church-sponsored mentoring program. Managed by minister Tim Streett, the program offers inner city kids, often from broken or single parent homes, the chance to build meaningful relationships with mentoring adults through a variety of sporting, recreational and educational activities. Religion is also an important part of the program, although participants are not required to belong to a particular church.

Lucky Severson provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Jireh Sports is helping urban youths turn their lives around. According to Reverend Streett, "We believe that the only way to get them to truly value themselves is one, to have a sense of accomplishment; and two, to have a relationship with God -- to believe that they were not a mistake, that they were created by a loving God who cares about them."
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Gypsy coffee moving
business near Shoreway  [Editor's Note: Gypsy Coffee has OPENED as of January 3rd, 2007] http://www.gypsybeans.com/

By David Plata
Staff Writer - West Side Sun News http://www.sunnews.com/news/2006/part2/1005/WCOFFEE.htm

Oct. 5, 2006

After two decades as a wholesale coffee operation in a Fulton Road warehouse, Gypsy Beans & Baking Co. is moving to the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood.
[The sky and buildings across the street are reflected in the storefront window at Gypsy Beans & Baking Co., a wholesale coffee sales and neighborhood coffee shop that owner Niki Gillota plans to open at West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue.]The sky and buildings across the street are reflected in the storefront window at Gypsy Beans & Baking Co., a wholesale coffee sales and neighborhood coffee shop that owner Niki Gillota plans to open at West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue. Sun photo by Brad Ruebensaal.

And while the wholesale coffee sales, serving restaurants in the Greater Cleveland area and beyond, will continue, the new venue also will include a neighborhood coffee house.

"I've always been an urban pioneer of sorts," said Niki Gillota, who is spending some $200,000 to move the business and open at the new location.

"I love being in a community," added Gillota, who has lived in Lakewood about a year but is looking to move back to Cleveland. "I think Cleveland is so great for having these little pockets of community that grow and expand and develop around some key players."

The new business covers 2,200 square feet at the southeast corner of West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue, in a former Dollar Store, vacant about two years.

"It's awesome," said Councilman Matt Zone, D-17, noting the "key players" Gillota referred to include the 1point618 art gallery and a new Mediterranean-style restaurant, yet to be named, to be opened by chef Marlin Kaplan — all of them next to Cleveland Public Theatre.

The project is aided by some $30,000 in city loan and grant funds, including $20,000 routed through Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, which owns the building.

For the rest of the story, see your local Sun newspaper.

© 2006 Sun Newspapers
Go to The Sun News www.sunnews.com home page

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Building Bridges Mural Unveiled At W. 25th St. & Route 2

PHOTO BY JOHN CARTWRIGHT
Friday, October 13, 2006; W. 25th Street Mural Dedication by the Building Bridges Mural Program, Side of the Route 2 Bridge at the Corner of W. 25th and Detroit: Artist Katherine Chilcote and 2006 Summer Interns Jerome Harris, Kareem Stittman, Adam Prince, Chris Drake, Denzel Mammett, Angelo Jessup and Antonio Harris participated in the unveiling of this mural illustrating figures building community in different ways.

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Neighborhood Watch Training

Join your neighbors for a Neighborhood Watch Training with the II District Cleveland Police Department and Police Officer Jeff Stanczyk. Learn more about practical tips for personal and home safety
Topics Covered:

Personal Safety
Kids Safety
Home Safety
Safety for Seniors
Neighborhood Safety
Auto Safety
How to organize and gather information
CB & Neighborhood Patrols
Dates: November 2, 9, 16 and 30, 2006 (All Thursdays)

Time: 6:00-7:30 PM

Location: W. 58th Street Church of God
3150 W. 58th Street
For more information, please contact Ed Webb,
SRO Safety Coordinator at (216) 961-7687 ext. 206
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Cleveland Innerbelt Plan
The Conceptual Alternatives Study (CAS) of the Cleveland Innerbelt Plan details the history, development, and evaluation of the alternatives considered for the reconstruction of the Cleveland Innerbelt.
The CAS is available to the Public at:
www.innerbelt.org
Cleveland City Hall Library, Room 100, 601 Lakeside Ave., Cleveland
Cleveland Public Library, Science and Technology Dept., 525 Superior Ave., Cleveland
NOACA, 1299 Superior Ave., Cleveland
ODOT, District 21, 5500 Transportation Blvd., Garfield Heights
For more information, contact ODOT at 216-584-2007.

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Gifts Of The City To Be Celebrated September 30

“Gifts Of The City” is a day long educational and experiential event designed to inspire and network people of faith who are committed to the people and culture of Cleveland's urban core.  "Gifts of the City" will take place on Saturday, September 30 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Franklin Circle Christian Church, 1688 Fulton Rd., on Cleveland's Near West Side.  Registration, which will take place at the door, will be on a sliding fee scale, from $1 to $20 and includes continental breakfast, lunch, and all programming.

We are especially excited that Andrés González, Executive Director of El Barrio, will be our keynoter and that Molly Carreon, of Merrick House, will oversee our children's programming again this year.  Mr. González, whose topic will be "Gifts Of The Hispanic Community To The City" is director of El Barrio (see fuller bio and picture below).  Ms Carreon is director of the Help Me Grow program at Merrick House in Tremont.

Workshops during the day will include:
o     Historical Near West Side Neighborhood Tour
o     Visit 2100 Lakeside Men's Shelter and Women's Transitional Housing
o     Learn how to deal with stress
o     Mediation Training
o     Positive Educational Experiences in Cleveland

There will be a Community Fair with booths from many different organizations, as well as health screenings for blood pressure, blood sugar, and lead poisoning.  Throughout the day there will be entertainment, including a neighborhood children's choir made up of recent immigrants from Africa.

The event is being sponsored by many different organizations, including Urban Hope UU Community, InterAct Cleveland, God's AGAPE Love for the Homeless, United Clevelanders Against Poverty, St. Patrick's Catholic Church, St. Paul's Community Church, UCC, Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, Congregation of St. Joseph, West Shore UU Church, Mae Dugan Center, and Franklin Circle Christian Church.  Other sponsors are being sought.  If you have any questions or would like to sign on as a cosponsor, please call Doris Matthey at (216)773-4289 or Molly Holland at (216) 382-4367.
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Andres Gonzalez is the Director of Hispanic Services at El Barrio, a part of the West Side Ecumenical Ministry (WSEM).  El Barrio seeks to bridge the language, culture, and service gaps that separate Hispanics from the other people, agencies, and services.  Their goal is to assist their clients with attaining self reliance through education and job skills, job placement and retention, and community integration. Previously, Andres was the Executive Director of Hispanic UMADAOP (Urban Minority Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Outreach Program, Inc.).  He holds a Masters in Education degree from Cleveland State University and is a graduate of the Cleveland Bridge Builders Flagship Program.

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Providence House plans expansion on West Side
Friday, September 08, 2006
Barb Galbincea
Plain Dealer Reporter

Providence House, a crisis nursery for young children, is primed to expand in its near West Side neighborhood.

The nonprofit, which serves about 200 youngsters a year, already has acquired most of the land it needs around its two buildings on West 32nd Street, south of Lorain Avenue, according to board member Edward Bell.

He said Providence House wants to raise $15 million to build and support the expanded campus, featuring four connected homes. Those houses would be linked to a child-care center with classrooms and playrooms.

Plans also call for converting one of the existing buildings to an education center for parents and child-care professionals, building a secure playground behind the houses and adding underground storage for donations.

Currently, Providence House can serve up to 26 children, age 5 and under, at any one time. With the expansion, capacity would grow to 40.

Natalie Leek-Nelson, chief executive and president of Providence House, said a change in the law will allow the organization to take in older siblings - probably up to age 10 - if a younger brother or sister is being sheltered there.

Providence House aims to prevent abuse and neglect by giving families in crisis a safe haven for their children, she said. Those crises can range from homelessness and domestic violence to health problems.

While the children are cared for during stays that average 24 days, adults are linked to services aimed at allowing the family to safely reunite. Last year, Leek-Nelson said, 93 percent of families were reunited.

Founded by Sister Hope Greener in 1981, Providence House generally has a waiting list of from seven to 10 children, underscoring the need to expand, Leek-Nelson said. It has a $1.6 million budget this year and does not charge for services.

Instead, it runs almost entirely on private donations, the CEO said, adding that the planned storage area would be welcome because the organization got about $300,000 last year in in-kind contributions such as new clothes, baby formula and diapers.

Children at Providence House come from throughout Cuyahoga County and beyond.

"People have a misconception that it's all about poverty, but crisis is everywhere," Leek-Nelson said. "This is not an issue unique to the inner city."

Bell said he hopes the fund-raising campaign is successful enough that construction can begin within two years, allowing the campus to become fully operational by 2010.

More information about Providence House is available at www.provhouse.org or by calling 216-651-5982.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

bgalbincea@plaind.com, 216-999-4185

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1157705099124680.xml?ncounty_cuyahoga&coll=2

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Letter To The Editor From A Neighbor

Spend money to alleviate poverty, not wage war
Friday, September 01, 2006

Overlooked in all the com mentary about how to im prove Cleveland's "poorest city" ranking is the devastating effect that federal spending on war is having on our city.

The Web site costofwar.com lists Cleveland's share of the cost of the Iraq war alone at more than $300 million. This money could have paid for more than 5,000 public school teachers for one year, enrolled more than 41,000 children in Head Start for a year, provided more than 15,000 students with four-year scholarships at public universities, and built more than 2,800 additional units of affordable housing.

All of the above interventions reduce poverty, and all of them rely on federal funding that is not available when billions of federal dollars are used on military spending that brings us neither security nor prosperity.

There is an alternative, rooted in the tools and strategies of nonviolent action, which has proven effective in resolving political conflicts while offering a roadmap for a more rational, effective use of our public wealth. Those interested in learning more are invited to attend the Labor Day Peace Show from noon to 7 p.m. Monday at the Free Stamp on East Ninth Street and Lakeside Avenue in downtown Cleveland.

James Misak
Cleveland


© 2006 The Plain Dealer
© 2006 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved

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Top chef eyes site Restaurant next to CPT
Thursday, August 31, 2006
By David Plata
West Side Sun News

With a reputation as one of the top 100 restaurant operators and chefs in the country, Marlin Kaplan has set his sights on the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood.

Specifically, he plans to spend about $500,000 to open a Mediterranean-style restaurant, yet to be named, next to Cleveland Public Theatre.

We anticipate a March 1 opening, he said.

Kaplan, who has owned a number of restaurants in the Cleveland area since 1991, now has only one _ One Walnut Restaurant in the Ohio Savings Plaza downtown. Described as a fine-dining, white tablecloth restaurant, it is geared to business people and travelers.

I wouldn't want to call this an Italian restaurant, but there would be Spanish, Italian, Greek influences in the food we would be serving, Kaplan said of the new venture.

Councilman Matt Zone, in whose ward the restaurant would be located, said a special use option for a liquor license will be on the November ballot.

The precinct _ the south side of Detroit _ was dried out years ago when his late mother, Mary Zone, represented the ward on City Council. But Zone said Kaplan is a top-flight, responsible business operator, whose restaurant will be good for the neighborhood. A similar permit was approved for Cleveland Public Theatre, Zone noted.

It was wild, Zone said, recalling the atmosphere more than two decades ago, when 13 bars were dried up along Detroit.

Since then, two liquor licenses have been approved for the area, Zone said: the Happy Dog and Cleveland Public Theatre.

Zone said he will hold a community meeting before the November vote for residents to meet Kaplan and hear about his plans.

Robert Maschke, an architect whose office is just next door to the restaurant site, is designing the new business.

Since it's a neighborhood restaurant, as you come in, we want it to be very welcoming, with a small bar, Maschke said.

The building, once the site of Perry's Family Restaurant, was burned in the mid-1990s, then sat vacant for about eight years.

The refurbished site will combine different influences, Maschke said.

It's going to be cross between modern, contemporary elements with the rusticated construction of the building, he said. The building's over 100 years old; it has beautiful brick walls that are exposed, going all the way down to the basement.

Kaplan said the dining room, seating about 60 people, is on the first floor, with a spiral staircase leading up to the bar on the second floor. An outdoor patio will seat about 60 more.

Kaplan said the new restaurant will be very casual, family-oriented, seating from 80-100 people. A wine cellar with brick walls will be on the bottom floor.

It would fit in the fabric of this neighborhood, he said. The menu has pizza, pasta, a lot of shared plates.

Appetizers would range from $5-$8, entrees from $12-$17.

A pick-up window for pizza and other to-go food will be on the side.

Zone said the building has gone through the Storefront Renovation program, and that additional city financial aid is possible.

Kaplan said he started to look at Cleveland neighborhoods as a possible restaurant location about a year ago.

I have a lot of staff who live in this neighborhood, he said. They urged me to come and look here.

The restaurant will employ about 25 people, Kaplan said.

I felt this was a neighborhood that really was about to blossom, he said, noting the upscale Battery Park housing development under way on the former Eveready Battery Co. site, and plans for a streetscape revitalization and other development in the area.


© 2006 Sun Newspapers
© 2006 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved

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Developer seeks plan for recreational use of former West Side YMCA
At its May 25th Meeting the Franklin Clinton Block Club discussed the proposal by developer James Sosan to offer use of the former West Side YMCA’s gym, pool and locker room to the community. Block Club Chair Bill Merriman said Sosan, who recently purchased the building from the YMCA, offered the use of those facilities if the community could come up with an operator.
 

At an earlier meeting of the block club, block club members and some former members of the Save the Y Committee discussed possible operators for the facility. Some of the proposals included asking the Boys and Girls Club to run the facility or hiring former YMCA director Mike Hudek to run the recreation area as part of a private club. Merriman says he recently learned from the developer that he would need an answer soon as to what their plans are. Merriman says Sosan told him his funders want a plan as to what he will do with the remaining parts of the facility. Merriman said Sosan told him he must get a commitment within the next three months on the operation of the recreational portion of the facility or come up with another plan for that portion of the building.
 

According to an April 3rd article by Stan Bullard in Crain’s Cleveland Business “New to the Neighborhood: Developer lands former West Side YMCA, plans condo, townhouse revitalization”, Sosan plans to build condos in the YMCA facility and townhouses on the grounds. The Crain’s article said the YMCA building and adjoining lot were purchased by Sosan through a company called Franklin Lofts Condominium, LLC for $550,000 on March 20th. The article notes that Sosan previous development experience includes the Metro Loft apartments on Scranton and the Detroit Lofts at 2820 Detroit Avenue. (From the June 2006 issue of The Plain Press)

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Free Times Article On Catholic Worker Community

Volume 14, Issue 30, Free Times
Published November 15th, 2006
Risking the Cross
Jesus Got Arrested For Serving God. Why Shouldn't His Followers?
By Michael Gill
http://www.freetimes.com/stories/14/30/risking-the-cross


Before dawn on a recent Thursday, Joe Mueller and Peter Quilligan park their pickup in front of the Ameritemps office, across from the CSU Convocation Center. Seagulls teem like flakes in a snow globe above the building, their bellies shining white in the ground light, as Quilligan and Mueller unload a rickety aluminum card table, a cooler full of pastry, an urn of coffee and a pot of soup. Then they wait.
Soon day laborers make their way outside and head for the table. Some express thanks for the food, but most have little to say and Mueller and Quilligan don't try to make small talk. They just give away food, self-serve.
An hour later, after about 50 day laborers have been fed, Quilligan and Mueller pack up the truck and head back home, Whitman House in Ohio City, a Catholic Worker community where anarchy mixes with Catholicism.
Quilligan and Mueller explain the Catholic Worker philosophy by comparing it to a three-legged table: One leg is hospitality; the second is prayer; the third is resistance. It's that third leg — their wrench in the machine of government and hierarchical Catholic dogma — that sets them apart from others of the same faith. It also gets them into trouble.
Back at the house, Mueller attends Thursday morning prayer at 8 a.m. Stained glass windows give the room the look of a chapel, but other signs are scarce; no Stations of the Cross mark off the life of Jesus on the walls. Pictures of residents and guests cover one corner with a visual history of the house and its extended family. A couple of bicycles are stored in another corner. There are couches and a low coffee table, and an old piano.
Mueller, fellow Worker Chris Knestrick and a guest are the only ones in attendance this morning. Knestrick taps a brass bowl with a smooth wooden stick. When the single clear note of the bowl rings into silence, they begin reading from Jesus the Rebel, a book by the radical Jesuit Father John Dear:
"To engage in the nonviolent revolution that Jesus begins is to risk the cross. Like Jesus we face hostility and opposition, even from our own religious communities, and from the Church itself. We may even undergo harassment, ostracism, alienation, arrest, imprisonment, and death. But if we do, we will have the consolation of knowing that we served the mission of Jesus."
It takes about half an hour to read the whole chapter. In the short silence that follows, it's hard not to apply that text to Mueller and Knestrick and the other volunteers who live at the house. They take literally the calling to dedicate their lives to peace and social justice, and in the process they lead a rebellious life. Members of the Whitman House community have been arrested twice this year — while praying during a protest at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Lakewood, and during a protest at the Cleveland International Air Show.
After the short silence, Knestrick taps the brass bowl again, and the service is over. They thank each other and get on with the day.
THE CATHOLIC WORKER is a nationwide radical movement founded on both Catholic and anarchist ideals: not only prayer and service to God and the poor, but also rejection of hierarchy, and an embrace of personal responsibility. People who live at Whitman House come from various political perspectives, mostly leaning hard to the left, but Knestrick says that, in political terms, he thinks of the Catholic Worker ideology as more right than left, at least in that philosophical sense.
"We don't generally advocate building systems to deal with society's problems," he says.
The movement's founder, Dorothy Day, was born in New York in 1897. She saw Catholicism as the faith of the poor and immigrants, and converted. She had dabbled in communism as she worked for newspapers and wrote a novel, but she became critical of those ideals. In 1932 she met Peter Maurin, a Frenchman and former Christian Brother. Together they would found the Catholic Worker newspaper, selling it for a penny a copy, and spreading radical ideas about social justice. One of Day's best known lines is quoted on a poster in the Whitman house dining room: "Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system."

BREAKING BREAD The Catholic Workers live on donated communal meals.
Soon the Catholic Worker ideas and passion crystallized into an ideological movement of lay people, not priests, brothers or nuns. They would have no formal leaders, and no official connection to the institutional Catholic church; just a network of decentralized communities, people giving away food and shelter, living in voluntary poverty on farms and in houses across the country, each of them bucking the oppression of corporations and government as they saw fit.
The farms didn't work out, but the houses flourished. An online directory says there are 185 Catholic Worker Communities in the world, with 168 of them in the U.S. (though Knestrick says that count is incomplete). It lists three in Cleveland, including Casa San Jose and St. Herman's House of Hospitality, but of the three, only Whitman House is propelled along by the urge to call the government and the institutional church on the carpet.
"The character of the movement is that people come and go," says Joe Lehner, who in the mid-'80s was a founder of the local Catholic Worker community and Whitman House. Lehner remains involved supporting the community, but he can't risk getting arrested in protest these days.
He says four or five years ago the future of the house was uncertain because no volunteers were living there. Then for a couple of years it was just one. But in 2004, three new volunteers moved in — Quilligan, Mueller and Knestrick — bringing with them energy that has grown. These days there are five volunteers living at the house, four men and one woman, and their hospitality programs are flourishing. Most of the guest beds are filled by people who might otherwise not have a place to sleep. A drop-in center in a Lorain Avenue storefront has operated since the '80s, and remains open and busy five nights a week. They've been taking food to the day laborers for two years now. They're collecting books to build a lending program for prisoners.
And as for the resistance, they're keeping that up quite nicely, too.
ABOUT 30 MEMBERS of the Catholic Worker extended community marked the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with a retreat at St. Coleman's Church the weekend of March 17. That same weekend, President Bush promised to "finish the mission" in Iraq with "complete victory," and Time Magazine reported that U.S. Marines had massacred at least 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha. After three years the number of U.S. troops killed was approaching 2,500, while estimates of the number of Iraqi civilian deaths were running above 30,000.
The retreat ended on the anniversary itself, a Sunday morning, and participants were looking for something to do with their resolve against the continuing violence. The crowd made its way to the Armed Forces Recruiting Center on Detroit Avenue in Lakewood. They brought banners, reading "Grief from America and Iraq," and "Let Us Repent of War," and a costume like the dark robes the prisoners at Abu Grahib wore. They read the names of Americans and Iraqis killed.
For most of the protesters, raising a little commotion on the street was enough. Knestrick and Mueller, however, had come prepared to be arrested. They went up to the storefront office, with its Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine banners and insignia, and they tried the door. It was open. They went inside to see if there was anyone to talk to.
The lights were on, but no one was home. They found stacks of recruitment flyers, decided that local kids didn't need to fall under the influence of that propaganda, and so put them in bags. They found a business card on a desk for Staff Sergeant Kimberly Middleton. They decided to give her a call.
"I asked her to come down so that we could talk about the war, and about shutting down the recruiting center," Knestrick says. While they waited, they sat down to pray.
Instead of coming down, Middleton called her supervisor, who called the Lakewood police. A police report doesn't differ much from the protesters' account: When Patrolmen Deucher and Fioritto arrived, they saw the protesters on the sidewalk, the front door open, and the two men sitting inside on the floor. Knestrick and Mueller told the officers they were waiting for Sergeant Middleton, so the police called her. She told them the protesters didn't have permission to be inside. The police told the Catholic Workers several times that if they didn't leave they would be arrested for trespassing. They had come prepared for that. They were in jail for less than two hours before they bonded out.
They were also prepared to take the trespassing charges all the way to jury trial, during which they would attempt to put the war on trial instead.
"We freely admitted to all the facts," Knestrick says. "We just didn't think we should be held criminally responsible."

A CHANNEL OF YOUR PEACE Megan Wilson, interrupting the flow.
Their lawyer, Scott Hurley, argued that they had to be there because their consciences compelled them. He reminded the court that the door was left unlocked, and that lights were on in the basement. He pointed out that journalist Carl Monday is often seen on camera being told repeatedly and emphatically to leave offices and stores.
Knestrick and Mueller did their best to put the war on trial. In the end they were found guilty of criminal trespassing. Judge Pat Carroll fined them $100, plus court costs, plus 50 hours of community service and a year's probation each.
NOT ALL THEIR BUCKING of the system is so dramatic.
Like most Catholic Worker houses, Whitman House has its own newspaper. Last winter they used it to write an open letter to Bishop Anthony Pilla, asking him for a meeting so that they could talk about his and the U.S. Catholic Bishops' failure to speak out strongly against the war. The letter noted that Pope John Paul II said "No to war," calling it "always a defeat for humanity," but that U.S. bishops hadn't been so clear. They cited a statement from Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, head of the military Archdiocese of the United States: "It was the opinion of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that given the complexity of the countless elements and arguments on either side, people of good faith could arrive at differing conclusions as to the moral justification of our armed interventions."
The letter got them a meeting with Bishop Pilla, but Mueller says he spent most of the time talking about the importance of going through proper channels. Pilla, who no longer heads the Cleveland diocese, never spoke publicly in direct opposition to the war.
Last summer, they sent another letter, this one mailed to Pilla's successor Bishop Lennon, co-signed by Father Ben Jimenez, SJ. That letter got no response at all.
Robert Tayek, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, responded by e-mail to the Free Times' query about the Catholic Workers' activism and diocesan views of the war: "The Church encourages all Christians to take seriously the Gospel call to be peacemakers," he writes.
Further, he says the Cleveland diocese held educational forums and prayer vigils "before the outbreak" of the war in Iraq. Those efforts involved "making better known the Church's teaching on war and peace, as well as the specific moral objections to any preemptive invasion of Iraq by the United States voiced by Pope John Paul II and then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)."
He points out that on the eve of the war, then-Bishop Pilla led a crowd, including more than 700 Catholic high school students, in a prayer service for peace at St. John the Evangelist Cathedral. Since the war started, the Diocese Social Action Commission has continued to hold education forums and prayer vigils for peace, and in memory of all those who have been killed.
"We continue to encourage Christians and all people of good will to make a serious commitment to working for peace and with justice for all," Tayek concluded.
But how exactly does a Catholic work for peace and justice, when elected officials continue to wage war? Does the work end with believing in peace and praying on it?
While the effects of the post-election power shift in Washington have yet to play out, Knestrick and Mueller don't put much faith in the vote. Knestrick says he has never cast a ballot in his life, and Mueller says he has voted only occasionally.
"If you do vote," Knestrick says, "you can't complain about the system, because you've helped empower someone to make these decisions for us."

FR. BEN JIMINEZ, SJ. Keeping it legal, for now.
FATHER BEN JIMENEZ, a Jesuit priest who lives in the Jesuit residence at St. Ignatius High School and is pastor of St. Augustine Church in Tremont, is part of the Catholic Worker extended community. He was with Knestrick and three other members of the community when they were arrested in September during a protest of the Cleveland International Air Show. Beneath the wing of an A-10 Warthog fighter jet — a plane which, as Knestrick noted in the Whitman House newspaper, "is able to spew out three to four thousand depleted-uranium rounds of ammunition per minute" — Knestrick and Megan Wilson held a banner that read, "War is not entertainment. These Planes kill." Jim Schlect knelt, as if to pray. Tim Musser and Father Jimenez lay on the ground, as if dead. And they sang the Prayer of St. Francis, which begins, "Make me a channel of your peace."
Jimenez described the bewildered, puzzled and uncomfortable faces of the air show visitors, especially families with children as they would stop to look for a few seconds and then move on before the kids could ask questions. He described air show officials approaching in golf carts, speaking into walkie-talkies and moving on. Then came the police, arresting all five. They took them away from an event that pulled in thousands of people, and charged them with "unlawful congregation." A Cleveland police report on the incident says the five were "blocking the visitors, as well as air show workers, from moving freely around the event."
Father Jimenez says he thinks it's because of Catholic families who have soldiers in the war that the U.S. bishops haven't spoken out more strongly. He says he's not aware of any public denunciation of the war by a U.S. Catholic bishop, including Pilla and Lennon, since the atrocities began.
"If there was," he says, "I would know about it."
Jimenez has repeatedly put his liberty on the line in the name of peace, and not only as it relates to the war in Iraq. He says the Gospels make it clear that rebellion against an unjust system is not only justified, but part of what Jesus calls us by example to do, beginning with the day he kicked the money changers out of the temple.
Every year since 2001, Jimenez has joined the InterReligious Task Force on Central America in an annual protest at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia — a U.S. training ground for Latin American military personnel. The School of the Americas protests began in 1990, the year after six Jesuit priests and two women were murdered by SOA-trained military personnel in San Salvador. Among the school's alumni are at least 11 Latin American dictators, including deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. The SOA was officially "closed" at the end of 2000, but reopened just a few weeks later under a new name, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. According to School of the Americas Watch, the change has been entirely cosmetic. War training goes on, and so do the protests.
Two years ago, Jimenez's actions got him arrested and earned him two months in jail on trespassing charges. Next weekend, he and several members of the local Catholic Worker community plan to join the IRTF for the annual bus trip to Georgia. He's not planning on getting arrested this time. He's on probation.
THE CLEVELAND CATHOLIC Worker community's longest running program isn't about risking jail, and it probably has the effect of keeping some other people out.
A drop-in center — which people at Whitman House call "the Drop" — has held an open door to Lorain Avenue five nights a week since 1984. Last Friday night brought what Quilligan described as a modest turnout from the streets and shelters. About 25 people filled the room, with a half dozen out front smoking. The stress of poverty was visible on their faces, and audible in their voices. An apparently intoxicated woman lay by herself on a couch. Several people played cards, or sat around tables talking. There was a woman with her grandchild. Someone played an old-school funk CD on a boom box.
The Catholic Workers share the routine tasks of keeping the place open with several different groups, including the Interreligious Task Force on Central America, and students from John Carroll University, but most nights it's members of the Catholic Worker house who keep the peace. They talk people down from arguments, and get in between when it looks like they might get violent.
Ryan Seal, a Catholic Worker in fraying pants, a sweatshirt and knit cap, responds to Quilligan's call for help with some commotion outside. An apparently intoxicated man is arguing with a woman who can't seem to stop provoking him. She's with a second man, and the first seems to be trying to tell him something about her. They say "Motherfucking" a lot, and periodically the loud man whispers in the boyfriend's ear. Apparently the loud one was arrested and released earlier in the day, and he blames the woman for it. Quilligan and Ryan keep their hands in their pockets and keep their voices calm as they urge the people to just let their differences go. It's just another night at the Drop.
"Whatever they're talking about," Seal says, "that's not why they're fighting. These people are frustrated, and abused by the system. They're just taking it out on each other."
mgill@freetimes.com