In 1933, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper, which laid the groundwork for the Catholic Worker movement in the United States. The Catholic Worker was priced at “a penny a copy,” and continues to cost a penny today. The paper was crucial in spreading awareness about social issues that affected those who were struggling in the United States. From the Catholic Worker movement's inception, Day and Maurin highlighted the importance of personalism, prayer, hospitality, and community. In Maurin's “Easy Essay,” an early article in the Catholic Worker, he emphasized, “The Catholic Worker believes in creating a new society within the shell of the old with the philosophy of the new, which is not a new philosophy but a very old philosophy, a philosophy so old that it looks like new.”

Houses of Hospitality within the Catholic Worker community have been crucial in providing lodging and meals for many in need. Houses of Hospitality are similar to Progressive Era settlement houses, which aided the poor as well as recently arrived immigrants. Like settlement houses, Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality allow those living there to be an active part of the community while living and interacting with those in need of support.

By the 1980s, several Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality and communities had emerged nationwide. In 1984, several figures, which included longtime residents Bill and Judy Corrigan, Jim and Patty Schlecht (Sullivan), along with a recent newcomer from Mishawaka, Indiana, Joe Lehner, formed the Cleveland Catholic Worker to live out the philosophy established by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. In 1986, a group of Catholic Workers on Cleveland’s Near West Side considered locations in the neighborhood where they could build community and witness the Gospel through word and deed. As Cleveland’s Catholic Worker grew, there was a need for a location to broaden the hospitality offered to the community, specifically for unhoused people in the area. The need for hospitality became a topic of discussion among the core members involved.


Dennis Sadowski, Jim Doherty, and Jim McHugh, three Catholic Workers, had been discussing living in community and were pivotal in the foundation of Cleveland’s Catholic Worker House of Hospitality, located at 3601 Whitman Avenue. The house offered a central meeting spot for many of Cleveland’s Catholic Workers, but before it was the Whitman House it was known as the “Mission House.” The Mission House was purchased by Saint Patrick Parish in 1873 and became the home for Marianist Brothers who taught at Saint Patrick’s School. Other groups such as the Ursuline Sisters, Jesuit volunteers, and Marianist volunteers stayed in the Mission House before the Catholic Worker.



Throughout the summer of 1986, various core members prayerfully weighed the pros and cons of living in community. In the end, they agreed that living in community opened them to be vulnerable to the basic questions that called them to a belief in Jesus. They knew they had to overcome the barriers that often keep people from middle-class backgrounds from encountering people living on the margins of society. 



After several meetings and discussions with St. Patrick’s Father Mark DiNardo, they made an agreement that the Catholic Worker would rent the former Mission House in the names of Sadowski, Doherty, and McHugh for $200, not including the utilities. In October 1986, Sadowski, Doherty, and McHugh, along with two unhoused gentlemen living on the streets, John “Hugh” Fee and John “Whitey” Pavlison, officially moved into the Mission House. The Mission Home then assumed a new name, Whitman House, that forever marked the Cleveland Catholic Catholic Worker’s presence in the neighborhood. In the years to come, many individuals would find community, prayer, and a source of shelter within the walls of this former convent.


Sadowski was the first to leave the house in 1987 after living there for roughly four months. Doherty lived there for 15 months, leaving in January 1988, and McHugh stayed until about 1990. Fee remained at the Whitman house until 2002, when he passed away. The date when Pavlison left and his whereabouts remain unknown. Throughout the years, the Whitman House provided a place for many generations of Catholic Workers to meet, live, eat, and engage in meaningful prayer and dialogue. 



Cleveland’s Catholic Worker began publishing a quarterly periodical, Inherit the Earth, in the late '80s. Inherit the Earth invited members of the Catholic Worker to contribute to the paper through articles, poetry, artwork, reflections, photography, and even recipes. Many of the articles focused on updates in the community from Catholic Workers, young and old. Each quarterly paper also included the community mission statement, which stated, “We are forming a loving and caring resistance community with a strong spiritual base which will enable us to share our lives with those who are broken, not just for their benefit, but ours as well, knowing that we are all sisters and brothers.” Many of the articles in this periodical emphasized the community's resistance to war through political and social commentaries written by members. Nonviolence is one of the aims of a Catholic Worker. Resisting the Cleveland National Air Show has been pivotal in the Catholic Worker’s protest against war. Through their pacifist resistance, Cleveland’s Catholic Worker hopes to inform and educate the public about the real purpose of the planes flown for entertainment each Labor Day. 

For many years, each Inherit the Earth issue included an update on the Community, which kept everyone in the loop on events and individuals living in the Whitman House and the extended Catholic Worker community. In the early 2000s, Whitman House struggled to maintain stable live-in volunteers. It was not until 2004 when multiple volunteers joined the Catholic Worker and lived in community that the house started to pick up with live-in Workers. In the fall of 2004, one Catholic Worker provided an update on the Whitman House and introduced nine Catholic Workers living there at the time. These introductions, full of inside jokes about the Worker's hygiene, give readers a glimpse of the friendships made while living together and forming close bonds through the volunteer work in which they all were involved. 

In January 2009, a meeting was called to discuss the continuance or possible relocation of the Catholic Worker from Whitman House. St. Patrick, which was the landlord of the Whitman House, had been included in a Cleveland Catholic Diocese–proposed merger with three other Near West Side churches — St. Malachi Parish, Community of St. Malachi, and St. Wendelin Parish. This meeting was called and functioned democratically to address any misunderstanding and to discuss the pros and cons of living at the Whitman House or relocating elsewhere. This meeting highlighted the importance of the Whitman House being conveniently located near necessary services and Catholic Worker operations. This meeting also focused on the importance of landlord-tenant relations between the Catholic Worker and who they decide to rent from, whether that be St. Patrick or a new landlord. 


Ultimately, the Cleveland Catholic Worker decided to relocate. This move was a three-year-long process. Although much smaller than the Whitman House, the new house at 2082 Fulton Road opened at full capacity with nine live-in volunteers in 2012. The Fulton House celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2022. This milestone brought Catholic Workers who lived there at the time together with workers who once lived in both Whitman and Fulton House in prior years. A special edition of Inherit the Earth came out that fall to commemorate the move to Fulton House. This edition included many photographs of Catholic Workers, young and old, current and former, and also included photos of the extended community.



The ten-year celebration of Fulton House gave an understanding of the community that has formed on Cleveland’s Near West Side. Catholic Workers celebrated the lifelong bonds they had made with one another and the awareness they had spread on issues regarding war and poverty, along with the importance of nonviolence. From the teachings of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the early 20th century, their philosophy of personalism, prayer, and ultimately love have been a part of Cleveland’s Catholic Worker community for forty years.

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Established as a home for girls who came to Cleveland seeking employment more than a century ago, Martha House was considered to be a great blessing for many young Jewish single and self-supporting girls and young women from the ages of fourteen to twenty-two. In many cases, without relatives or friends, Martha House became an ideal residence, with all the comforts of home life at a moderate cost, and with the least possible restrictions to the girls’ personal freedoms. Named as a tribute to the memory of Martha Wolfenstein (1869-1906), gifted Jewish author and eldest daughter of Bertha (Brieger) and Dr. Samuel Wolfenstein, superintendent of the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum, Martha House was first located at 2234 East 46th Street, between Cedar and Central Avenues, and was supported by the Cleveland Council of Jewish Women and its officers and trustees. A Board of Directors was created by the Council to administer the affairs of the organization, with vacancies being filled by appointment by the President of the Council.

The opening of Martha House in 1907 offered a most welcome solution to one of the gravest problems faced by Dr. Wolfenstein and his associates – the immediate future of discharged orphan asylum inmates who faced the world at an all-too-early age and for whom shelter and protection were tenuous. A new branch of work for the Council, Martha House was the direct outgrowth of those who recognized the needs of the city’s rapidly expanding Jewish population. While there was nothing in the constitution or governing by-laws to prevent the acceptance of others, it was understood that Martha House would benefit Jewish girls. However, the rules were framed with sufficient latitude to permit temporary housing for others in an emergency.

As reported in The Jewish Review and Observer (May 24, 1907), it was anticipated that the home would be fully-equipped and ready for occupancy by June 1, 1907, marking an important philanthropic event in the city. Initial monetary contributions were used for repairs and furnishings to the home, formerly the property of Mr. Malcolm Vilas. Once in running order, it was expected that the institution would be financially self-sustaining.

The building and its grounds were situated in a residential section of the city, not too remote from the centers of the Jewish population it aimed to serve. Additionally, it was adaptable to larger needs and permanence foreseen in its future. Described as “large and airy,” the home could easily accommodate 18 girls. The downstairs consisted of an entrance hall, parlor, library, dining room, kitchen, pantry, and one bedroom. Upstairs, there were sixteen bedrooms with white iron beds and large clothes presses. One room contained a large fireplace.

Residents were kept under the mild but wise surveillance of a governing board, whose interests were as much material as they were in the young girls’ moral and physical welfare. No efforts were spared to secure work for those temporarily unemployed as well as those inadequately paid for whom instruction would improve and increase their earning capacity.

At its opening, five applications for admission to Martha House had been granted. Mrs. Henry Woolf was to be the acting matron. In September of the following year, the board hired Miss Minnie Goldberg as matron. By this time, there were fifteen residents, whose occupations varied from stenographers, clerks, and factory hands to milliners’ and dressmakers’ helpers. By May 28, 1909, just two years since its June 1907 opening, Martha House was still under the capable guidance of Miss Goldberg. The fourteen residents enjoyed the surroundings and best influences the home provided.

Nine years later in 1918, a new home for Martha House was acquired, because the original East 46th Street site was found to be inadequate for the number of young women who applied for admission. Located at 2032 East 90th Street, the new Martha House was purchased by the Cleveland Council of Jewish Women with funds subscribed by the Jewish community.

Located on the west side of East 90th Street just south of Euclid Avenue and diagonally across from the Colonial Club building, the four-suite brick apartment house was remodeled to accommodate between forty and fifty girls. A formal dedication ceremony for the new Martha House took place on January 11, 1919, at the Hotel Statler, attended by various prominent dignitaries including Mayor Harry L. Davis. This new Martha House, which existed from 1919 to 1926, had a recreation room, dining room, laundry, pantry and kitchen on the basement floor. On the main floor were seven bedrooms, a living room, reading room, three baths and a resident worker’s apartment. There were fourteen bedrooms on the second floor.

As head of the household, Mrs. Emma Frensdorf took a personal interest in the activities offered, and aimed to make the house inviting for the few leisure hours the girls had. Not mere boarders, they shared in the house’s upkeep and décor, adding their artistic touches to the draperies and other furnishings. A spirit of pride and a hospitable atmosphere pervaded the young women’s new quarters. Rooms were attractive and well kept. Meals were well prepared. Every effort was made to look after the girls’ health. Medical services including those by house physician Dr. J. Selman and Mount Sinai Hospital were available at a nominal fee.

During the week, residents ate breakfast, straightened their rooms and went to their places of employment. In the evening after dinner, they were free to spend the time as they pleased. From time to time there was a program of activities which included: House Council; personality club; sewing; dramatics; piano lessons; dancing; lectures and concerts to which the community was invited. There were also classes in dressmaking, sewing and millinery. Dances were arranged periodically. Several ambitious girls attended night elementary and high schools. On Sundays, the girls typically performed personal duties and pastimes. In addition to secular holidays, Friday evenings and all the Jewish holidays were observed with appropriate ceremonies. Seats for temple services were provided for those who wished to attend.

From its opening nineteen years earlier in 1907, there had been a need for Martha House, a need which was championed by the Cleveland Council of Jewish Women and the community but that eventually changed. In a letter dated December 14, 1925, Mr. Charles Nemser, Executive Director of the Council Educational Alliance of Cleveland, requested the cooperation of the (National) Jewish Welfare Board in investigating the feasibility of turning over the facilities of Martha House to the ‘’Young women of the community, under a typical recreational-educational program of the YWHA type.”’

Emily Solis-Cohen, field secretary of the Jewish Welfare Board for Women’s Work, was assigned to this investigation. Her investigation, which occupied ten days, was devoted to interviews with executives and officers of organizations; study of activities and records of various organizations; results of related questionnaires and finally, studies previously made by other agencies, all of which were carefully reviewed. The facts ascertained with reference to the Jewish population (particularly the number of girls and young women); the activities of Jewish organizations; and other pertinent information were offered as the basis for the recommendations contained in the report.

The Report of Availability of Martha House – Cleveland, Ohio as a Jewish Center for Women and Girls – April, 1926 highlighted budget and demographic data. The Federation of Jewish Charities, of which Martha House was a member, paid nothing regularly towards its support except in the years 1916-1919 when it gave a monthly subsidy of $50 (excluding June and July), and during these same years an additional $1,000. The Council of Jewish Women contributed $700. In 1925, receipts were $8,838.42 and expenditures were $10,315.14, with a resulting deficit of $1,476. It was expected that $1,000 would have been required for the next four months, while plans were being made for the future.

The resident capacity of forty-two girls was utilized for several years but by 1923 the number of residents had dwindled to thirty. A study made by the Bureau of Social Research showed that of this number, twelve girls were foreign-born and had been in Cleveland less than five years. There were twenty-five wage earners (of whom twelve earned less than $20 weekly), while ten girls had relatives residing in Cleveland. After this study, certain changes were made in the admission policy. Finally, it was decided that since so many girls had relatives, the home was no longer functioning as a home for the homeless and that it would be better to try placing those seven girls with families.

By the time of its closing on March 1, 1926, there was little demand for the facilities the home provided. At its meeting in June 1926, the Jewish Recreation Conference of the Federation of Jewish Charities voted to recommend to the Council of Jewish Women that Martha House be sold and utilized for recreational purposes.

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Anna M. Edwards dreamed of a career in music. Born in the Dayton, Ohio, area in 1849, she was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who had moved his family to Cleveland near the end of the Civil War. Here, she attended local schools and then studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. By 1870, she was teaching music at the Lake Erie Seminary (today, Lake Erie College). However, when she was just 25 years old, her music career came to an end as a result of her involvement in the Women's Crusade (1873-1874), a national protest movement by women against America's saloon keepers. Edwards, according to her friend Edith Stivers, was persuaded by Frances Willard, legendary temperance reformer and women's suffragist, to give up her music career and go to work for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), a national organization led entirely by women that grew out of the Crusade and which was formally organized here in Cleveland in 1874.  

Edwards became the WCTU's Superintendent of Scientific Temperance Instruction for Ohio. This position required her to travel around the state, and later around the country, giving temperance lectures wherever she went. After a decade or so of this exhausting work, she began spending more of her time working at the non-partisan WCTU mission on St. Clair Street (St. Clair Avenue) near Willson Avenue (East 55th Street). The mission was located in a neighborhood that was brimming with saloons and home to many Eastern European immigrants, especially Slovenians. One day, according to accounts by several of her contemporaries, Edwards saw several young boys making a delivery of beer to a local saloon. They were drinking the "dregs" of the beer they were delivering and appeared to be intoxicated. Witnessing this was an epiphany for her. She decided then and there to devote the rest of her life to keeping boys like these away from saloons.

In 1888, Edwards took over the chairmanship of a WCTU reading room located on Willson Avenue, re-energized the neighborhood "Band of Hope" (a temperance pledge youth group), and opened the Flag Coffee House (so-called because of the flags she placed in its windows). The coffee house openly and actively competed with nearby saloons by offering boys a full dinner and a cup of coffee for just ten cents. Her work with the boys of this neighborhood eventually caught the attention of Eleanor B. Rainey, the widow of a wealthy Cleveland industrialist, who offered to provide Edwards with a larger and better facility for her work.  Rainey purchased a lot on the northeast corner of Willson and Dibble Avenues and built on it a three-story, 9,000-square-foot building, designed in the Tudor style by architects Badgley and Nicklas to resemble a large house. Officially called the Willson Avenue Industrial Institute, it opened in 1904. It had offices, and reading and game rooms, on the first floor; classrooms and a gymnasium on the second floor; and a custodian's apartment on the third floor. (Walfred and Anna Danielson, immigrants from Sweden and Canada respectively, and their son Harold, lived in that apartment and worked for the Institute for much of the period 1904-1940.)  

Just one year after the Institute opened, it was faced with a crisis that threatened its continued existence. Eleanor Rainey, its benefactor, suddenly died. The crisis was resolved when her heirs stepped in and agreed to continue their mother's support of the Institute's work, and the non-partisan WCTU (later known as the Women's Philanthropic Union) agreed to rename the Institute the "Eleanor B. Rainey Memorial Institute."  For the next half-century, the operations of Rainey as a settlement house were funded by Eleanor Rainey's heirs, particularly by her daughter Grace Rainey Rogers, who became sole owner of the building on East 55th Street and Dibble Avenues in 1931 and the sole surviving child of Eleanor Rainey in 1938. During this period, Rainey Institute functioned as a traditional settlement house, offering instruction in industrial trades for boys, home economics instruction (and also stenography and bookkeeping) for girls, and youth recreational activities. One of the young Slovenian boys who benefitted from these programs was Frank Lausche. He grew up to become Cleveland mayor (1942-1944), Ohio governor (1949-1957), and one of Ohio's United States Senators (1957-1969).

Anna Edwards served as superintendent of Rainey Institute until her death in 1923. She was succeeded by her younger sister, Flora, who served until her death in 1949. Upon her death, Flora Edwards was succeeded by Jessie Peloubet, whose mother was a close friend and associate of the Edwards sisters. Already 67 years old when she became superintendent, Peloubet faced many challenges during the decade of the 1950s. In 1957, the Goodrich settlement house moved from E. 31st Street to a location on E. 55th Street just up the street from Rainey Institute. The new Goodrich-Gannett neighborhood center, and several local organizations that provided funding to Cleveland settlement houses, put pressure on Rainey to either close, merge with Goodrich-Gannett, or move elsewhere.

Additionally, the decade of the 1950s saw the Hough neighborhood in which Rainey was located undergo racial transition, changing from primarily white and middle or working class in 1950 to primarily African American and working or lower class by 1960. Finally, the estate of Grace Rainey Rogers, Rainey's benefactor, who died in 1943, remained in administration well into the 1950s, forcing Peloubet to deal with estate executors and trustees in New York for the Institute's operational expenses. In 1955, pursuant to the terms of Rogers' will, the Rainey Institute land and building were finally conveyed from the estate to a newly formed non-profit corporation and a board of trustees was appointed that was charged with the financial management of an endowment left by Rogers for the continuing operating expenses of Rainey. 

The record is silent as to how well Peloubet addressed these challenges, but by the end of 1959 she was no longer Rainey's superintendent, and, for a six-month period, Rainey was administered by League Park Center, Inc., a social services agency that was located, like Rainey, in the Hough neighborhood. According to an article which appeared later in the Cleveland Press on May 19, 1964, Rainey almost closed during this period. Shirley Lautenschlager, a social worker with a degree from Western Reserve University's School of Applied Social Sciences, was hired by the board of trustees in June 1960 to become the new director, of Rainey--the title of "superintendent" apparently having been discarded. Lautenschlager, who noted that, when she arrived, Rainey was functioning as little more than a recreation center, instituted a number of new social programs at Rainey that were intended to serve Hough's current population, including after school care for seven to twelve year olds; activities for teenagers including game rooms, clubs, and dances; and gardening, cake decorating and sewing classes. Several years later, in 1964, following the taking of a survey in the Hough neighborhood, Rainey also began offering piano lessons to the children of Hough. These and other music classes proved so popular with the neighborhood's parents and children that two years later Rainey Institute decided to concentrate its efforts solely in the field of music, becoming an affiliate of Cleveland Music Settlement in 1966. The institute also appointed a new Director that year who had a background in both music and social work.

For Rainey Institute, Zandra Richardson, the new Director hired in 1966, was like the second coming of founder Anna Edwards. Like Edwards, Richardson came to Cleveland from the Dayton area, and like Edwards, Richardson's first love was music. Both Edwards and Richardson became involved in social services because of their desire to help children in need and both ultimately worked for more than four decades helping children in what is today Cleveland's Hough neighborhood. Zandra Richardson, who served as Director from 1966 until 2008, left a deep imprint on the history and evolution of Rainey Institute as an arts center for underprivileged children. During her tenure, many new music and other arts programs were introduced at Rainey. One of the earliest new programs was a summer camp program promoted by Cleveland Music Settlement and Karamu House in 1967, the first summer following the 1966 Hough Riots. At summer camp, African American children were introduced to art, drama, African drumming, vocal music and dance. Several years later, Rainey expanded the summer camp program to include drama, art and music, and dance. Kids attending also received instruction in reading, math, and creative writing, and participated in recreational activities.

As time passed, Rainey's focus as a music and arts center gradually changed as theater and dance became more popular than music instruction. As a result, in 1997 Rainey severed its affiliate status with Cleveland Music Settlement. During first half of Richardson's directorship, she and Rainey's Board of Trustees, anchored by long-time trustee Theodore Horvath who worked tirelessly to preserve Rainey Institute's endowment, also initiated a long-term plan to build a new and larger facility so that more children in Hough and other nearby neighborhoods could be introduced to the visual and performing arts. In 2011, just three years after Richardson retired as Director, and with the guidance of new Director, Lee Lazar, many Cleveland businesses and charitable organizations, and Cleveland Councilwoman Fannie Lewis, Rainey Institute opened its new 27,500-square-foot Arts Center, just down the street from the old Rainey Institute building. In the same year as the new Arts Center opened, Isabel Trautwein, a violinist with the Cleveland Orchestra, established an El Sistema string orchestra program at Rainey. El Sistema, one of the most notable programs at Rainey today, promotes peaceful social change through music.

Under the directorship of Richardson and her successors, there have been many success stories at Rainey, of students who went on to have fulfilling careers in many different fields of endeavor ranging from music to government service to teaching to the business world. One of those former Rainey students is Stephanie D. Howse, an African American woman who had a successful career as an environmental engineer, before turning to public service and becoming State Representative from Ohio's 11th District. Today, Rainey Institute is a thriving art center, each year serving more than 2,500 children like Howse who hail from the Hough and other nearby neighborhoods of the City of Cleveland.

And the old Rainey Institute Building? It has not been forgotten by the City of Cleveland, which made it a Cleveland Landmark in 2018. From an early twentieth-century settlement house founded by a woman who gave up a career in music to help immigrant children threatened by saloons to a twenty-first century arts center, which uses music and other visual and performing arts to cultivate self-expression and promote social emotional growth in a new demographic of disadvantaged children in the neighborhood, Rainey Institute has come full circle, a statement with which Anna M. Edwards would certainly agree, even if she did find it ironic.

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The Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People was a necessity for the African American community in Ohio’s largest city. The first residents of the Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People were from out of state. Jefferson Camp, who was formerly enslaved in Missouri, moved from St. Louis to Cleveland at the age of 93. Camp was one of the first residents of the home. Another one of the home’s first residents was Susan Maria Harris of Schenectady, New York, who moved there on November 18, 1898. Then Richard Hickerman from Huntsville, Alabama, moved to the home on June 1, 1899, at the age of 75.

Eliza Bryant, Emma Ransom, and Mesdames Baker were among the women who conceived the idea of the Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People. On September 1, 1896, Eliza Bryant and the Lady Board of Managers incorporated the Cleveland Home for Aged People. The purpose of the home was to serve elderly members of the African American community. The Lady Board of Managers purchased a building at 284 Giddings (East 71st) Street and the Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People opened there on August 11, 1897. The Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People was the first African American established and maintained social welfare institution in Cleveland.

The Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People required a community effort to remain open. The home wrestled with many financial problems and did not receive any federal, state, or local government funding to help with the cost. Instead, the home depended on Cleveland’s African American community and philanthropists' support. The home held social functions to raise money. A 1902 Plain Dealer article titled “Danced for Charity Prominent Colored People Gave Concert and Ball for Home for Aged” described an event that brought out prominent African Americans to dance to the tunes of Mrs. Beulah Griffin-West and Walter Hackley. All the money made at each event went to the home. Philanthropists also helped the home. For example, John D. Rockefeller and Mrs. Laura S. Rockefeller donated money to help the home stay open. In 1915 home joined the Cleveland Welfare Federation, which alleviated some of the home’s financial problems.

The home on Giddings Street was not the most modern or comfortable house for the time. When it opened, it did not have an area for the residents to bathe regularly, nor did it have gas heating. The home could only house up to 16 residents at a time. It also ran into trouble with the Ohio building codes. The building was not able to be remodeled, so the Lady Board of Managers chose to find a new location for the home. The Lady Board of Managers bought a new home on 186 Osborne (39th) Street that cost $3,000. Following the completion of the renovations and upgrades, the new Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People reopened its doors in 1902. The need for the home continued to grow, and the home was not able to accommodate this new demand. In 1915 the home moved from its Osborne Street location to a large new, $9,000, red-brick house at 4807 Cedar Avenue.

In the 1960s the Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People would see many changes. During the 1960s the home would undergo a reorganization project. In 1960 the home's operators decided to change its name to the Eliza Bryant Home to honor one of their founders. During this era, the home would become integrated both in terms of residents and the staff. The home’s purpose was now to provide aid to all seniors no matter their race. The home received two remarkable gifts. The Dorcas Society had a property that it could not use, so the society gave the home to the Eliza Bryant Home. The new home was located on 1380 Addison Road. Then the A. M. McGregor House donated a $1.5 million gift to the Eliza Bryant Home. Chairman Paul D. White of the Eliza Bryant Home believed that these gifts would help the home continue its services to the elderly. In an article in the Call and Post, almost a year before these gifts for the home, the board of trustees was considering closing the home. If not for these donations the home would have closed.

The Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People, which would be renamed the Eliza Bryant Home, was a cornerstone of the elderly community. This home was created because a group of women saw a need to take care of the elderly members of our society. It is incredible that these women managed to establish and maintain a home in spite of their financial challenges and how the community rallied behind them to make this home run efficiently in a time when most African Americans had little. The home may not have had all the modern comforts of the time, but the staff made it work. This home gave a lot of seniors solace while living out their golden years. Until this day the home is still keeping the founders’ ideas alive and is still taking care of the elderly community. In 1985 the home changed its name again, becoming Eliza Bryant Center. The home still takes care of the elderly, staying true to the founder’s ideal: “the mission is to provide quality services, outreach programs and a dignified, compassionate and secure environment for seniors.”

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Cleveland at the end of the 1960s saw entire neighborhoods change radically in only a few years. Collinwood is a neighborhood that went through such a transition. Collinwood, like much of Cleveland, as ethnic communities and whites left for the suburbs, African Americans and white Appalachians arrived to fill industrial positions. Racial tension and race-based violence became a major concern in Collinwood. In 1966, the Hough riots erupted in Cleveland demonstrating conclusively that race relations were at a low point.

The year 1967, which was a year after the Hough Riots, brought a great success for black Americans: Carl Stokes became the first black mayor of a major city. Stokes strove to improve the living conditions of Clevelanders through the use of his flagship program, Cleveland: NOW!. The Stokes administration applied the Cleveland: NOW! brand to a variety of initiatives related to community development. Stokes planned to use $177 million in funds to redevelop Cleveland and planned for the program to use over $1 billion during a ten-year period. Many of these programs from Cleveland: NOW! worked from neighborhood multi-service centers.

However, the Cleveland: NOW! program hit a snag early in development. The Glenville Shootout, a battle between black nationalists and the police, occurred on July 23, 1968. This battle and subsequent riots severely hampered the Cleveland Now! project and dashed the public’s enthusiasm for Stokes. The situation became even worse when it was discovered that Fred Ahmed Evans, the leader of the group that fought the police in Glenville, had purchased the weapons using money from the Cleveland: NOW! program. Most examinations of the Cleveland: NOW! program end here. Some works on the topic argue that the Glenville Shootout "killed prospects for the success of Cleveland: NOW!” However, the program did not officially end until after 1971 and continued to work successfully towards rebuilding Cleveland even after the riots. An example Cleveland: NOW!’s programming success is the Collinwood Community Services Center (Collinwood CSC).

The Collinwood neighborhood had many of the same issues on a smaller scale as the city. Collinwood experienced extreme demographic changes that led to racial conflicts at the time. The Collinwood CSC’s report shows 90% of the population of South Collinwood was ethnic Europeans and 5-10% was black in 1965. By 1968, they estimated that the black population had grown to 30%, the ethnic population had fallen to 40% and Appalachian whites had established themselves with 30% of the population. The area also saw a dramatic rise in crime rate. The Center associated the rise with violent conflicts between young Appalachian and African American men.

In this volatile scenario, the Collinwood CSC was established. Initially a project of the Alta House, it quickly signed up for the Cleveland: NOW! program. This pairing of settlement house and city government to establish a multi-service center was common. These multi-service centers all provided a variety of general social service functions. These functions ranged from job counseling, juvenile court office, city health offices, officials from county welfare, legal aid, and classes in health and safety. Many others included health care services and daycare. They drafted specific proposals for programs directed towards their community.

One of the first multi-service centers was in the Collinwood. The direct predecessor to the Collinwood CSC was the Collinwood Youth Association which began in 1967. The Center started operating in January 1968. It stood initially at 742 East 152nd Street. The multi-service center operated multiple locations in the area other than the main office. These were two drop-in centers on East 140th St and two other centers at Five Points (the intersection of St. Clair and 152nd St.). They proposed to move their main center to the Five Points area, and, in the end, it was moved to 813 East 152nd St. The community center became the Five Points Community Center sometime after 1989 and exists there to this day.

The Collinwood CSC was oriented to combatting the rising crime rate in the area through social programing and helping Appalachian migrants find employment. To accomplish this, the Collinwood CSC designed programs to engage young people and to provide job assistance and training. They developed programs specifically targeting job training, community programing, and drop-in centers for youths. These programs had good participation and a high success rate. The drop-in centers were places to gather for young blacks and Appalachian whites.

The Collinwood CSC, like many of Cleveland: NOW!’s programs, has been written off as a failure. The writers who declare this are usually only examining Cleveland: NOW! via the effects of Carl Stokes political career, or its ability to prevent race-based conflict, or the popularity of the program. Examining the Collinwood CSC by looking at the successes of its programs and the number of people affected by it tells a different story. The Collinwood CSC is representative of the whole of Cleveland: NOW! in that it is pronounced dead with the Glenville Shootout, but is only getting started serving the community.

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Cleveland’s Phillis Wheatley Association is known for providing a plethora of social services throughout Cleveland. When Jane Edna Hunter opened the Phillis Wheatley in 1911, it was known as a “home for working girls” regardless of their race or nationality. The seed for a home for young African American women was planted long before 1911. When Jane Edna Hunter was a child in South Carolina, she realized the obstacles facing many young African American women. After college, she determined that she could provide more opportunities in the North for African American women than she could in the South. Hunter eventually was able to make her dream come true when she purchased a home at 2265 East 40th Street. She decided to name the home Phillis Wheatley after an enslaved woman who became the first African American poetess.

The Phillis Wheatley started out with accommodations for fifteen temporary boarders, a kitchen, laundry facilities, and a place to entertain visitors. Hunter quickly learned that there was more community interest for lodging, which led the organization to take over the 72 rooms that comprised the Winona Apartments, thus doubling its ability to accommodate long-term residents and tripling its space for transient residents in light of the Great Migration of 1917. The Phillis Wheatley then took control of the nearby Annex building following a fundraising venture to have more meeting spaces for residents and community members. In 1925, Miss Hunter raised $550,000 to fund the current nine-story Phillis Wheatley building located at 4450 Cedar Avenue. Completed two years later, the new building provided safe and affordable housing in 135 dormitories on its top six floors for young African American women living and working in Cleveland.

Gradually, the Phillis Wheatley Association shifted its role, aiming its uplift efforts at not just young women, but rather the broader African American community. Its range of accommodations and services explains why it became a perennial listing in the Negro Motorists' Green Book. The Phillis Wheatley opened the Josephine Kohler Nursery School in the 1930s, which cared for preschoolers aged three to five, as well as school aged children aged six through ten. The association also opened the Sutphen School of Music, which taught children how to sing and play musical instruments. In addition, Camp Mueller gave urban children the opportunity to enjoy nature, to gain a greater sense of self-worth, to learn to work with others, and most importantly to have fun during two weeklong camp sessions.

In addition to children’s programs, the Phillis Wheatley Association also served adults. The Ford House provided a variety of afternoon and evening classes for men and women when it opened in the 1950s: tailoring, dressmaking, upholstering, catering, and millinery. The Ford House also provided adult education courses that were customized to an individual’s unique educational needs and provided social activities, such as bridge games. The Phillis Wheatley wanted to give its community skills that could help people gain employment and, in many cases, helped people find employment.

By the late 1960s, demand for housing in Cleveland for young African American women was decreasing and more women were leaving the Phillis Wheatley. On October 31, 1970, the top six residence floors of the headquarters building closed, while community activities and services of the first three floors continued. The Phillis Wheatley did not stay closed to housing for long. Instead of accommodating young African American women who moved to Cleveland, the Phillis Wheatley saw that there was an increased demand in housing for the elderly. As a result, the Phillis Wheatley reopened its doors as a subsidized housing facility for the elderly in 1972 with the assistance of a HUD 221-D3 grant. Staying true to the organization’s aim of providing social programs, the elderly residents were provided recreational activities and hot meals. The Phillis Wheatley hosts the Swinging Seniors program, which give seniors a nutritious meal while they play games, such as bingo, cards, or dominos on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. As of 2022, the Phillis Wheatley continues to house those 62 years of age and older who need affordable housing and provides social programs to the Greater Cleveland area.

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