Five years after Cleveland declared racism a public health crisis, a commission created to tackle the underlying issues finalized its first report. 

The 52-page report details systemic barriers in five areas — education, housing, workforce, public health and criminal justice — and potential ways to dismantle them. 

The initial work was done through a public-private partnership called the Racism as a Public Health Crisis – Coalition, which included the Urban League and the YWCA of Greater Cleveland and used $200,000 in city money and an additional $250,000 donation from J.P. Morgan Chase. This week, council members approved up to $400,000 in additional money to pay for the coalition’s next steps. 

The work has, at points, been criticized for its slow pace. 

The coalition initially set a goal of publishing a community report by winter 2024. That was delayed because the groups overseeing two of the five topic areas took longer, and edits had to be made to the report, said Marsha Mockabee, president and CEO of the Urban League of Cleveland and co-chair of the Racism as a Public Health Crisis – Coalition.

Cleveland City Council Member Stephanie Howse-Jones, a member of the coalition’s executive committee, said at a committee meeting Monday that she’s been asked about the coalition’s pace. But the work takes time, she said.  

“One of the things that I always will lift up is that, unfortunately, when we talk about the system that was created here in America, [it] didn’t just happen overnight,” Howse-Jones said. “Even getting to a point to be able to educate people on shared language, shared understanding, it takes time.” 

As part of the coalition’s recent presentation to the City Council, the report was provided to council members. A City Council spokesperson provided it to Signal Cleveland as a public record. The coalition said it had planned to release the report as part of a community town hall, so residents could talk about the points and give feedback in person.

“We weren’t ready to do that,” Mockabee said. She said the report is still a draft and not final until it is approved by the coalition’s executive and steering committees. 

The new money approved by council includes $200,000 to fund the coalition through the end of September, with the option to renew the contract for another year and another $200,000. Those dollars are granted to the Urban League. With the continued investment, Mockabee said, the coalition can turn towards phase two: implementation of the plan. As it does that, the coalition will likely need to shift its structure, she said. 

“Are we going to be a watch organization? Are we going to be a blue ribbon panel kind of an organization, looking at policy and advocacy kinds of things?” Mockabee said. “We really have to now decide what is going to be our role and what impact are we looking to bring.”  

Report lays out strategies to improve racial disparities in public health and other determinants of well-being

Each of the report’s five focus areas — criminal justice, education, housing and the environment, health and economic mobility — was led by a group of seven to 21 experts, community leaders and residents. Those groups decided upon metrics that should be tracked and recommended strategies to improve the metrics. 

Gabrielle Fowlkes, the project manager for the coalition, said one challenge was finding and identifying public data points. Hospital data, for example, is not public record, she said. 

The data the coalition did identify showed racial disparities across subject areas. Black Cleveland homeowners were 10 percentage points more likely to spend more than 30% of their income on housing than white ones. Gun-related deaths among Black and African American people were more than triple that of white people in Cleveland. One particularly stark graphic showed that white people made up more than 80% of workers in the highest-paid occupations in Cuyahoga County. 

“The big benefits are having all of that data that’s related to social determinants of health areas in one place,” said Lita Wills, commissioner of Health Equity and Social Justice at the City of Cleveland’s Department of Public Health. Wills sits on the coalition’s executive committee. “Because previous to now, we’ve had to go all over the place.” 

Some areas are improving, the report highlighted. That includes housing, where new programs and policies have helped reduce housing disparities in town, the report said, pointing out federal funding for home repairs and energy efficiency improvements. Homeowner counseling programs and Cleveland’s 1995 ban on high-cost mortgages have helped residents negotiate better mortgage terms.  

The report also said that several programs are improving access to nutritious food and fresh produce in Cleveland, such as the Beginning Farmer Program at Central State University and urban farms like Rid-All Green Partnership. 

The report goes on to lay out an expansive set of recommendations for each subject. It makes more than 50 recommendations in total. Those include: 

• Requiring police and courts to collect and share data by race, including traffic citations, criminal charges and sentencing rates.
• Encouraging doctors and nurses to talk about reading with parents during children’s wellness checkups.
• Training hospitals, doctors and all caregivers to provide culturally competent care that respects all people and fights racism. 
• Providing financial incentives for purchasing fresh produce by linking food credits to recycling efforts.
• Closing loopholes that let outside investors exploit renters and enforce fair housing rules.

Mockabee said the coalition is not ready to prioritize or highlight any specific recommended strategies as next steps. 

“We’re not going to do that now because, as I said, that’s phase one,” Mockabee said. “Our next step includes going to the community and getting their input as to what’s really important.”