A brief account of the meeting to discuss the future of Valley View estates : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

The meeting started with George Phillips the acting director of CMHA (Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority) giving a background on the situation. He explained that HUD had approved demolition of the apartments the day before, on Jan.5th2004, and that a January 20th deadline had been set for the application for the HOPEVI federal funding. He also broke the news that residents will be re-located starting later this month.

Local Councilman Joe Cimperman followed (after circling the room to shake hands with all in attendance) by extolling the virtues of the plan calling it "important to the range of income values" in Tremont, whatever that means. He thanked Tremont Near West Development Corporation, CMHA and some local residents (who won't be local for long). He asked those from Valley View who had been helping in the plan to raise their hands, four went up. He left shortly thereafter, before the questions began.

Up next was Michael Bowen the CMHA HopeVI Coordinater who explained in more detail the process that has been going on for the past four years. He stated that in June of 2003 CMHA approved the plans for Valley View and in October Hud approved of the HopeVI application (which is still pending approval). CMHA will request between 14 and 16 million dollars with the application but the demolition will occur weather it is approved or not. CMHA will fund the program on it's own to the tune of 15 million or so. If the HopeVI funding is approved the project will run around 30 to 35 million overall.

Following Mr. Bowen was Barbara Freeland, project manager for the development company McCormack Baron and Salazar of St. Louis Missouri. She explained the plans for renovation and answered many of the questions along with Mr. Bowen.

After the question and answer session (described elsewhere) Esther Shin and Sandra Moore (vice-president and president, respectively) of Urban Strategies addresed the community services that would be provided in the new development.

The meeting lasted about and hour and a half. Although there were some residents of Valley View in attendence, a great portion of those present were from Tremont West Development Corporation and various others with financial stakes in the plans.

actually, CMHA stands for Cuyahoga Metropolitan Hosing Authority, not Cleveland. sorry.

This will be a great improvement for the City of Cleveland and that area. Right now that area is full of drugs and is a bleeding wound on the Tremont area. This will also be a improvement for those CMHA Residents who will get a newer apartment.

this isn't just a good or bad thing. for some of the people moving out of valley view it will mean a more unsafe neighborhood with more drug activity and and overall higher rate of poverty.

king kennedy is the place that people all around the country talk about, it's like, THE cleveland ghetto.

as for the drug activity in valley view, it's certainly not as bad as many of the other "drug active" parts of town. you never hear of drive-by's in valley view, there seems to be no gang activity (unless a network of dealers counts as a gang), i've never heard of a murder there and i live three blocks away!

as for bleeding in tremont, i think a bigger problem here isn't poor people, it's the rich! we've got all these fancy restaurants that no one actually living here can afford to eat at. that's not entirely true, but the neighborhood is being built as a rich-man's inner-city resort. if the neighborhood would build itself more for the needs of the working class families living here, then you would see a dramatic shift in activity, which would help in some of the segregation problems we now face in tremont. (imagine a modestly priced dinner that could seat sixty people right near valley view. people could mix more, get to know each other, that's currently not the case).

the redevelopment is good for the people doing the work, and the developers and a handfull of others, but in the long run it does nothing to address the needs of the poor, it simply pushes them out of our immediate sight.

as for newer housing, i'm sure some residents of valley view have been swayed by this. but i do know that most of them are not moving into newer housing. of the three places they are going, two of them have new construction, but not enough to keep up with the need. and as a stated in another article, in each case, the new construction is to replace a larger number of apartments that have already been torn down.

Cleveland Indy Media Center