Category: Uncategorized

Meet on the Music Hall side of Washington Park at 5:30

For the first time, in 2020, we did not give any awards because of our inability, due to the pandemic, to gather all our folks together in one location to celebrate.  This year, while we still cannot safely gather a few hundred of us in one space, we will have a virtual Trivia Night and Awards Ceremony and honor these recipients there.  We are thankful to be able to share who the recipients of our 2021 awards are.

• buddy gray Lifetime Achievement Award:  Bob Moore, who we lost earlier this year.  To read more about Bob, click here.
• Service Provider Lifetime Achievement Award:  Gwendolyn Green of Bethany House
• Julie Martin Service Provider of the Year:
  1. Bethany House Services
  2. Cincinnati Health Network
  3. City Gospel Mission Homeless Services Department
  4. Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services PATH Team
  5. Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Cincinnati
  6. Lighthouse Youth and Family Services Homeless Youth Services Department
  7. Mary Magdalen House
  8. Our Daily Bread
  9. Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and Talbert House Housing Department
  10. Shelterhouse
  11. St. Francis Seraph Ministries Dining Room
  12. The Salvation Army Greater Cincinnati Area Family Shelter
  13. YWCA Greater Cincinnati Domestic Violence Shelter
• Young Activist of the Year:  Rico Blackman Jr. of Black Power Initiative
• Streetvibes Distributor of the Year:  Kenneth Bussell

Why are 13 groups listed as Julie Martin Service Provider of the Year?  The list could be longer.  So many of our Member Organizations have worked so hard to keep their services going through the pandemic.  With this list of 13, we are focusing on the direct service agencies whose actions have played a major role in preventing the widespread outbreaks that have been seen in other parts of the country among people in shelter and outdoors. 

When the pandemic erupted, we had to quickly decide what to do to prevent deadly outbreaks in our congregant shelters and among people living outdoors.  We gathered our Member-Organizations and built and implemented strategy together.  Whether it was quickly moving 400 people from congregant shelter into hotels, serving meals to 200% more people and providing meals to people now in hotels, figuring out how to provide hot showers safely, doing street outreach when so many were staying home, fighting to get COVID-19 tests, changing the facility setups to make distancing more possible, running shelter in a hotel, when you have never done that before or running a shelter for the first time period,these organization continually stepped up.  We kept asking these folks to do more work than they had staff or budgets for, and in many instances with little guarantee of needed funding or knowledge of how long it would be, and they all kept saying “Yes”.  So far, in our City and County we have not suffered the major life-ending outbreaks among people experiencing homelessness that other localities have.  This is because we have strategically worked together and the staff at these agencies decided to act based on the importance of human life and morality over all else.

Coalition Board Member Barry Klein tells a story about Bob Moore and buddy gray at the 2021 Trivia Night and Awards Ceremony

Join us for our Annual Fundraiser with special guest host, Key Beck!

This year, we are hosting Trivia Night and will honor those who were dedicated to serving our agencies and our missions in 2021.

Register using the following link: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/5275618

For information regarding Award Nominations: https://mailchi.mp/cincihomeless/annual-fundraiser-trivia-night-and-awards-ceremony?e=5335771959

Additional details will be provided upon registration.

At midnight on Saturday, the federal eviction moratorium ended, threatening the lives of millions of Americans, including many here in Cincinnati. Homelessness will be accelerated as families will be forced from their homes, worsening the housing crisis. The eviction moratorium was issued to help protect people who had lost income due to COVID19 only, so evictions continued through the pandemic, even accelerating in some areas in Ohio. While the inaction of the federal government to extend the moratorium will have disastrous effects for families in Cincinnati, especially Black families, it also signals the end of COVID19 federal housing protections; however, aid is still available at https://513relief.org/.

In addition to ensuring families who lost income due to COVID19 could stay in their homes, the moratorium encouraged landlords and tenants to work together to seek out federal aid for housing costs. Unfortunately, with the expiration of the moratorium, federal aid earmarked for Cincinnati may go unspent. This is a great loss of value, wealth, and potential for Cincinnati.

Essentially, with the moratorium expired, the loss of income from COVID19 will no longer be a valid defence in eviction court. While claims of a worker shortage seem to contradict the experience of people looking for work, without a livable wage, minimum wage earners, mostly in their 30’s with children, are unable to afford a 2-bedroom apartment while working full time. Evictions are more likely to be filed on Black residents due to racism and systemic housing barriers presented to Black Cincinnatians – the same barriers that privileged white Cincinnatians for generations. Most importantly, since the pandemic hit Black families the hardest, economically and otherwise, allowing the moratorium to expire will cause immeasurable pain and suffering in Black communities by accelerating displacement and increasing homelessness. Whether a family is forced to double-up, couch surf, seek shelter, or live in dangerous places, homelessness has dire consequences for children in school, health and safety, and community stability. Eviction creates additional barriers, as records follow people throughout their lifetime, making housing even more difficult to obtain. Eviction pushes people further into poverty, and without strong tenant protections, our community is at risk.

We urge all of our elected officials to strengthen tenant protections by extending the eviction moratorium, and by creating Pay-to-Stay protections, sealing eviction records, and ensuring just-cause eviction policies, among other tenant protections. Housing protections, in addition to livable wages and affordable housing, are how we can eradicate homelessness in Cincinnati.

Housing is a human right. Even before the pandemic hit, we were in the midst of a housing crisis, where half of all of the Black families in Hamilton County were housing cost burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing. COVID19 has accelerated the disparity between Black and white Cincinnatians, and the eviction moratorium expiration will have long-lasting effects on our community. For far too long, our member organizations have been providing life-saving services, but now it is time for our elected officials to fully support the affordable housing trust fund and require property-owners to respect the rights of all of our neighbors. 

If you’d like to learn more about the housing crisis and homelessness, please engage in our public education program with a Speaker, Tour, or Training, subscribe to our email lists on our webpage, and pick up a Streetvibes newspaper from a community distributor. Join the Homeless Coalition as an individual or organization today.

Everyday at the Homeless Coalition, we demand access to affordable housing, livable wages, and housing protections to everyone in our community. We recognize that the weight and burden of anti-Black racism cannot only be carried by those who are bravely facing displacement each day, but by our entire community who accepts the “false-peace” as our Black communities are erased by white generational wealth.

Known as gentrification, displacement is heralded and privileged by governmental policies that have claimed a “renaissance” in Over-the-Rhine while aggressively ignoring the impact on Black residents – the majority of whom have been forcibly removed from the neighborhood over the past decade. As the wealthy, white, elite set their eyes on the West End and countless other neighborhoods, it’s time to get focused on the fundamentals.

This Black History Month, we will offer our public education program to you, including essential Speakers, innovative Trainings, and informative Tours – all virtual and open to all – please help us build an informed community!

We hope that you’ll share this experience with your family, co-workers, neighbors, and friends. Register here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/profile/244215

Facebook events:

https://www.facebook.com/GCHomelessCoalition/events/

Tickets are Pay-What-You-Can, but your financial support helps us compensate the Speakers and Trainers and keeps our program free to others. BUT Please do not let the cost be a barrier – free tickets are available now!

  Register and remember to put the Zoom link on your calendar! Thank you!

The Homeless Coalition is hiring one AmeriCorps VISTA service member to organize tenants in eligible Project-Based Section 8 properties. This is a one-year contract starting in March 2021. Throughout the service year, the AmeriCorps member will organize with tenants of Project-Based Section 8 housing and will build residents’ capacity through outreach, education, and leadership development. They will support tenants to form tenant associations at properties that lack tenant representation. Deliverables include research, outreach materials, and tenant engagement plans. The deadline to apply is Sunday, January 31, 2021.

To Apply:

1. Register to create a New Member account in the MyAmeriCorps portal
2. After your New Member account is created, apply for our VISTA opportunity. This will require you to write a two, short reflective essays, and to submit contact information for two references.
3. We plan to conduct at least two rounds of interviews. The final step in the interview process is a background check through the AmeriCorps funding partner. Individuals with misdemeanors or felonies on their records are considered on a case-by-case basis. The AmeriCorps funding partners are still figuring out how the background checks will be conducted without LiveScan fingerprinting.

At the Homeless Coalition, we embrace and encourage differences in age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, veteran status, and other characteristics that make our team unique.

The Benefits of AmeriCorps

AmeriCorps is a network of service opportunities, and VISTA is one of the three AmeriCorps programs. VISTA, which stands for Volunteers in Service to America, specialize in alleviating the causes of poverty through building capacity in their communities. AmeriCorps members are not volunteers, interns, or entry-level at their host site. They are community members who are actively seeking opportunities to enrich themselves through civic engagement and community building.

At the Homeless Coalition, the Community Organizer VISTA members will receive a living stipend, full health care coverage, childcare if needed, transportation assistance either through a bus card or mileage reimbursement, and an educational award upon completion of the service year. The living stipend is approximately $1026 each month. A living stipend is “reimbursement for living expenses,” not income. It will not affect any government benefits members receive, such as housing vouchers, SNAP, or anything else.