Michelle Wilkerson Guerry is glad that spring is here. It makes it easier to spend some quiet time outdoors - away from the Bishop Cosgrove Center.
Michelle Wilkerson Guerry: Today I'm a little tired. Even though I slept in ear plugs, there were a couple altercations which caused people not to get in the showers. One altercation was in the shower.
The Cosgrove Center is an old high school building. Women sleep in the gymnasium in bunk beds and on mats on the floor. Wilkerson Guerry lost her job in December. She's been staying at the shelter since January.
Michelle Wilkerson Guerry: As we're sitting here no one would really know that I'm a homeless woman.
It's true. Wearing a stylish taupe business suit, with a pretty matching blouse, her hair and make-up done perfectly, Wilkerson looks like a distinguished professional. In fact, she is just that.
Michelle Wilkerson Guerry: I'm an administrative assistant with legal and medical background. I've been in the secretarial support system for over 30 years.
Donna Hawk: With all of the publicity that the women's shelter has gotten since December, the women have been mischaracterized.
Sister Donna Hawk is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Office of Homeless Services.
Donna Hawk: They've been characterized as drunks, and prostitutes, and mentally ill and it's true enough that there are some women who fit those categories but my guess is mentally ill and really addicted people are maybe a fifth to a fourth of the population.
Hawk also heads Transitional Housing, an agency that helps homeless women become independent. She's all too familiar with the poor conditions at the shelter. Hawk used to work at the shelter's prior location, an old garage.
Donna Hawk: We had too many children there, we had no cribs whatsoever, nothing to provide for the children, that was one issue. There was never quite enough staff. They relied very heavily on temporary staff who come and are gone before they really learn what the situation is about.
Hawk says that Catholic Charities never seemed to provide the leadership necessary to run the shelter smoothly. She also suggests that complaints of drug and sex abuse weren't taken seriously.
Donna Hawk: There have always been a lot of drugs and often law enforcement could have been involved and weren't, for whatever reason. In terms of the sex, I think when you have that many people, mixed men and women, in a small confined space with very vulnerable women I think it's very possible that it's happened.
Catholic Charities did not return a call seeking comments. A little more than two weeks ago the agency decided to end their contract to run the shelter. So now, not only are county and city officials hunting for a new site for the shelter, but a new provider to run it as well. Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora says the county is working closely with the City of Cleveland to resolve the site issue. There are preliminary plans to build a brand new shelter.
Jimmy Dimora: Frank Jackson, the Council President of Cleveland, has allowed us a particular location in his ward that is, in his opinion, suitable for housing temporarily women and children. We have to make sure that the property is clean and suitable and then we can actually start design work.
The site is on Croton Avenue, near the Tri-C Metro Campus. Dimora says unless someone comes up with a proposal to renovate an existing building, he hopes to have plans for a new shelter confirmed by the early part of the summer. But that still doesn't take care of who will actually run the facility once Catholic Charities steps down. Dimora says that's up in the air.
Jimmy Dimora: Salvation Army's been the only other partner that we've had in the homeless services business and they do both women and men, so they may be the provider that steps up and takes over. But we'll have to see actually any other options that could be out there, any other providers that might be willing to step up and take the challenge.
In the meantime, government leaders and other service providers are coming together to help improve conditions in the shelter's current home at the Cosgrove Center. Jane Platten is Projects and Policy Administrator for the Cuyahoga County Commissioners. She says it was simply a matter of opening up the lines of communication.
Jane Platten: We pulled a roundtable of those shelter directors together and we went around the table and the first thing we did was introduce ourselves and they all said, this morning when I went to work, I had this many empty beds. By the end of that meeting we had the 12 children and nine mothers that were in Cosgrove at that time, absorbed into the other shelters.
As local leaders work on their stopgap plan for the end of August, Michelle Wilkerson Guerry is doing everything she can to get out of the shelter by then. She's had a few interviews recently and makes regular visits to Cleveland's One-Stop Job Center. She says once she's back on her feet she'll remain an advocate for the women that still need the shelter.
Michelle Wilkerson Guerry: We are human beings. Homeless, but not hopeless.
In Cleveland, Renita Jablonski, 90.3.