Cleveland City Council is ratcheting up the pressure on the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, a service group that became a political adversary.
Last year, NEOCH backed the People’s Budget ballot issue, which took aim at council’s control of the city’s pursestrings. Council led the campaign against the measure known as Issue 38, and Clevelanders narrowly defeated it.
Now council wants NEOCH to explain how it will spend a city grant designated for cold-weather shelter. At a committee meeting last week, Council President Blaine Griffin said he did not want politics to get in the way of helping the unsheltered — but he added that NEOCH had “done some irreparable harm” by fighting council after receiving city money.
“Quite frankly, this group in the past has taken money from the city and county and actually, organizing, used that same energy to work against council on different projects,” he said. “We don’t want to fund an organization that’s just going to use it for political purposes.”
Griffin didn’t mention the participatory budgeting campaign specifically, but the connection was hard to miss. NEOCH’s director says the nonprofit didn’t use restricted government dollars for the campaign.
Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration last week requested $225,000 for NEOCH and the Metanoia Project to offer emergency winter shelter for unhoused Clevelanders. Emily Collins, the mayor’s point person on homelessness, said the money would support both seasonal shelters and efforts to put people up in hotels.
Council approved the money, but added strings. NEOCH and Metanoia must report back to council every 30 days on how they are spending the grant.
NEOCH gave more than $17,200 in cash and in-kind help to the People’s Budget effort, according to a council record and Cuyahoga County Board of Elections financial disclosures. The group also helped organize highly visible protests against the demolition of the Euclid Beach Mobile Home park.
“I don’t know what they do, and they receive funding — and I couldn’t tell you, if my life depended on it — besides causing problems or trying to agitate council members,” said Ward 8’s Michael Polensek, whose ward includes Euclid Beach.
NEOCH responds
Chris Knestrick, NEOCH’s executive director, told Signal Cleveland that he welcomed the chance to explain his group’s spending to council. He said NEOCH uses government dollars for their intended purpose of street outreach services.
“We have never, nor will we ever, misappropriate our funding,” he said.
Under NEOCH’s current street outreach contract with City Hall, the group must submit monthly budget reports before being reimbursed with federal block grant dollars, according to city press secretary Marie Zickefoose. Government grants made up a quarter of the nonprofit’s $1.35 million in revenue in 2022.
While 501(c)3 nonprofits can’t back candidates, they can get involved with ballot issue campaigns. Knestrick said NEOCH spent money on Issue 38 that wasn’t earmarked for other uses, and he said it was within legal limits for nonprofit lobbying.
The way Knestrick sees it, backing the Issue 38 campaign was part of NEOCH’s broader goal to get unhoused Clevelanders involved in their local government.
“After campaigns are fought and the votes are tallied,” Knestrick said, “it’s wrong to continue to punish or misrepresent or seek to damage the integrity of someone that was on the other side.”
That hard-fought campaign is over now, even if the campaign rivalries remain.
