Metropole Residents Vow to Fight Eviction
By Gregory Flannery
Tenants at the Metropole Apartments downtown took over a Nov. 5 meeting called by the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), which has bought the building and plans to force them out.
The takeover, organized by the staff of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless and the Metropole Tenants Association, came one day after Cincinnati Police officers prevented the Homeless Coalition from attending a 3CDC meeting with tenants.
Because the Metropole houses low-income people under a contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), tenants have a right to have advocates present at meetings with landlords, according to Josh Spring, executive director of the Homeless Coalition.
“Yesterday the police department kept the advocates and the lawyers out,” Spring told the tenants. “The tenants have taken over the meeting now. The truth is you have a legal right to have advocates here, so we are the ones upholding the law. Today it’s a different story. How does it feel to have the power?”
Blocking tenants’ advocates from the earlier meeting is part of a complaint filed with HUD by the Legal Aid Society of Cincinnati. The complaint accuses 3CDC of housing discrimination, deception and other violations of law.
The Homeless Coalition has been organizing tenants for three months, warning them that 3CDC planned to buy the building and convert it to a boutique hotel. 3CDC – a non-profit development group partly funded by the city of Cincinnati – acquired the property last week for $6.25 million.
“3CDC has purchased your home and they desire to make your home into hotel rooms for tourists,” Spring said. “They think you don’t fit in with the entertainment district. For three months they asked us not to talk to you, but we did.”
‘How would you like it?’
3CDC had called a tenants’ meeting for 4 p.m. Nov. 5. But at 3 p.m. the Homeless Coalition and the Metropole Tenants Association carefully executed a pre-emptive strike. House rules allow visitors in the Metropole only by invitation of residents. Jeff Eaton, a member of the tenants’ association, told the desk clerk that he had seven visitors: Spring; Rob Goeller, civil-rights coordinator for the Homeless Coalition; Bonnie Neumeier, director of the Peaslee Neighborhood Center; three journalists; and a Legal Aid lawyer.
The group went to the Metropole ballroom, where the activists posted signs listing their demands and arranged chairs in a circle. Dozens of residents began filing into the ballroom – a full hour before 3CDC’s scheduled meeting, an indication that the takeover had been planned in advance.
As the meeting was about to start, a man huddled with Spring and Goeller and asked them to let 3CDC proceed with its own meeting.
“We’ll tell them the information they do need,” the man said.
Spring refused to back down.
“You’ve had plenty of opportunity,” Spring said. “You haven’t talked to the tenants. This is a tenants’ meeting now. You should take the low seat and hear what the tenants have to say.”
“Fine,” the man said. “Then we won’t have a meeting.”
The man walked away. When a reporter asked for his name, the man said, “No.” Asked if he were with Metropole management, the man said, “No.” Asked if he worked for 3CDC, he again said, “No.” Spring later introduced – or outed – him as Adam Gelter, development director for 3CDC.
When the man stalked off, Spring addressed the tenants.
“They want to take your home and turn it into a hotel for tourists,” he said. “They didn’t ask you. Some of you have lived here over 20 years. Do you think that you are cattle to be herded around the city?”
The crowd answered, “No!”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Spring said. “Are you going to fight for your housing?”
“Yes!” the tenants answered.
Several tenants then spoke.
“If we don’t stick up for ourselves, it’s going to affect our lives and other people’s lives,” said Robert Wavra. “A lot of people have used this building to get started or re-started because it didn’t charge a lot for rent.”
Wavra introduced an argument that would be repeated by Spring and the Legal Aid attorneys: 3CDC wants to evict the residents because low-income people don’t fit into 3CDC’s plans for the downtown entertainment district.
“They don’t think you deserve to be close to the bus routes,” Wavra said. “They don’t think you deserve to be close to Fountain Square. We’ve got to stand up for ourselves and for the people coming behind us. If we let this go, it’s gone for good.”
Another resident, Tracy Hall, said the federally subsidized apartments at the Metropole helped her change her life.
“For 12 years I was homeless,” she said. “If it wasn’t for the Metropole, I would not have had a second chance. Yes, there are some stains on the carpet and some things need to be repainted, but big deal. By moving in here, I’ve been able to attend college and get a job and get a second chance.”
Hall addressed a woman from Brickstone Properties, the management company hired by 3CDC to help residents find other housing.
“How would you like it if someone in a jacket came to you and said, ‘You have to move and we’ve been planning it for months,’ ” Hall said.
The Brickstone representative replied, “We’re not putting anyone out on the streets. I’m just here to do a job.”
Like Gelter – the 3CDC employee who denied that he was with 3CDC – the woman wouldn’t give her name.
A Cincinnati Police officer entered the ballroom but didn’t interfere with the meeting. Three police officers were stationed in the lobby and two cops on horseback were in front of the Metropole during the meeting, according to Lynne Ausman, administrative coordinator for the Homeless Coalition.
“3CDC and Brickstone have called the police,” Spring told the tenants. “They’re afraid of you.”
‘You don’t fit’
In the ballroom, the Metropole Tenants Association posted a list of demands for 3CDC:
“1. Renovate our homes here to the same level as your condos.
“2. We will stay a community.
“3. Metropole must stay affordable housing.
“4. Laws must be made to prevent this (loss of affordable housing).”
HUD regulations require relocation assistance from 3CDC now that it has purchased the Metropole. But Spring, Goeller and John Schrider, attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Cincinnati, urged tenants not to move and not to sign any agreements with Brickstone or 3CDC while the HUD complaint is pending. No residents can be forced to move for the next year, the homeless advocates said.
“This is legal advice: Don’t move,” Schrider said. “If you move, you won’t get what you’re entitled to. If you give in to the lies and false promises of the new owners, you’re going to get ripped off. What the owners of this building are trying to do is cleanse downtown of people like you. They want rich white people.”
Schrider’s colleague at Legal Aid, Rickell L. Howard, echoed his assertion: 3CDC wants poor people out of the downtown entertainment district.
“They’re trying to kick you out because of who you are,” Howard said. “They don’t need another hotel downtown. They think you don’t fit.”
After nearly two hours Spring introduced Gelter of 3CDC and Steve Smith of the Model Group – parent company of Brickstone Properties – to the tenants.
“Adam Gelter’s here,” Spring said. “He’s the one who said he didn’t want to listen to you.”
Gelter apologized for “the confusion of the letter” 3CDC had earlier sent tenants.
“We don’t want anyone to move,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to sign anything.”
“You did yesterday!” a man in the crowd yelled.
Other members of the crowd demanded that Gelter and Smith stand in the center of the room so all tenants could hear them. The two men complied.
“We intend to work within the rules,” Smith said. “We will do things as HUD stipulates they must be done.”
But if there were any doubt about 3CDC’s intentions, Smith made them clear. Ignoring the demand that the tenants be allowed to stay, he instead told the tenants something that was never in dispute: No one could force the tenants to stay at the Metropole.
“If people want to move out of the Metropole, that’s their right,” Smith said. “Our job is to make sure people don’t fall through the cracks and become homeless.”
That was a curious assertion by the very company whose job it is to rid the Metropole of its low-income tenants.
Throughout the meeting Bonnie Neumeier, a longtime advocate for homeless people, led tenants in updated versions of traditional civil-rights songs: “The Metropole’s our home. We shall not be moved. … Tenants united, we shall not be moved.”
No one from 3CDC sang along.
Oh yes, Streetvibes. The (un)credible “journalistic” tabloid that purports to speak for the homeless and low-income, while in the same breath cry out against capitalism and the free market. The same ones who cannot understand how -renters-, given a -year- of -free- relocation assistance, cannot be moved into much larger and safer quarters.
The Metropole, in short, is a condemnable dump. I toured the building one year ago and was appalled at what I found. Rats and roaches nibbling about in the rooms I was shown and in the hallways. Prostitutes and drug pushers in the hallways and lobby. And we can’t forget about the poor condition of the structure, brought about over many years of maintenance deference. Remember when a resident fell through the floor of the second floor and onto a Trattoria Roma table? That was only three years ago.
If you don’t like how a free market works, and how generous 3CDC/The Model Group is being with this, please feel free to use civil discourse and stop peddling fears around.
But I can’t expect much from a tabloid that blames Buddy Gray’s death on 3CDC.
Posted by Sherman Cahal | November 12, 2009, 3:58 pmCities should be for everyone and people are more important than buildings. There. I said it. As for straight up capitalism free market blah blah blah – that experiment decisively failed a year ago. There is no justification for the rah-rah.
I don’t disagree that the highest and best use of the Metropole is a custom hotel. And I don’t think people have a right to completely ignore the rules of economics when it comes to their housing per se. However, let’s all agree that the total free market is a god-awful scary place to be and as we distribute tax dollars and make policies to overcome the externalities of aforesaid god-awful scary place let’s make sure that we keep our principles and that structure (streets, cities, buildings) serves people – and not just one class of them. That we care about people more than we care about cool buildings and fabulous streets. Hard for the aesthetically inclined, but we must try.
And let’s try a little empathy. These residents are distraught. We all need to imagine what that must feel like before debating and taking sides. Many have lived there a long time, have the best access to services they need there, and are familiar with that section of downtown. Their fear is legitimate. Distrust of 3CDC is perfectly understandable, as the economics of the situation (minus regulation) support a dynamic where these two groups should be enemies. And their representatives don’t sound that competent at communication.
The root of Metropole’s residents’ complaints is there is not another place they can go that provides the same quality of life. You may not agree with what they’re calling QOL but it’s not your call. I’m sure they know the place sucks, but there are other considerations. Safety and – more than anything – access to services come to mind. Finding agreeable housing alternatives – according to the tenants definition – is the most important problem to be overcome.
This situation should alert everyone in favor of livable communities to a larger problem. We, as a region, need livable communities for people of all incomes. The question we should be asking is WHY aren’t there more places that meet the needs of our workers and poor and how can we create them. The cool thing is that when we do achieve that objective it will actually increase the QOL for everyone.
Posted by Jenn Hackman | November 13, 2009, 11:24 amDear Sherman,
What evidence do you have to support your assertion that Metropole tenants will be relocated to “much safer and larger quarters”? I am certain the tenants would like to know.
Isn’t it telling that, despite the conclusions you’ve drawn after “touring” the Metrople last year, the people who live there want to stay?
And where do you come up with the ridiculous assertion that anyone blames 3CDC for Buddy Gray’s death? 3CDC wasn’t even in existence when he was assassinated.
Posted by Gregory Flannery | November 12, 2009, 9:37 pmBeggars can’t be choosers. These people are getting handouts from the government and handouts from the city of Cincinnati. They therefore do not have the right to “demand” cheap, new housing, where they want it when they want it.
3CDC is doing everything to make this a fair transition. They get a FULL YEAR to find new housing, a section 8 voucher (handout), offered spots in larger, newly renovated units only a few blocks north in OTR. That’s a sweeter deal than most working americans with apartments would get.
Stop trying to hold the city back from progress. The building is not yours, they have a right to renovate it whenever they want as long as they abide by the governments rules, which they are.
Posted by Jason | November 13, 2009, 10:26 amI feel sorry for the Metropole residents who are being manipulated by a bunch of “homeless advocates” who mostly collect fat salaries working for non profits who are USING the Metropole residents to generate donations for their own organizations and keep that fat federal gravy train going.
To the Metropole residents: ask yourself, where were all these “advocates’ as your building went into further decline over the last 10 years? Why were they not tying to get the drug dealers and prositutes out of the building? Why were they not working to get your building renovated 5-10 years ago?
The people that pretend to be “friends of yours” who are claiming to “advocate’ for you, are simply using you to line their own pockets. Ask them how big their paycheck is from the charities? Ask them where they live.Ask them about their generous healthcare plan and their paid vacations?
Don’t be fooled, they are playing you and they could care less about you. You are just a media pawn for them that will help them raise more money. As soon as you are ‘old news’ they will be gone and they may very well ruin your chances to be relocated into safe affordable housing.
.
Posted by Paul Willham | November 13, 2009, 4:22 pmYes, it’s true! You’ve caught us out. All the homeless advocates I know are making “fat salaries,” Paul. We sip on champagne at breakfast, enjoy pate foie de gras at lunch — and for dinner, we have the servants bring us our choice of filet mignon or Chilean sea bass.
I hope you are never homeless.
Posted by Gregory Flannery | November 13, 2009, 9:25 pmRich white people, huh? And here I had the understanding that there were affluent folks of all backgrounds that visited our city (and even, gasp, that live in our city). Glad I’ve had that misunderstanding corrected.
I really respect the power of advocacy for those that don’t have a strong voice in society. I just find it more effective without furthering the old establishment’s absolutist views on race and social status.
Posted by Sean | November 14, 2009, 3:06 pmI’ll be taking my 20th and final vacation to Maui with my federal gravy, Paul. Sorry you can’t join me… just not enough gravy to spread around between these homeless advocate “fat cats.”
Posted by Jeremy Flannery | December 22, 2009, 6:19 pmIs this a good example of “capitalism?” — Pay $0.25 for something, sell it for a dollar to willing customers, be your own boss (with a few groundrules).
Posted by Anne | February 4, 2010, 12:34 pmAs I read the articles my feelings are mixed. I hear both sides but I have a few comments of my own.
A week ago I was working in OTR installing cctv equipment. As I look north of the 3CDC office I noticed the chaos of people and police cruisers. A woman had been shot and robbed. She owned some type of retail space. I believe it was a clothing store. In fact the people that I was working for knew her and were expressing there sadness and went on to say how nice and sweet she was. The thought came to mind…that woman had children, a husband and worked very hard to open a business that gives to the community, then.. bang!!, in one second her life changes and shes shot in the head. I ask myself this question….as a business owner do I want to bring my business and services this community? Absolutely not if it means I will be robbed, injured or maybe even killed because some thug/criminal saw something they didn’t have and wanted to take it without regard. I am so sick of thugs and gang bangers who think they can take what they want. What if that was your mother or daughter?! I am down there almost everyday and these people are the residents!! I mean…here I am working for a living out in the freezing cold at 8am and theres 10 loud thugs on the corner smoking pot and and staring people down just waiting for an opportunity to show them how “badass” they are or how “thugged” out they can get! I grew up around these same types in Newport KY and its such a pathetic.
I don’t agree with pushing people out of their home. In fact I grew up as one of the less fortunate blue collar families and often times we rented and were forced out because the owner sold it…I understand that the owner’s right. I do however advocate that people have the right to be safe and protected from criminals in their own community whether they are rich or poor or have the correct skin color. If 3CDC or Urban Developments are trying to do that then I applaud them. For the people that are down and out and need the help, I think the development companies should assist in finding sufficient alternatives for them. I 100% agree with the tenants that feel they are being pushed out for capitalism or free market gain. That’s wrong but if this development aids in the decline of the frequency of crime against others Then I am game! I think people that have no regard for others lives or hard work should simply be thrown into there own little city so they can kill each other and we would ll be better off. Or lets be politically correct and offer rehabilitation! I know that not all the people in OTR are drug dealers, rapists, murderers and thieves and its unfortunate that the honestly down and out families are suffering.
I do know that the crime rate has declined like 50% and businesses are once again popping up in OTR. If this development keeps people safe then I am glad its in action. Until things improve I will not risk losing everything Ive worked hard to achieve by moving my business into this community and getting robbed or even shot. I need more than 50% chance.
I considered renting an apt and renting out my home to my sister but then I thought…would I feel comfortable if my mother and her safety if she came to visit? My answer was no.
WE NEED TO GET THAT AREA CLEANED UP! Who cares if someone makes money off the development. If the indirect results are pushing the criminals out so be it! I see the vision of the development groups. For the improvement of OTR, you have my vote.
Posted by Joe | January 24, 2011, 8:03 pm