Judge Shoots Down Proposed Youth Homeless Drop-in Center in Ohio City

The Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry’s building at 4100 Franklin Avenue in Ohio City has acted as a two-story office building since 2009. Despite LMM’s intentions to convert the building into a drop-in center for homeless teens, a judge ruled this week that won’t be happening. Credit: Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry

A judge decided this week that while Cleveland may get a drop-in center for homeless teens someday, it will not be now and it will not be on Franklin in Ohio City.

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Brian Mooney ruled on Monday that the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries cannot go forward with plans to convert aging offices in Ohio City into a place where people 16 to 24 could shower, get a bite to eat, use computers, and begin the process of getting off the streets for good.

In his ruling, Mooney said that LMM could not prove it would definitely experience “hardship” by building their first—and the city’s first—drop-in center of its kind on another plot of land, Ideastream first reported. The Board of Zoning Appeals had earlier granted a variance for the center to open. Some neighbors appealed the decision.

They “can still provide the charitable resources that they are now providing at the property and place a youth drop-in center in a different neighborhood zoned for such activity,” Mooney said in his ruling, which didn’t address the contentions about crime but rather simply stated BZA erred in granting the variance.

The court’s decision is a win for some area neighbors who had, since the spring of 2023, been arguing that bringing homeless teens to Franklin Avenue might accentuate crime in Ohio City — littering, drugs, etc.

The opposition was spearheaded by Franklin Ave. resident Ronald O’Leary, a former Housing Court judge who lives close by the office building.

“BZA’s decision to grant the variance is unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, or unsupported by the preponderance of substantial, reliable, and probative evidence on the whole record,” their appeal read.

“[We] are the most directly affected by this, the ones on the block, by the increase in noise and traffic and potential crime and garbage,” O’Leary said at the appeal hearing.

“We think this is a good program, a needed usage for this,” he added. “But it’s not the right location.”

In a phone call with Scene Thursday, O’Leary said he took the news of the courts ruling to halt LMM’s conversion as an obvious legal fact.

“My thought is that the court applied the law,” he said, sternly.

O’Leary reiterated that he, and his coalition of neighbors, weren’t wholly against a drop-in center—just that LMM didn’t do their due diligence as far as what that part of Ohio City wanted.

So where then might be better?

“What about the Cinecraft Building” on West 25th, O’Leary offered. “You’d have public transit. No zoning issues. And you’re right around the corner from an emergency room.”

As for LMM: “I hope they find a location that suits the neighborhood better.”

LMM did not respond to a request for comment as of Thursday evening.