Downtown Cleveland has a new standalone seasonal homeless shelter for the first time in years.
That occurred this weekend, when the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) opened the doors to 1530 East 19th Street, a former manufacturing facility that was recently converted into a 48-bed facility aimed to keeping Clevelanders off the streets during wintertime.
As NEOCH Director Chris Knestrick discussed at Friday’s opening ceremony, held in the space’s high-ceilinged cafeteria, the coalition’s foray into shelter ownership spelled an end to scrambling to find beds—in hotels, on couches, and not in tents—for the unhoused. In 2019, the Denizen Avenue United Church of Christ was forced to close its seasonal shelter due to code violations.
“This building represents something our community has needed for a long time,” Knestrick told the crowded kitchen space. “Stability, commitment and readiness.”
“From this point forward, there will never be a scramble for space, a last minute search for basements, or a reason” to overcrowd LMM’s Men’s Shelter on Lakeside, he added. “The community now has a seasonal shelter: reliable, accessible and available for the foreseeable future.”
With about a dozen semi-private rooms stuffed with bunk beds or modern baths, NEOCH’s shelter is able to accommodate roughly 45 people at a time. This is a “locked” shelter, so visitors must be admitted by NEOCH’s outreach team to warrant a stay, any time between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
But once in, lodgers can stay as long as they like, Knestrick told Scene. At least until April, when the shelter closes for spring and summer. It reopens again every November.
Such an opening contrasts with the Trump administration’s steering away from a Housing First approach to handling homelessness—providing room and board free of charge with minimal questions asked. Billions of dollars of funding originally promised for housing programs is on hold as HUD apparently revises its grant-giving procedure behind the scenes.
The building cost NEOCH $650,000, county records show, an amount covered largely by local grants, including assistance from the Community West Foundation (CWF).
Marty Uhle, the president of CWF, framed the grant-giving as a reminder that American cities still can hold tight to Housing First even as HUD tries to nudge local entities towards more of a “transitional” model.
He’s one of several who sees NEOCH’s shelter as a companion to Cleveland’s Home For Every Neighbor program, which distributes free rent for a year to those living on the streets. (And with few barriers to entry.)
This “helps them survive ’til tomorrow,” Uhle told Scene after the press conference.
Homelessness is “a very hard problem to solve,” he added. “But if you can keep people alive—there’s a shower, new clothes, a meal, spend a couple of nights, get your wits about you and then talk about your situation.”
But will Clevelanders actually go? Outreach workers often lament the tiresome, sometimes thankless task of convincing on-the-street holdouts to hop in their van and spend the night in a warm bed. Some have outstanding warrants. Others have pets or kids that make them unsuitable for shelters. Many just want to be left alone.
With at least three more months of winter looming, NEOCH’s outreach team, fronted by Dennis Ashton and Jim Schlecht, will have to keep their powers of persuasion sharp if Downtown’s only seasonal shelter is going to be put to full use.
“Their barriers are already up,” Ashton, who was homeless himself as a teenager in Washington, D.C., told Scene on Friday. “You know. You don’t trust anyone. That’s the way the streets are for unshelted folks.”
“It’s been years, years out there breaking them down,” Schlecht added.
“You have to talk and build a relationship, that’s the main thing,” Ashton said. “But still, even in winter, some would rather be in the street than be [associated] with some organization, know what I mean?”
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