CLEVELAND, Ohio — With a mission to foster inclusive communities, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress works as an intermediary between families, businesses, and resources to develop funding.
“We don’t provide a lot of the services, for example to the small businesses, but we provide them connections to the organizations that do provide the services,” said Joel Ratner, CEO of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. “We help them to find space. We connect the community development corporations with businesses and individuals, so we are really a connector in many ways.”
From the effects of the now-banned practice of redlining, which is an illegal discriminatory housing practice and the systematic denial of services by the federal government, some neighborhoods in Cleveland are still suffering.
“We now know that decades later we’re now seeing the ill effects of those kinds of things because people were sort of locked into certain neighborhoods that have been deemed or written off essentially, and the people living there by design, all of sudden don’t have the same opportunities,” said Randell McShepard, founder of PolicyBridge, an African American-led public policy think tank in Cleveland.
Focusing on urban neighborhood improvement with an interactive exhibit called “Undesign the Redline,” Cleveland Neighborhood Progress works to educate on the effects of redlining, such as racial segregation and disinvestment in neighborhoods that continue to persist today.
“Cleveland has experienced deep disinvestment and population loss over really now the last 70 years, so, in short, we’re trying to turn that around and create neighborhoods that are neighborhoods of choice and opportunities,” said Ratner.
Additionally, with help from the county and the Cleveland Foundation, Ratner said Cleveland Neighborhood Progress has distributed 750 grants to small businesses to help them survive COVID-19.
“We are working right now to help small businesses get through this very difficult time,” said Ratner. “And in general, we have an effort where we’re really trying to help small businesses come into urban neighborhoods to provide services and create jobs that are accessible for the people who live in the neighborhoods.”
Ratner said in order for people in disadvantaged neighborhoods to lift out of poverty, they need access to opportunities.
“Opportunity for quality of education, to get a job that pays a quality salary, and have an ability to get to that job through public transportation or having their own transportation,” Ratner said.
Ratner said Cleveland Neighborhood Progress will continue investing in community revitalization efforts — working toward its vision to transform all Cleveland neighborhoods into vibrant, inclusive communities where people from diverse incomes, races, and generations choose to live, learn, work, invest, and play.
