Northeast Ohio’s economy has suffered setback after setback in recent decades. There was the loss of major industrial players which led to the American rust belt decline. Then there was the 2008-2009 recession. And finally, the pandemic.
While the coronavirus was wrecking lives and the global economy, locally, creative efforts were underway to keep the shine on Glenville Circle North, one of the neighborhood’s newest prize assets.
Developers hope the intersection of West 150th Street and Lorain Avenue in West Park will soon be the home of five new national chain retail locations and a new name. The project received final approval from the Cleveland Planning Commission on May 7, but has yet to name new tenants.
Cuyahoga County held a grand opening for its new Diversion Center on a bright, chilly morning in early May. One by one, elected officials, judges and politicians stepped up to the podium to sing its praises. Outside the tent where the politicos were seated, leaders from Greater Cleveland Congregations, a faith-based group wearing bright yellow shirts, stood in the back and cheered.
So delighted was Vivien Phoenix’s mother with the cupcake tower she made on Mother’s Day 2013, she decided then and there to go into business. Thus was born Bossy Bakery Boutique, Cleveland’s first Black- and female-owned mobile bakery. Five years later, Phoenix and her hot-pink bakery truck are going strong, enjoying a lively trade at local festivals, farmer’s markets, and private events.
There were more than 8,000 open manufacturing jobs in Northeast Ohio last year, according to the nonprofit organization MAGNET. One of the more intractable problems facing manufacturers is the mismatch between the location of jobs and where entry-level workers live. Many low-income and Black workers live in Cleveland and don’t own cars, but many jobs are in the suburbs, far from public transportation. The church van program aims to bridge that gap.
When I was six or seven years old, I thought the most prestigious university in the world was WSMU. At every family gathering, my uncle would invariably invoke the lessons learned at WSMU to settle any argument. It wasn’t until I was a little older that I learned WSMU was not a college at all, but instead my uncle’s euphemistic reference to the hard-scrabble education one gains by working for decades at the West Side Market.
A new video instruction program will offer 500,000 inmates a chance to earn an online culinary degree from EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute.
Cleveland is one of seven cities in the U.S. that has enacted a right to counsel program that provides free legal representation to tenants facing eviction. Early statistics from the program’s first year of operation show promising results – dozens of evictions prevented despite a federal moratorium on evictions – but what will happen when that moratorium ends?
The Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) recently awarded a $1 million tax credit to encourage construction of the Cuyahoga TAY (Transitional Age Youth) development, a complex of 50 supportive housing units for adults ages 18 to 24. There, residents will receive voluntary services to help maintain their housing and work with experts to set goals related to housing stability, education, and other areas of personal and financial well-being.
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