May 7 : Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Board of Commissioners
Covered by Documenter Dean Jackson (notes)
Home repairs and a new park add to Buckeye-Woodhill transformation
Habitat for Humanity will repair 20 homes this summer in the Buckeye-Woodhill neighborhood as part of its partnership with CMHA, according to Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority CEO Jeffery Patterson.
Patterson also told the Board of Commissioners at their May 7 meeting that a new park is coming to the corner of Rosehill and Woodhill avenues. The park will be designed through a partnership between CMHA and the public art advocacy group Elevate the East.
Work at the Woodhill Homes public housing project has been ongoing since 2022, with two of the three housing facilities, Woodhill Center East and Woodhill Station West, open and accepting residents.
CMHA honors Earth Day in West Park
CMHA planted 50 trees in Riverside Park in West Park to celebrate both Earth Day and Arbor Day. The project comes from a grant from the City of Cleveland’s Tree Coalition in collaboration with West Park Kamm’s Neighborhood Development.
At Lorain Square Apartments in Kamm’s Corners, CMHA brought together staff and residents for Spring Yard Day. The group planted flowers and cleaned up the property together.
“It was an opportunity for everyone to connect [and] take pride in the community,” said Patterson. “Afterwards, everyone came together to celebrate and enjoy a community day of food and conversation.”
$1 million invested in new emergency backup generators
CMHA’s Board of Commissioners approved resolutions totalling about $1 million to install new emergency backup generators at several of its properties.
West Boulevard, Mount Auburn Manor, Cedar Highrise and CMHA Police headquarters on Woodland Avenue will receive the new emergency generators.
Matthew Schmidt, CMHA’s chief of modernization and development, said emergency generators typically last 20 to 30 years. Two of the generators being replaced had reached the end of their useful life.
“If there are any generators that are diesel fed,” added Schmidt, “[we’re] changing all those over to natural gas, so that in the case of an emergency, we don’t have to continually monitor and refill.”
“This is impactful to CMHA as we continue to modernize and standardize our critical life safety systems with new generators being digitized for remote access and controls in the case of an emergency.”