Slavic Village Development
Encyclopedia
Slavic Village Development (SVD) is a non-profit community development corporation
serving the North and South Broadway neighborhoods of Cleveland, Ohio
. Over a period of 22 years, SVD has invested $160 Million in these neighborhoods through various housing projects
.
community, Broadway Slavic Village has faced challenges in recent years from job loss and aging housing; the community is evolving into a diverse, affordable place for people of modest means to raise their families.
site assembly. SVD has rehabbed or built over 1,000 housing units, including a 200+ home planned community
; several large multi-family buildings; and over 400 homes for low income families.
In recent years, SVD has refined its programming and has increasingly used community organizing
and community building activities to address quality of life
issues, such as activities for youth, safety, and recreation. Arts programming, including public art
, concerts, festivals and parades have become more important as has the development of parks, green space
and recreational amenities, SVD has been instrumental in the creation of several new parks, and in 2006 opened Morgana Run Bike Trail a 3 mile trail developed on an abandoned rail line
. SVD leveraged the development of the trail and created a new park and history center capitalizing on the Mill Creek waterfall, and linked the Morgana Trail to the Ohio Erie Canal Towpath, an extensive trail system just south of the neighborhood.
representing Slavic Village
(44105) was named the "hardest hit" zip code in the United States. According to Claudia Coulton, co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University
, part of the reason for the focus of foreclosures in the Slavic Village
area is that the neighborhood was becoming revitalized. Housing prices were increasing gradually, along with its steadily improving reputation. These factors combined with a lot of first-time homeowners to create an environment condusive to predatory lenders. Fraudulent home sales started to increase in volume in the Slavic Village neighborhood in 1999. Investors would buy a distressed property, perhaps make a few cosmetic repairs, and then resell the property for up to two or three times its actual value. This practice help contribute to an increase in homeprices, which then attracted predatory lenders.
Poor housing quality from fraudently appraised, unrehabbed homes, which often have been sold for inflated prices two or three times, has added to the devastation of the foreclosure crisis. When an owner is facing foreclosure on a property they bought for tens of thousands of dollars more than its actual value, they usually never make any of the necessary repairs and instead abandon the property. Instead of homes in good repair sitting empty for years, (as is the case in other hard hit states like California and Florida) homes that are in desperate need of repairs sit for years rotting away. As these homes decay, they are broken into, vandalized, and stripped of any piping or wiring of value. This leads to the home becoming a haven for squatters, juveniles, drugs, and arson.
of Slavic Village Development Marie Kittredge, at first Slavic Village had to battle predatory lending
with local help only. She wrote in a May 2009 editorial,
"Cleveland officials began fighting predatory lending in 1999. At the state and national levels, there was no interest in addressing the problem, so it continued to escalate until 2007, when we began implementing responses like decorating boarded-up houses to let people know we were here and fighting back. At the same time, we partnered with other community development corporations, Neighborhood Progress Inc. and state, local and national funders to craft a programmatic response: Opportunity Homes. This sophisticated program joins aggressive foreclosure-prevention strategies with targeted demolition of obsolete houses and full rehab of good-quality abandoned homes.
In our neighborhood, the rehabbed homes are frequently doubles, which we are converting to singles and packaging with adjacent vacant lots to create larger yards, thereby reducing density and meeting contemporary standards. The rehabbed homes are sold using attractive financing. For families with ruined credit, a lease option
is provided while they repair their credit to qualify for a mortgage.
...Even before the ['Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland'] report, we have been "growing smaller, growing smarter" with real, measurable results in Broadway/Slavic Village. We consolidated commercial uses and expanded industrial uses with updated zoning. We built our bike trail on an abandoned rail line and demolished obsolete buildings on Broadway Avenue to create two new trailheads and our own Emerald Necklace
. We have created new athletic fields to serve our two high school
s, which previously had no outdoor athletic facilities. We are creating green-belt buffers, restoring native habitats and expanding community gardens. We are harnessing these strategies with targeted available resources and our active residents to transform neighborhoods, block by block."
The "Mr. Blue" project was an effort started by Slavic Village Development in 2006 to try to make abandoned homes seem more lived in, and to try to soften the desolate effect of many shuttered homes on one street. SVD works with block clubs and other community volunteer groups to paint boarded homes with cheerful images, such as pies cooling, sleeping cats, and flower vases resting on window sills. The project got its name from the signature blue person painted on all the boarded doors as if it is peeking out to wave at a visitor.
Community Development Corporation
Community Development Corporation is a broad term referring to not-for-profit organizations incorporated to provide programs, offer services and engage in other activities that promote and support community development. CDCs usually serve a geographic location such as a neighborhood or a town....
serving the North and South Broadway neighborhoods of Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
. Over a period of 22 years, SVD has invested $160 Million in these neighborhoods through various housing projects
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
.
SVD's mission statement
"Our mission is to preserve, empower, and advance Slavic Village as a thriving diverse neighborhood. Essential to our neighborhood is its unique identity with quality housing anchored by excellent recreational, educational, cultural, religious, and institutional anchors supported by a vibrant retail, commercial, and industrial base."History
Slavic Village Development (SVD) is a non-profit community development corporation with over 25 years experience in neighborhood development and community building in Broadway Slavic Village, a community of 30,000 people in southeast Cleveland. Historically an ethnic blue collarBlue collar
Blue collar can refer to:*Blue-collar worker, a traditional designation of the working class*Blue-collar crime, the types of crimes typically associated with the working class*A census designation...
community, Broadway Slavic Village has faced challenges in recent years from job loss and aging housing; the community is evolving into a diverse, affordable place for people of modest means to raise their families.
Projects, past and present
Slavic Village Development has a long history of highly successful physical development and community building, with particular emphasis on complex real estateReal estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
site assembly. SVD has rehabbed or built over 1,000 housing units, including a 200+ home planned community
New town
A new town is a specific type of a planned community, or planned city, that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are uncommon in new...
; several large multi-family buildings; and over 400 homes for low income families.
In recent years, SVD has refined its programming and has increasingly used community organizing
Community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...
and community building activities to address quality of life
Quality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
issues, such as activities for youth, safety, and recreation. Arts programming, including public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
, concerts, festivals and parades have become more important as has the development of parks, green space
Green belt
A green belt or greenbelt is a policy and land use designation used in land use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighbouring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges which have a linear character and may run through an...
and recreational amenities, SVD has been instrumental in the creation of several new parks, and in 2006 opened Morgana Run Bike Trail a 3 mile trail developed on an abandoned rail line
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
. SVD leveraged the development of the trail and created a new park and history center capitalizing on the Mill Creek waterfall, and linked the Morgana Trail to the Ohio Erie Canal Towpath, an extensive trail system just south of the neighborhood.
An overview of the history of the crisis in Slavic Village
Cleveland was hit earlier and harder by the foreclosure crisis than almost any other city in the United States. In 2007, one of the zip codesZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
representing Slavic Village
Slavic Village
South Broadway is a neighborhood on the southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio. One of the city's oldest neighborhoods, much of the area has historically served as home to Cleveland's original Czech and Polish immigrants...
(44105) was named the "hardest hit" zip code in the United States. According to Claudia Coulton, co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...
, part of the reason for the focus of foreclosures in the Slavic Village
Slavic Village
South Broadway is a neighborhood on the southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio. One of the city's oldest neighborhoods, much of the area has historically served as home to Cleveland's original Czech and Polish immigrants...
area is that the neighborhood was becoming revitalized. Housing prices were increasing gradually, along with its steadily improving reputation. These factors combined with a lot of first-time homeowners to create an environment condusive to predatory lenders. Fraudulent home sales started to increase in volume in the Slavic Village neighborhood in 1999. Investors would buy a distressed property, perhaps make a few cosmetic repairs, and then resell the property for up to two or three times its actual value. This practice help contribute to an increase in homeprices, which then attracted predatory lenders.
Poor housing quality from fraudently appraised, unrehabbed homes, which often have been sold for inflated prices two or three times, has added to the devastation of the foreclosure crisis. When an owner is facing foreclosure on a property they bought for tens of thousands of dollars more than its actual value, they usually never make any of the necessary repairs and instead abandon the property. Instead of homes in good repair sitting empty for years, (as is the case in other hard hit states like California and Florida) homes that are in desperate need of repairs sit for years rotting away. As these homes decay, they are broken into, vandalized, and stripped of any piping or wiring of value. This leads to the home becoming a haven for squatters, juveniles, drugs, and arson.
SVD's response to the foreclosure crisis
According to executive directorExecutive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...
of Slavic Village Development Marie Kittredge, at first Slavic Village had to battle predatory lending
Predatory lending
Predatory lending describes unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices of some lenders during the loan origination process. While there are no legal definitions in the United States for predatory lending, an audit report on predatory lending from the office of inspector general of the FDIC broadly...
with local help only. She wrote in a May 2009 editorial,
"Cleveland officials began fighting predatory lending in 1999. At the state and national levels, there was no interest in addressing the problem, so it continued to escalate until 2007, when we began implementing responses like decorating boarded-up houses to let people know we were here and fighting back. At the same time, we partnered with other community development corporations, Neighborhood Progress Inc. and state, local and national funders to craft a programmatic response: Opportunity Homes. This sophisticated program joins aggressive foreclosure-prevention strategies with targeted demolition of obsolete houses and full rehab of good-quality abandoned homes.
In our neighborhood, the rehabbed homes are frequently doubles, which we are converting to singles and packaging with adjacent vacant lots to create larger yards, thereby reducing density and meeting contemporary standards. The rehabbed homes are sold using attractive financing. For families with ruined credit, a lease option
Lease-options
A lease option is a type of contract used in both residential and commercial real estate...
is provided while they repair their credit to qualify for a mortgage.
...Even before the ['Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland'] report, we have been "growing smaller, growing smarter" with real, measurable results in Broadway/Slavic Village. We consolidated commercial uses and expanded industrial uses with updated zoning. We built our bike trail on an abandoned rail line and demolished obsolete buildings on Broadway Avenue to create two new trailheads and our own Emerald Necklace
Emerald Necklace
The Emerald Necklace consists of an chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the "neck" of the Boston peninsula, although it was never fully constructed.-Overview:The Necklace...
. We have created new athletic fields to serve our two high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
s, which previously had no outdoor athletic facilities. We are creating green-belt buffers, restoring native habitats and expanding community gardens. We are harnessing these strategies with targeted available resources and our active residents to transform neighborhoods, block by block."
The Mr. Blue project
The "Mr. Blue" project was an effort started by Slavic Village Development in 2006 to try to make abandoned homes seem more lived in, and to try to soften the desolate effect of many shuttered homes on one street. SVD works with block clubs and other community volunteer groups to paint boarded homes with cheerful images, such as pies cooling, sleeping cats, and flower vases resting on window sills. The project got its name from the signature blue person painted on all the boarded doors as if it is peeking out to wave at a visitor.