Cleveland ‘problem properties’ focus of West Side meeting

The Ward 11 community gathers at Spotlight Cleveland

The meeting started around 6:10 p.m. in the side yard of Spotlight Cleveland, a bar at 8701 Madison Ave. Picnic tables and chairs were set up around a central table that held pamphlets and a microphone. Coffee was served near the parking lot. Approximately 30 community members were in attendance along with the following speakers: Administrative Manager for the Cleveland Department of Building and Housing Toni Allen, Project Coordinator for Building and Housing TaJuana Harris, Field Representative Yariel Camacho from U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown’s office, Assistant Professor Elias Nader from Kent State University, and Ward 11 Council Member Nikki Hudson.

Hudson began the meeting by introducing the owner of Spotlight Cleveland, Corinne Henehan, who described the opening of Spotlight about three years ago and the type of events that are held there.

Cleveland’s Ward 11 includes parts of the rookside-Old Brooklyn, Cudell, Detroit-Shoreway, Edgewater, and West Boulevard neighborhoods.

How the Cleveland Rental Registration program works

TaJuana Harris, project coordinator for the Department of Building and Housing, spoke about the Rental Registration program:

• Rental properties in Cleveland must be registered for a fee of $70 per unit.
• Properties with four units or more must have an HVAC certification.
• A local agent in charge is needed for properties whose owners are outside of the area. The local agent must be present in Cuyahoga, Summit, Lake, Portage, Medina, Lorain or Geauga County. 
• Properties built before 1978 must be lead-safe certified. 
• If the owner pays a utility bill, the documentation must also be provided to the city. 

Toni Allen, administrative manager for the Department of Building and Housing, added that if you do not have all of your documents, you can still register and pay the $70 per unit fee and come back with your documents on a later date. However, you will not receive a certificate approving rental occupancy until you meet all of the requirements of the Rental Registration program.

Officials and residents talk ‘problem properties’

Allen answered questions from community members: 

• A community member asked about what occurs after a property has received multiple nuisance property calls and if a property can still be rented out after several calls. Allen said it depends on what the citation is and if the unit is deemed unsafe. If the inspector deems the unit unsafe, a vacate order will be issued to the tenants. 
• The community member clarified his question by saying he was referring to the behavior of the tenants rather than the safety of the building. Council Member Nikki Hudson answered his question, saying she thinks the resident was talking about a new nuisance law. She said that if a property receives five nuisance activity calls within a year, the owner will be issued a warning letter. If the nuisance activities continue, the building owner will be fined. 

Hudson spoke about the Residents First initiative and the Problem Properties Roundtable. She spoke positively about the program and gave examples of current cases:

• She gave an example of a property that had several calls for service. A nuisance letter was issued to the owners; they did not respond. Fines are still occurring. The owner of the property does not reside within the country.
• She gave another example of a property on 9212 Madison Ave. that was owned by 15 separate Turkish owners. She said that the building had pristine billboards on the side, but the building’s windows were boarded up. The building was condemned, and the revenue from the billboards stopped. She said that the owners consolidated into one entity and that the city is working with them to find a buyer who could rehabilitate the building.
• She then said that the city has had difficulties dealing with property owners who do not reside locally.

A community member brought up a property within their neighborhood. The community member said that the property was a nuisance and that the problems have been going on for a while. Allen asked the community member if they had called it into 311. They said that they have and that there were 23 other calls about the property. Allen asked for the address and said that she would follow up on the property. 

Another community member said that she saw a young woman in a wheelchair fall over a crack in the sidewalk. She asked Hudson if the sidewalk is the owner’s responsibility or the city’s.

Hudson said that it was the owner’s responsibility, but there is a 50/50 program where the city would split the cost of replacing the sidewalk. She said that the city also has a program that would shave and sand down tripping hazards on sidewalks.

Suggested Reading

Do you have ‘neighbors from hell’? Here’s how to get Cleveland to help with nuisance law violations

by Frank W. Lewis and Najee Hall December 29, 2025December 30, 2025

Kent State partnering with Cleveland on policing research

Nader spoke on a joint research initiative with the City of Cleveland’s Police Accountability Team. The research initiative is currently collecting Clevelanders’ opinions on the police, public safety, and common problems in their neighborhoods. The research team will be adding focus groups next month. Flyers were then passed out by students from Kent State. [Editor’s note: You can download a document of this meeting’s handouts scanned by Documenter Evelyn Landis here.]

Nader answered questions from community members:

• Community member: “What is the timeline for your whole process, and what is it going to look like in terms of sharing results of your surveys with the community?”
  • Nader: “In terms of the timeline for the project, we’re collecting survey data through the end of summer and then we’ll be starting focus groups next month in September/Octoberish. Our goal essentially is to wrap up data collection and analysis in the fall semester … We will share our results aggregated as a report that’ll be publicly available on Kent State’s website. But we’ll also obviously be getting it to the city and then sending it to other stakeholders … The idea is that, during the school year, we will work on building this workshop series of interventions that can help train the police on … trust building and conflict management structures.”

• Community member: “Who are the other stakeholders that you are submitting the results to?”
  • Nader: “We’ve reached out to a lot of local groups, churches in the area, all the council people, each of the [police] districts and their community policing groups.” We’ll try to get it into the hands of news media as well.”

• Community member: “Is this part of the decree that was established?” 

Note: The decree that the community member is referring to is a consent decree the City of Cleveland has been under since May of 2015 with the U.S. Department of Justice.

• Nader: “Yeah, the decree is still happening. This is not really related to that process, but obviously part of the charge of the decree includes the police kind of working to establish that trust and build that trust with the community.”

Nader stayed after the meeting, along with his students, to talk to community members and collect survey data.

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Speed tables, education funding, Flock cameras

Hudson introduced Yariel Camacho, field representative for U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown. Camacho said that if anyone needs any assistance with federal agencies (for things like tax returns, visas, passport issues) or wants to leave opinions on issues, they can contact him or Brown’s office. 

Hudson then gave a few more community updates:

• Willard Avenue from West 85 Street to West 98 Street will be resurfaced and receive speed tables. Every other street being resurfaced in Ward 11 will also receive speed tables. 

Hudson then asked the community members for questions:

• A community member asked about a vacant lot on West 74th Street and Detroit Avenue that was formerly a school.
  • Hudson said the property is still owned by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, but the property is in the process of being transferred to the City of Cleveland.
  • She said that the land was initially set to be developed into affordable housing, but due to the Trump administration’s clawback of Greenhouse Gas funding, the project does not seem to be happening. She said her office would support only affordable housing on the site. 
• Another community member mentioned the discussions of decreasing property taxes in the state of Ohio and asked if City Council is coming up with alternative ways to provide for services like schools.
  • Hudson responded by saying that it would be difficult to do on the city level since property taxes are state and county issues. She said she believes that the funding challenges that Cleveland Schools face are at the state level since the way Ohio funds public schools was deemed unconstitutional decades ago. 
  • Camacho was asked if school funding would be something that Brown would be able to do something about. Camacho said that it would be a state issue. 
• One community member asked if the Flock cameras were here to stay.
  • Hudson said that there was a six-month extension to the contract and that Cleveland would stop sharing data with outside agencies. The City of Cleveland will consider a contract with other companies.
  • Hudson, who said she voted against the extension because of privacy concerns, also mentioned that an American citizen from Ward 11 was recently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Ridge Road. She raised concerns about how ICE has tracked residents.

These notes are by Documenter Evelyn Landis. Documenter Annie Maglicic recorded audio.

If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@signalcleveland.org  with “Correction Request” in the subject line.