Angelo Merendino wanted to fix up his driveway. He felt his garage could use attention, too. So could the siding on his 1950 Old Brooklyn home. On a recent visit, his driveway’s drain was coming apart, and weeds crept along cracks in the concrete.
In August 2024, he entered a lottery for a new home repair program offered by the City of Cleveland. Officials had slated $10 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to tackle the common problem of deferred maintenance on aging houses across town.
City Hall labeled the effort “ARPA in Action.” Merendino received a letter from the city saying he had been selected to move forward in the process, although it noted he wasn’t guaranteed to receive repairs.
Two years later, he is still waiting to find out.
“I realize that they could come out and say, ‘No, you know what? You don’t qualify for this,’” he said in an interview in his back yard this summer. “And that’s fine. But the fact that no one is doing anything, that’s what bugs me.”
Heralded by Mayor Justin Bibb as an effort to accelerate much-needed repairs across the city, Cleveland’s ARPA fixup program has moved forward in piecemeal. The city reallocated millions from one nonprofit partner last year. After a delay, another nonprofit says it plans to relaunch work this fall.
Merendino and many fellow lottery winners have been standing by while CHN Housing Partners, another of the city’s nonprofit vendors, works through a different list of homes, according to the city and CHN.
“Mr. Merendino’s name was forwarded to CHN after the city conducted a lottery intake,” CHN Chief Strategy Officer Laura Boustani told Signal Cleveland. “CHN already had a list from various community development groups…and most likely enough names to use up the dollars available.”
The lottery list included 153 people, 149 of whom were sent to CHN. Boustani said some people on that list — between a dozen and 20 — have seen their homes repaired through other programs. But many are waiting, she said.
Three years after Cleveland City Council awarded $10 million in repair money to four nonprofits, the program has spent at least $2.3 million. That figure is based on numbers shared by the city and two nonprofits. However, there is ongoing repair work that the city hasn’t yet paid for.
Originally, Cleveland split the dollars among four nonprofits: CHN Housing Services, Cleveland Restoration Society, Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity and the Local Initiatives Support Corp. Read the details of that spending in the box below the story.
Cleveland has made progress. Habitat for Humanity and CHN have repaired around 160 houses so far, according to numbers the two groups provided to Signal Cleveland.
Merendino’s house isn’t among them.
‘Someone in the city should be accountable’
In 2024, about a year after City Council awarded the money to its nonprofit vendors, the Bibb administration invited residents to apply for its ARPA home repair lottery.
Bibb said in a news release at the time his administration had laid a foundation to set the work up for success. Dozens of properties already in the queue for repairs had been fixed up or were in the process, the release said.
“We know the need is great and we are committed to maximizing these resources and working with partners to accelerate our ability to improve the quality of housing in Cleveland,” Bibb said in the release.
Merendino and 152 other people were chosen in that lottery. They weren’t the only ones in line for repairs.
He bought his home in 2020 and has been putting work into it. He replaced the air conditioning system and water heater, he said. He has fixed plumbing and had a fence installed. That gave his pit bill, Mack, an enclosed place to roam and to keep an eye on the dog across the street.
“My house is fine. I take care of it,” he said. “But, you know, my biggest thing on this is that it’s $10 million in taxpayer money, and someone in the city should be accountable.”
A professional photographer, Merendino has captured portraits of numerous notable local figures for Cleveland Magazine, including Mayor Justin Bibb. In 2021, the Bibb campaign even paid to use Merendino’s work on promotional materials.
Now Merendino says his faith in Cleveland government has diminished.
Cleveland homeowners lost in lottery
Cleveland awarded $4 million of its ARPA home repair dollars to CHN Housing Partners in 2023. The city sent the nonprofit a list of homeowners in need of fixes. The names came from community development corporations and City Council members, according to the city and CHN.
Then Cleveland sent over the online lottery list. That surprised CHN because it wasn’t part of the original plan, according to Boustani.
Arin Miller-Tait, who became Cleveland’s community development director in February of this year, said she couldn’t speak to whether the lottery list was a surprise for CHN. She hadn’t been involved in the negotiations, she said. As she recalled, it was thought that there was more money to go around.
“My recollection of it is that we were asked to select a number of people because there was this — there was a belief that there was enough money to serve the list that we had already shared and plus more,” she said.
Around 1,600 people applied, she said. City Hall randomly selected nine applicants in each of the city’s 17 wards at the time, or 153 people. All but four of them were sent to CHN. As Tait-Miller understood it, CHN said it would first serve residents on its initial list before turning to the lottery list when money became available.
Cleveland needs to ‘reevaluate’ its home repair work, director says
Merendino tried to get answers about his own case. He exchanged emails with a community development staffer at the city. This year, CHN sent two emails. Merendino also spoke on the phone with the nonprofit.
Even so, he described that contact as “minimal.” He even reached his congressional and statehouse representatives seeking help, he said.
Miller-Tait said Merendino should have received earlier and more frequent notice. But given the Cleveland area’s construction season and CHN’s caseload, she said she wasn’t surprised it had been taking so long to get to him.
Ideally, she’d like the city to repair a house within a year of a homeowner’s application, she said.
“There is a need to reevaluate the city’s approach to home repair, broadly speaking, and that is a priority for my department,” she said. “But at the same time, we know, again, it’s about needs and resources. And we know that there are not enough resources to meet the needs.”
When Signal Cleveland told Merendino about the competing repair lists, he expressed disbelief.
“I have no expectation of this ever happening,” he said. “I think it’s just another example of how things actually happen in Cleveland, you know?”
Here are the nonprofits that were slated for Cleveland’s APRA home repair dollars
At first, Cleveland divided its $10 million among four nonprofits:
- $4 million for CHN Housing Partners
- $3 million for Cleveland Restoration Society
- $1.5 million for Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity
- $1.5 million for the Local Initiatives Support Corp.
Generally, Cleveland distributes grants on a reimbursement basis. That means a vendor has to do the work first — with its own money — before applying to be paid back by City Hall.
So far, the city has paid out about $834,000 to CHN out of the total $4 million, according to Boustani. The nonprofit has done more work that it hasn’t billed for yet, she said. Miller-Tait estimated that CHN has spent about half its allocation so far.
CHN has fixed 37 homes and another 12 are in progress, Boustani said. Those dollars are limited to $30,000 per home, and homeowners must make below 60% of the area median income.
Habitat for Humanity has spent all of its $1.5 million, according to the city. The nonprofit has repaired 126 homes so far, CEO John Litten said.
Habitat’s limitations were different from CHN’s. Habitat’s repairs had a ceiling of $15,000 but were available to people making below 80% of the area median. Litten said Habitat used money from other sources to help with 29 of those repairs.
Originally, Cleveland Restoration Society pitched the idea of using its ARPA dollars to set up a revolving loan fund, President Kathleen Crowther said. But the city pulled CRS’s $3 million and awarded it instead to Habitat last year, saying the program hadn’t gotten started amid KeyBank’s changing role in the effort.
In an interview with Signal Cleveland, Crowther said CRS had been trying to iron out program details with the city when Cleveland changed course.
“We’re very sad about it,” she said, “and it’s not true that we could not pull off the program.”
Meanwhile, Habitat has not begun spending that additional $3 million it received from the city, Litten said. The nonprofit didn’t have a contract with the city until June of his year, he said.
“We have a healthy pipeline of approved applicants that will be getting repairs completed with those dollars through the fall and all of next year,” he told Signal Cleveland in a text message.
LISC’s work has been on hold, according to the city. The nonprofit planned to offer grants and 10-year, no-interest loans for people making up to 80% of the area median income. But the group ran into challenges dealing with lead paint remediation rules, Executive Director Kandis Williams wrote to Signal Cleveland in an email.
“We determined that changes were needed to make the program work more effectively,” she wrote. “We have since revised the process and are working with the City on an extension of the program, with plans to relaunch later this fall.”
