Downtown Cleveland has a new standalone seasonal homeless shelter for the first time in years.
That occurred this weekend, when the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) opened the doors to 1530 East 19th Street, a former manufacturing facility that was recently converted into a 48-bed facility aimed to keeping Clevelanders off the streets during wintertime.
As NEOCH Director Chris Knestrick discussed at Friday’s opening ceremony, held in the space’s high-ceilinged cafeteria, the coalition’s foray into shelter ownership spelled an end to scrambling to find beds—in hotels, on couches, and not in tents—for the unhoused. In 2019, the Denizen Avenue United Church of Christ was forced to close its seasonal shelter due to code violations…