Yes, he’s still there — “the guy on the side of the street” with no home to go to, according to Chris Knestrick, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH).
“But in reality, the growing population of people experiencing homelessness in our community is Black women with children,” says Knestrick. “We see more and more families struggling. A lot of women are fleeing domestic violence or gender-based violence, and that leads to our shelter system because it is one of the only places they feel safe.”
Unfortunately, another group can also be added to the list of those facing increasing homelessness: older women.
“These are women who were in their own homes, in stable housing, for a long time, and they are often over 65. That’s very disconcerting,” says Knestrick. “Our community really needs to be more concerned about this now. These women have a particular set of unique needs that shelters aren’t really equipped to handle. Safety is also difficult for all women. It’s not that men don’t have safety concerns, but it’s different for homeless women.”
Staying in an emergency shelter is only temporary, of course. The next step for many is finding permanent housing, which can be even more challenging to provide for women and women with children than even temporary sanctuaries. Knestrick says there are more than 800 permanent supportive housing units in Cuyahoga County, almost all for single adults. He considers that number somewhat encouraging when compared to what the availability used to be.
“But how we qualify for permanent supportive housing is complex. We need to continue to re-evaluate the process so it continues to serve the most vulnerable folks, particularly women,” he emphasizes.
In March 2023, the Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services announced its Strategic Action Plan for Homelessness. The agency pledged a 25% decrease in homelessness by 2027. Data shows homelessness in Cuyahoga County has remained fairly constant since 2016, impacting about 5,000 residents every year. Of that total, 8% are youths and 12% are families.
Knestrick points to Emerald Development and Economic Network (EDEN), first incorporated in 1991, as an example of an organization that recognizes that housing is a basic right of all people. Working with Cuyahoga County, EDEN is committed to owning and managing permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals. The agency also owns the Norma Herr Women’s Center, a primary shelter in Cuyahoga County for single adult women.
Longtime supportive organizations, new facilities that opened in 2023 and others set to open this year, are hoping to keep up with the need to house women experiencing homelessness — one woman and/or one woman and child at a time.
Finding Support and Hope
The Norma Herr Women’s Center on Payne Avenue is Cuyahoga County’s only low-barrier emergency shelter for single women.
“Low barrier is meant to be brief, rare and non-reoccurring. It’s an open-door policy with no restrictions. We want to eliminate barriers to allow women to come in out of the elements,” says Nicole Evans, clients rights officer for the YWCA of Greater Cleveland, which assumed management of the center in 2018.
The center typically sees 230 women a night, but sometimes as many as 250. It’s running over capacity, but Evans says no one will be turned away.
“If we have to put a mat on the floor for someone to sleep on until we find an open bed, we will,” says Evans, adding that no children are allowed at the shelter. “If you imagine what some of these women face on the streets of Cleveland, think of (serial killer) Anthony Sowell, and if they are safer in our building, then you know why we take them in. The YWCA works very hard with the Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services to find the women homes.”
Evans has seen a “significant increase in demand for shelter” since spring 2023. She partly blames low-wage jobs that don’t allow women to keep up with expenses, and property managers and landlords who charge increasingly high rents and/or decline to accept low-income renters. New housing developments are welcome in Cleveland, but how many feature affordable housing? asks Evans. Changes also must be made in systemic issues that cause barriers to housing, she believes.
“Imagine you have an eviction on your record because you couldn’t afford to pay the rent. It wasn’t because you didn’t want to — you just didn’t have the resources,” says Evans. “Or maybe when you were younger, you made some unwise choices that led to a criminal background. Those are barriers to get housing. The best thing we can do is dismantle some of those policies.”
Echoing Knestrick, Evans is concerned about the increase in older women facing homelessness. Physical and mental impairments, plus fear of isolation and being alone if there are no family or friends to step in, are serious problems.
“Sometimes an individual is released from a hospital and then dropped off here by the police because there is nowhere for them to go,” Evans says.
Information about monetary and material donations to the Norma Herr Women’s Center can be found at
ywcaofcleveland.org. Only approved and logged donations will be accepted.
The City Mission/Rothstein Village
Scheduled to be completed in November 2024, Rothstein Village will become important transitional housing for mothers and children on Cleveland’s West Side. The 16-unit complex is the next step for women who move on from Laura’s Home Women’s Crisis Center, a facility that offers free, yearlong support to women experiencing homelessness.
The City Mission, a faith-based nonprofit, will allow those accepted for the $4 million Rothstein Village with its more independent lifestyle, to stay another 18 to 24 months. During that time the women may continue their education or find employment.
“The greatest thing is that it means children can be in the same schools for close to three years,” says Linda Uveges, CEO of The City Mission. “Children can’t focus, can’t learn, can’t develop healthy relationships with their peers if they are always changing schools, which is what happens with homelessness. The average age of homelessness in America is 11 years old. Women and children who are experiencing homelessness are invisible. You don’t see children on the street. They are going from home to home.
“Back in the day, the typical people that the mission served were white, male alcoholics, Uveges adds.” But domestic violence, poverty, traumatic experiences, mental illness, loss of relationships or employment and other situations have changed the face of homelessness, especially among women.
“It’s harder for a single mother now to be the sole provider for the family,” she says. “There was also more family, community or faith-based support. But many of those structures are hurting or broken now. The minimum wage in Ohio is $10.10 an hour. A single mom would need to work 76 hours a week at minimum wage just to afford a two-bedroom apartment. Fifty-six percent of single mothers in Cuyahoga County face housing unaffordability.
“But over the past 10 years, we have done a little better job at focusing on families,” she says.
Helping Vets
Groundbreaking for the Walter Collins Veteran Housing Services Facility on Harvard Ave., east of E. 93rd Street, is expected in March or April. Eleven cluster-style, single-family homes will be built to provide affordable housing for men and women veterans and their families on Cleveland’s southeast side.
“This is the first development in the neighborhood in 10 years, and it’s all funded by grants, not loans. We are very excited,” says Roshawn Sample, executive director of Union Miles Development Corp. “In this neighborhood, we have many vets who find themselves displaced. Many of them are women who are unhoused. For so many years women have been overlooked for housing assistance, employment, rates of pay and also as people who are missing, particularly women of color.
“We are trying to change the narrative and want all vets to feel comfortable, not like they are just being housed, but in a neighborhood that is on the move,” adds Sample.
The $2,737,000 facility is in collaboration with Rid-All Green Partnership, an urban agriculture and aquaponics organization that will provide onsite training and services to the vets. Walter Collins, a 13-year U.S. Army veteran (whose name graces the building) and Cleveland’s Ward 2 Councilman Kevin Bishop have been actively involved in the project that has been “a long time coming,” says Sample.
“It would be awesome if we could get donations of new appliances and furniture, so the homes would be move-in ready,” she says.
Volunteers of America Ohio & Indiana
Women veterans experiencing homelessness have found stable housing at the Judge Sara J. Harper Village in the Glenville neighborhood, a dream that began developing in 2017. Now operating at full capacity, the $2 million project includes two buildings and 12 affordable apartments, two with an additional bedroom for children.
Owned by Volunteers of America (VOA) Ohio & Indiana, Harper Village, on Lee Ave., off E. 105th Street, was made possible with private and public sources, including local community foundations and corporations.
“In Cleveland, we operate the Veterans Domiciliary,” says Becky Carlino, Volunteers of America Ohio & Indiana vice president of development. “We operate veterans’ programs and coordinate with the VA (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) to serve men, but also women. The VA does medical care, and we provide services that help with housing homelessness and unemployment.
“We have programs for women vets, but many were afraid to be discharged into regular housing. They have seen so much trauma and many have no jobs. And we know veterans thrive better together than when they are apart. In 2017, we began to work in Cleveland to replicate a housing program we have in Cincinnati,” she says
VA research shows that women veterans are more than twice as likely to be unhoused as women who did not serve in the military. Also, Carlino says when she began working for the VOA almost 10 years ago, one in five male vets was experiencing homelessness. That statistic has improved, and since 2010, male vets experiencing homelessness has declined 55%. But women vets are the fastest growing segment of the unhoused
veteran population, according to the VA. There are more than 2 million women vets in this country, and one in four has experienced military sexual trauma.
“We don’t always know who women vets are. A lot of men wear their experience on their chests, but some women want to put it all behind them,” says Carlino, referring to the fact that many male vets like to wear clothing or place stickers on their vehicles reflecting their military service. Women, not so much.
Carlino also appreciates the fact that Harper Village fits well into the architecture and environment of Glenville and was thoughtfully created with an architect and interior designers.
“We initially had two communal spaces, one in each building,” says Carlino. “But then someone said that if what we were building was for men, we would have automatically added a gym. Women would like that, too. So we changed one of the communal rooms into a gym. It faces the front of the building so women can look out while they work out. It’s great.”
Carlino is also proud of the facility’s namesake, Sara J. Harper, and her connection to Cleveland. Harper, who grew up in public housing in Cleveland, was the first African American woman to graduate from Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law, the first female judge in the history of the Marine Corps Reserve and was an Ohio Court of Appeals judge until her retirement in 1997. She attended the Harper Village groundbreaking in 2022.
“Judge Harper always said every day is special,” says Carlino.
Monetary and new household items listed on the Harper Village Wish List can be donated at voaohin.org.
Sisters Haven
Sisters Haven, a faith-based nonprofit, will operate a new, supportive housing community for pregnant, unhoused women in Cleveland. Scheduled to open in spring 2024, the facility is located in the Cudell neighborhood. The renovated house can accommodate
up to seven women, ages 18 and older, and their babies until the child is 9 months old. Residents of the Sisters Haven Cudell House also receive educational, physical and mental support while at the house from partners of Sisters of Haven, including Seeds of Literacy and Cuyahoga County Community College.
Members of the Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council provided some volunteer labor. Council leadership also has offered to train any of the home’s residents who are
interested in the trades as a career, according to Yvonne Murchison, Sisters Haven’s executive director of operations and one of five founders. The house was donated by the Rocky River United Methodist Church.
“One of the things that has been really exciting has been the large investment in women’s shelters with COVID money,” says Knestrick. “NEOCH has talked for years about the condition of women’s shelters. We are seeing an important investment in our community and a transformation of the shelters over the next two years.”
The goal is to help unhoused women move from shelters to permanent housing, say local experts who understand homelessness in the region.
“The biggest misconception I hear is when people say, ‘Why can’t these women just get a job and pull themselves up by the bootstraps?’ It’s going to take a community working together,” says the YWCA’s Evans.