Walter Collins Veterans Housing & Service Facility set to break ground on 93rd and Harvard in March

Ed. note: Union Miles Development Corporation Executive Director Roshawn Sample is a board member of The Land.

Before his untimely death in 2018, Damien Forshe, co-founder of Rid-All Green Partnership was committed to the growth of Cleveland’s southeast side in every sense of the word. With Rid-All firmly established in the business of urban agriculture on almost 30 acres of land at 8129 Otter Dr. (off E. 79th and E. 84th streets and Kinsman Ave.), Forshe had turned his sights to the development of housing for homeless veterans in and around the Union Miles and Mt. Pleasant areas.

The Walter Collins Veterans Housing & Service Facility is expected to break ground in March 2024. According to Union Miles Development Corporation (UMDC), the initial phase of the project will consist of 11 cluster style, single-family homes. In conjunction with Rid-All Green Partnership, UMDC is looking to address the issue of housing options for homeless veterans and their families. According to UMDC, the total project budget is $2,737,000, with funding commitments from United States Department of Health and Human Services ($800,000), State of Ohio-MHS ($250,000), Ward 2 (up to $750,000), City of Cleveland HTF/ARPA ($543,000), and Finance Fund ($30,000). 

The project will include a micro-agriculture curriculum with residents. Rid-All hopes that its curriculum will assist veterans in developing agriculture skills that can bring economic sustainability. The Rid-All model is a small-scale, high-yield concept for farming mostly in urban areas.

Factors affecting veteran homelessness

According to the Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services, in 2022 they documented 1,409 people experiencing homelessness, whether in shelters, transitional housing, on the streets, or other places not meant for human habitation.

National Veterans Homeless Support (NVHS) reports that against the backdrop of astronomical home prices and rising rents, these factors and others form a potentially disastrous combination for veteran homelessness. A survey from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that around 41% of post-9/11 veterans have a disability, compared to 26% of the general population.  

UMDC teams up with Councilman Kevin Bishop and Rid-All Green Partnership

Roshawn Sample, executive director of Union Miles Development Corporation, told The Land that it was six years ago when Ward 2 Councilman Kevin Bishop and Rid-All’s Foeshe came to her office to talk about locations within the Union Miles area. “They wanted to have veteran’s housing on the southeast side,” said Sample. “So Damien and I were trying to find sites that would be the best fit for the project, and it was on Harvard where there were vacant parcels along from 93rd to 102nd.”

Sample said that Forshe felt it was important to have living quarters for veterans and their families within the neighborhood that the veterans are from. Sample added that Forshe began working closely with UMDC and Councilman Bishop to make this happen on the southeast side.

“This project is extremely important to me because I’m from Union Miles,” said Sample. “I know what the neighborhood used to be, what it is now, and what it can be. It has so much great potential. This neighborhood has been disinvested for many years. I knew I needed to make this happen and I’m excited that it’s going to happen.”

After the groundbreaking for the facility this spring, UMDC anticipates tenant application review to begin this fall, with construction wrapping up around October/November.

Another commitment to Forshe’s vision that Sample would uphold was the input of Walter Collins, a Vietnam War veteran who was a major influence on the housing project. In addition to the project being named after Collins, Sample said, “Walt is very visible here at Union Miles. He meets [regularly] with our development department. He is a fixture at Union Miles Development Corporation.”

Keymah Durden III, Rid-All co-founder and Marc S. White, Rid-All founding partner and farm operations manager, were eager to talk to The Land about Rid-All’s involvement with the veterans housing project while continuing the work of their lifelong friend. Durden recalled that the veterans housing for the homeless project was something that consumed Forshe. “Damien was the kind of guy that once he got bit by an idea he wasn’t gonna stop until it was completed.” 

Durden and White were especially happy to introduce The Land to the housing facility’s namesake, Walter Collins, who they reverently refer to as “Uncle Walt.” 

Meeting Walter Collins, aka “Uncle Walt”

When Collins spoke with The Land, he started off by stating, “I worked with Damien for a long time before I knew he wasn’t a veteran. Because he was working so hard for us (veterans) I just assumed that he was a veteran.”

Collins said he first met Forshe about 20 years ago, but after Forshe’s passing Collins became fully committed to Rid-All’s veterans program. Collins added, “I love Damien Forshe and I miss him every day.”

Now 83, Collins said he went into the service at 16 years old to avoid being shipped off to the Boys Industrial School, a “reformatory” where Ohio juvenile offenders were trained in industrial vocations. Describing his younger self as “bad as hell,” he admitted to not only being in and out of juvenile court, but to avoiding his date with the reformatory. He forged his birth certificate to show that he was 18 years old and eligible to join the army.

“I spent 11 years active service, three years reserve, spent two years in the Cold War in Germany, and four years in the Vietnam War in three different locations,” he said. 

How the Walter Collins Veterans Housing & Service Facility got its name

“It was wintertime and Damien got a call that someone was sleeping on the [Rid-All property],” recalled Collins. “Damien and I went down there to see what we could do. The person was homeless.”

According to Collins, when Forshe saw the homeless man asleep on the grounds of his property, he decided to provide housing for the homeless, particularly for veterans in the area.

“The next day we started working on putting something together. One day, he came into the office at Rid-All and wanted me to look at his latest plans. I needed to put my glasses on and he kept saying ‘Look at the name.’ He named it ‘Walter Collins Veterans Housing.’ I suggested that maybe we should name it something else, but he always said that was going to be it. When he passed away, I was all the way in, not because it would have my name on it, but because that was what Damien wanted.

“No veteran should be homeless. This facility will mean a lot to the veterans, and maybe more to their family members,” Collins said. 

The Rid-All perspective

“I think it was just very organic, the way it evolved,” Keymah Durden said. “This facility was born out of a deep need and care for our community. To Uncle Walt’s point, we don’t want to see any veteran sleeping on the street. We understand that there are some skill management and life management things that folks have to go through to get back on their feet.” 

Durdan added, “Here at Rid-All, we deal with compost. We take in food waste and turn it into a top-class soil. Why shouldn’t we be able to reach out to actual people who need help. To help build them up?”

Veterans Outreach has become part of the Rid-All Partnership plan to provide access to their “Green Program,” a five-month training program that Rid-All says covers agribusiness, composting, aquaponics and urban farming. 

“Most of us are probably two or three generations removed from a farmer or somebody in their family that knew how to farm. Rid-All doesn’t want our community to lose that skill. By teaching that to our veterans, we give them an opportunity to reinvigorate a skill that may be lost, and after going through the agribusiness process they can have the ability to run their own business,” Durden said. 

Rid-All Operation Manager Marc White said that what the founding members of Rid-All talked about early on was about the power of soil, and how the regenerative aspect of soil had the ability to transform people’s lives. White said, “We really were encouraged to know that we had some programs for the veterans, not just some talk, but actual programs with infrastructure that they could actually thrive in.”

Durden added, “I think the pandemic exposed the fact that our community was food insecure. People were scrambling for access to fresh produce, but our business picked up.  That should have been a sign that we need to learn how to grow our own food to control our own destiny.”

In anticipation of breaking ground in March, UMDC Director Roshawn Sample said, “We’re just waiting for a few things from the city of Cleveland, but other than that we’re ready to go. We just hope that Damien is looking down on this project and smiling, and I’m glad that Walt Collins is here to see this happening.”

Rid-All Green Partnership is located at 8129 Otter Dr., Cleveland and can be reached by phone: (216) 307-4069, or email: info@ridall.org. For more information on Union Miles Development Corporation (UMDC), visit unionmiles.org or call (216) 341-0757.