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CityLink group purchases ground for controversial “campus for care”
Cincinnati Herald January 28, 2006
By Dan Yount
The Cincinnati Herald
CityLink Center, a controversial planned center that would provide services
for the poor was recently moved forward with the $1.4 million purchase of
five acres at 800 Bank St. in the West End.
The sponsors of the project—a consortium of local churches and providers of
human services—plan to open the one-stop services center in two years. The
center would provide health services, addition recovery programs, overnight
shelter food, temporary housing, childcare and other services for the area’s
indigent population.
CityLink founders include Mark Stecher, an associate pastor of Vineyard
Community Church and a former Procter & Gamble executive; Christ Emmanuel
Christian Fellowship of Walnut Hills, Crossroads Health Center in
Over-the-Rhine, and Crossroads Community Church in Oakley. The plan is
supported by pastors of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, New Life Temple and
Vineyard Community Church and directors of City Gospel Mission, CityCURE,
Jobs Plus Employment Network and The Lord’s Gym.
There have been several contentious meetings of the West End Community
Council in recent months concerning the proposal with those opposed
contending the center will bring “undesirable” people into the community
resulting in a decline in public safety and property values. Those
supporting the center say the “undesirables” are already there, and the
center will provide a place for them and be accountable for them.
Opponents plan to take their case to the city’s Zoning Board when that board
meets Feb. 13 to consider rezoning the property for the development, said
Shirley Colvert, one of the leaders of the opposition.
A booklet that describes CityLink states that by being located in the heart
of Cincinnati’s downtown neighborhoods, the center would be convenient to
large numbers of Cincinnati’s “under-resourced people as well as volunteers
who will provide services there.
“At CityLink, people will find relief,” states the writer of the
informational booklet. “Each guest will be treated with dignity as
relationships begin to form in confidential one-on-one settings.
Holistic support will be offered. Each guest will pursue and individual
series of services within a framework that leads to personal relationships
with CityLink staff, volunteers, other guests, and God. This will provide
real life opportunity for change.
The focus at CityLink will be on the whole person—their immediate physical,
emotional, mental and spiritual needs, as well long term relationship
development and personal growth. Our clients are on a journey of hope, and
we will be there with them as they progress. This is not a short-term fix.”
The center is one of several planned by the founders throughout the
Cincinnati area, including Oakley, Loveland and other locations.
CityLink founders say their center would have a positive impact on the West
End.
First, they plan to transform a blighted sight that was once a
slaughterhouse into a first class facility. Second, they say the facility
and the services provided will drive down crime rates, based on the results
of a similar facility in Los Angeles, which helped decrease crime by 20
percent in the community where it was located. The Cincinnati center will
have security, the litter around the facility will continually be invited
inside and off the streets.
So, why the opposition? Residents at Community Council meetings have
expressed their fears about safety in the neighborhood, especially with the
center located near schools and a resulting decline in property values.
However, CityLink founders’ say that given loiters will be taken off the
streets and that crime should drop, residents and school children should be
safer.
Vickie Neff, a member of the nearly 6,000-member Crossroads Community
Church, said approximately 1,000 volunteers from churches and other
organizations supporting the center will be going there to work.
If it was going to be unsafe they would not go there, she said.
In addition to the $250,000 Crossroads is donating to CityLink, it recently
sent $150,000 check to tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, spent $500,000 to help
build the largest AIDS hospice center in South Africa, and has just recently
helped assist in the freeing of 90 young girls who were forced into sex
slavery in a Southeast Asian country.
The Vineyard, the other mega church in the area, has been involved in
similar causes.
Dale Mallory, president of the West End Community Council, said the issue
has certainly divided the community. He estimates that while opponents are
vocal about their concerns, they compromise only 10 percent of the
community. Those who feel there is a need for this facility do not come to
meetings, he said.
Those who do speak out have voiced concerns about the traffic the center
will generate, the type of clientele it will serve, and a resulting decrease
in property values, Mallory said. They also feel caught in the middle of the
development occurring in the community, he added.
Mallory said his role is to present the issue to residents, to remain
neutral and to be a good listener. “Both sides are very convincing, but we
should work with anybody who moves into the community,” he said.
“However, we took a look at their concerns about the clientele who would be
served, and those people are already here in the community.
“The opponents are concerned that the homeless and indigent from
Over-the-Rhine would be unloaded here, but we would never tolerate the
atmosphere here that exists in Washington Park.”
Mallory said the center would provide the advantage of managing the homeless
and indigent that now roam the community unsupervised.
He said he is more concerned about proposals to close the schools in the
West End, and he has been talking to Cincinnati Public Shool officials about
these concerns.
Markus Jenkins, who was raised in the West End and does development
consulting work in the community said CityLink would be a “very good thing
for the community.”
CityLink would not only serve the homeless who wander the community, but the
poor residents who live there, he said. From 40 to 50 percent of the
residents are unemployed, and from 10 to 20 percent are under employed, he
said.
“These people could benefit from the holistic approach CityLink is proposing
to provide,” he said. “CityLink would provide them services, get them off
the streets, and offer training programs so they can improve their lives.
There is nothing of this type in the area.”
Perkins said those opposing the center are wrong in thinking that people
would be drawn from all over the area to the center. Usually, the poor stay
in their own neighborhoods, he explained.
Shirley Colvert, a West End activist and one of thee leaders of the
opposition to CityLink center, said residents were blindsided by the
project. Although a booklet explaining the project was available at
Crossroads last summer, residents in the West End only heard about the
proposal two months ago, Colvert said.
“We have 11 churches already in this community, yet not one of them was
notified about the project or included in it,” she said.
“We have all those services in the West End, so why is it necessary for
outside churches to com in with the center?”
Colvert said the community has always been shortchanged, and that there are
other things such as grocery store and improved housing needed there instead
of CityLink Center.
Liz Carter, the executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Society at 1123
Bank St., said there is always strong opposition when an organization that
serves the poor locates offices in a community. Her organization, which
provides a number of services for the poor, experienced opposition when it
started in the West End.
“The people they serve are not popular people,” she said. “People who are
chronically poor often have other problems, and that’s what makes people
nervous. But I’ve seen a number of these places go in, and there is not a
problem. The West End is a stable community, and the residents have concerns
about how CityLink will affect it. But CityLink and the community do not
want a Washington Park.”
Carter said there is a need for more transitional housing throughout
Cincinnati, and she likes the “one-stop” human services agency concept
planned by CityLink.
Carter said she and her board plan to work collaboratively with CityLink as
they have with other human service providers to ensure that services are not
duplicated
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