Kathleen McDonnell interview, 19 June 2024

Abstract

Near West Side resident Kathleen McDonnell recollects her arrival to the Near West Side and her efforts as a community organizer. McDonnell shares her involvement as a mediator for Cleveland Mediation Center and as an educator on mediation in Euclid High School. She shares her experience dealing with a hazardous waste recycling facility in a residential area and the arrival of lawyers to pressure the Northeast Chemical Corporation to relocate operations away from the neighborhood. McDonnell highlights her role in a community drop-in center, "A Place 4 Me," for teenagers and young adults experiencing homelessness in the area.

Interviewee

McDonnell, Kathleen (interviewee)

Interviewer

White, Bali (interviewer)

Project

Near West Side Housing Activism

Date

6-19-2024

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

64 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Kathleen McDonnell interview, 19 June 2024" (2024). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 544003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1282

Related Resources

Near West Side @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Kathleen McDonnell [00:00:00] Okay.

Bali White [00:00:03] Hi, everybody. I am Bali White with the Cleveland Regional Oral History project at Cleveland State. Today I am here with Kathleen McDonnell at St. Paul’s Community UCC Church on 45th and Franklin. First and foremost, how are you?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:00:21] I’m really good today, thank you.

Bali White [00:00:23] Good. Yeah. We’re in the middle of a heat wave, so we’re dealing with a lot of heat right now in Cleveland. Could you introduce yourself when and where you were born? Just a little background about who you are.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:00:36] Okay. I was born in Massachusetts. My relatives are Scottish and Irish and very clannish. So I lived my childhood in the Boston area. And then when I was about eleven, my father’s career required that we move many times. So I’ve lived in a number of states, went to high school in New York state, and came to Cleveland to go to college to get an undergraduate degree in social work, in which I majored in community organizing in social work. So it was an undergraduate degree and I’ve pretty much lived in Cleveland since then, except for three years when I went to Chicago to go to graduate school.

Bali White [00:01:22] Awesome, awesome, So you mentioned you were in graduate school. Where did you go in Chicago?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:01:29] I went to McCormick Theological Seminary in Hyde Park in Chicago and I got a master of divinity degree. Okay.

Bali White [00:01:38] Awesome, awesome. So could you tell us a little bit about what your plans were after college?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:01:44] I never made any plans for a career. I just followed whatever the next thing I wanted to do was. I still don’t have a career plan in my life. [Laughs]

Bali White [00:01:57] So when exactly did you move to the Near West side? Did you have any prior connections to the area before moving here?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:02:04] Yes, when I was in college at Case Western Reserve. As an undergraduate, I had to do a field placement internship my senior year. And I worked with a community organizer and Gail Long at the Tremont settlement house called Merrick House. And we were doing the background organizing work for when the federal court order was going to come out that was going to order the integration of the Cleveland public schools. So at that time, which was in the seventies, people were very worried about what the impact might be because there were violent uprisings happening in places like Boston and Cleveland did not want that to happen. And while I believe I was on this internship, people had a rally in downtown Public Square and burned an effigy of the federal judge. So people were pretty frightened about what would happen.

Bali White [00:03:07] Oh, yeah. Can you recall, like, when this was, what year?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:03:12] I’m not exactly sure. I know that the. It was. My internship was 76, 77. I’m not exactly sure when the court order came out if it was 77, I don’t remember the exact date, but it was in 76, 77, 78, something like that, and that the Cleveland school district, when the court order came out, took a strategy that did not allow— They didn’t take action on the court order. They spent millions of dollars on appeals, installing and all kinds of actions that maybe took a couple years before they actually began integration.

Bali White [00:04:00] So you were dealing with the desegregation of public schools. Could you talk about any of the challenges that you faced when working on that project?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:04:15] Well, I graduated, and then I was looking for, I was looking for a job, and I decided to work through the West Side Community house, which is a neighborhood, was a neighborhood settlement house here in the Near West side. I knew a lot of the people from the desegregation organizing work. And in the role that I had, there was community organizer, but it was a fairly elaborate structure. I was not the only community organizer. There are many. And there was. They took a different strategy than Merrick House. Merrick House did a lot more local network organizing. The Westside Community house approach was more Alinsky style, if you’re familiar with that,[Crosstalk] people power. It was more a people power approach. And so because the desegregation wasn’t happening yet, I was just working on basic neighborhood issues, mostly having to do with the issues of lower income people. At the time, our neighborhood was just starting to get gentrified, like certain houses of historic value are being renovated near the West Side Community house. Jay Avenue, Bridge Avenue around there, West 28th street, there was a triangle of streets that had houses of historic value. And the Community house, they generally did, Alinsky style, but with the coming of the people buying and restoring houses, which was called the Ohio City movement, the West Side Community house organizes two took a tactic of trying to integrate both the new residents and the older residents, the more affluent people and the lower income people together to try to find common issues, issues of common ground. One of those was frequent arson of houses for insurance purposes. But let me back up a little bit, As I was reading these questions, I was thinking, like, what are the through lines in all these questions? And I thought I’d just put them out there at the beginning so you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I think the through line was, for me as a young person, I think the images in which I was thinking was, how does one create the beloved community? That sort of Christian ideal that Martin Luther King made very famous? And it was so in moving to the Near West side, I really deliberately was looking for an inner city position because I wanted to live with and become a part of the struggle of lower income people for a fuller life. And so I think that was sort of my initial motivation. And as I was thinking about it, you know, we did the networking organizing. We did the people power organizing. We did citywide networks around desegregation for peaceful, positive desegregation. I think for me, the things that I was very interested in was creating the beloved community, which many people would use the terms today, equity. I think another question was, I was very interested in more equity for African Americans and more restoration for their community. And so being a part of those movements was really important to me. I also was looking for, What became more and more clear to me over time was the strategies I wanted to use were coming out of both a spirit and a set of strategies for nonviolent action. So looking for nonviolent strategies was very important. And I don’t know that you’re going to be talking about this, but almost everybody you’re talking to was also part of a group called the Cleveland Nonviolence Network, which still exists, like Mark and Mike, Maria. [Crosstalk] Everybody you talk to is already a part of that. And that’s sort of a sub theme. So I was looking for nonviolence strategies, and the Alinsky style organizing was not satisfying to me because it really continued to perpetuate, Win, lose, and you’d win some and you’d lose some, and there would always be acrimonious relations at the end of whatever campaign it was. And I think some of the local people felt somewhat used by that. So I think the Christian ideal, the beloved community, nonviolence strategies, and then the specifics are, what skills can we use? What ways can we engage people in these conflicted situations that might create more equity, more harmony, more healing, more human unity? So you’ll see these themes kind of pop up in the varied, different kinds of things that I did. So just telling you that from the beginning.

Bali White [00:09:42] Yeah. How would you say desegregation was received by the community? Were they for it? Did it seem like there was a lot of backlash?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:09:53] It was both. Definitely both. I think that the west side neighborhoods, like the Near West side and a little farther out west side, I think there was a lot of fear that most of the backlash resistance would come from here. And so there was a variety of strategies at different levels, one of which was called WELCOME, which was citywide, and it was an acronym of West-siders and East-siders, let’s come together, because at that time, the African Americans live predominantly on the west side, and the people of European descent live primarily on the west side—African Americans on the east side, European descent people on the west side, and both communities were remarkably low income. And the educational system did have inequities involved in it. It was visibly and deliberately segregated, and no one disagreed that it was segregated, but the efforts were to create equity between the different schools. So the resistance, I think, came from both sets of parents. I think people were very frightened of sending their kids into what might appear to be a hostile and dangerous area, and that would be parents on both sides of town. And so one of the strategies, not only that, this wasn’t the WELCOME group had some strategies, but the Westside Community house strategy was bring together parents from both groups. So African Americans and European Americans, and Hispanic Americans. And at that time, this neighborhood was very, it was like the most integrated neighborhood in the city in terms of all three groups represented. In fact, one of the Junior Highs was so well integrated, it didn’t need to be bused. You know, it was one of the only ones. But the Westside community house strategy was to bring together parents to name their concerns and to work together and to look at more effective strategies, and so I was involved with that. It was called Building Parent Power. There was a minister, a Presbyterian minister called Jane Anderson, who was involved with that. And then we also were helped by the monitoring commission that was created to monitor the implementation of the federal court order. Some of the most meaningful things was the transformation that happened to those parents. Like they wanted a quality education for their children, no violence and safety for their kids, no matter where they went to school. And so they became those advocates for those things together. And for some of them who were fearful and hostile of the other group, experienced a transformation in their personal attitudes by working together with them. So that was really a pretty wonderful experience.

Bali White [00:13:14] Yeah, absolutely. So you kind of, like, talked about, I guess, the demographics of the Near West side, how it. There was a whole, like, mixture of people. So I guess I want to get into, like, the question of just the Near West side in general and how it looked like when you had arrived here?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:13:37] it was much poorer. Like the area around the Westside community house. You know, if you go there now, it’s very upscale looking. You know, Heck’s restaurant across the street, and the coffee shop in the Westside community house. At the time when I was here, it was very much poorer, much rougher in terms of arson, street crime. Like, I remember the young folks among us, there were, I think, Jesuit volunteers and Marianist volunteers that were doing work through, Around St. Patrick’s as part of St. Patrick’s. And then there were the Vista volunteers, and I was one of the Vistas. But all of us were, like, really careful like, you’re not walking at night. You’re not going places alone at night. And I didn’t have a car, and I was a community organizer, which meant lots of night meetings, and, you know, don’t ride public transportation at night. There was cars being burned and stuff like that, junk cars being burned and houses being burned. And so I remember, and drug selling houses with drug selling, like Mike’s house. And so it was a lot different than it is now.

Bali White [00:14:54] Absolutely. So when you kind of came here, it seems to me that there was a sense of community that a lot of the neighborhood kind of wanted. Is that something that you’d say was pretty available? Is this community?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:15:14] I’m not sure what you mean?

Bali White [00:15:16] So when did you find a sense of community, when you moved here, I guess?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:15:20] Yes. I mean, the people that I worked with in the Westside community house, for one, there was a lot of sense of community networks. There was another group called the Thomas Merton community that had several community households, and they were living in common. And they were also here because they wanted to be part of the struggle and search of the lower income people for more equity and fullness of life. And then these volunteer groups that mostly were Catholic, the Jesuit volunteers, Marianist volunteers, were sort of a peer group, like younger people of European descent that were moving into the city to do the same kinds of things. So there was, and then people started organizing the Catholic Worker. So I think there was a lot of community for me as a person, but it was also an effort to get to know the people who already lived here and what was their experience of the neighborhood. And as a community organizer, you remind me of myself, because when I first got here, I had to go out. They just gave me a list of people, go talk to all these people and learn about the neighborhood. And that’s what I had to do. And then, so it was not just a peer group of sort of educated European Americans. There was also an effort to become part of the life of people who live here and what their concerns and needs were, too. Yeah.

Bali White [00:16:52] [coughs] Excuse me. So you had mentioned previously that you were involved in mediation. Could you kind of explain how you became to be a mediator?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:17:10] Trying to think about this, how this came about? I left organizing, and I moved to Chicago in, like, 1980, in the winter of 1980, and I went to graduate school. And when I came back, I started teaching at St. Joe’s Academy, which is on the Rocky River drive on the west side. And they were in the process of trying to transform their school to be more in its policies, programs, and curriculum and everything, to be more of an advocate for social justice and not to be a privileged kind of place. And most of their students came from the city of Cleveland. And when I was there, I was able to take a, like a professional development course called alternatives to violence. It was taught by one of the sisters, who’s a consultant. And taking that course, it was like all the things I’ve been working on, it just took them up to a higher level and brought them all together. I could see how all the justice issues, racial issues, women’s issues, strategy questions all came together for me, and that I was able to see and understand them in a different way. And so I started learning how to teach that course, and I taught it in a lot of places. And it was like a survey course in nonviolent philosophy and strategies. And each chapter looked at one thing, one approach, whether it was dialogue or advocacy or mediation or interpersonal communication or community building or global nuclear disarmament or something. You know, each chapter looked at one thing, and you could go in. And as I was learning to teach it, I wanted to go in depth in each area. And so I spent a lot of time getting training in nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg. That was more the in yourself dealing with your inner issues and interpersonal issues, at least in the way that I received it at that time. And then sort of the next session was learning more about mediation. I took a training at the Cleveland Mediation center, which was located in the Westside Community house. It was started in the early eighties, and they—They began by working with students in public schools, teaching conflict mediation to students in the public schools in the eighties. And then they also branched out to do mediation with neighbors in the neighborhood. And so I went to their trainings. I loved it. I eventually got hired by them. I worked in Cleveland Mediation Center for three years, and I eventually worked on a grant, and that’s when we did the work with St. Ignatius that was trying to, you know, take some of the land. And then I worked with teenagers, teaching teenagers about mediation. I did a summer program with that. When my grant ran out, I wasn’t able to work at the at Cleveland Mediation center anymore. And I think I did. I did a lot of independent things, and I was teaching alternatives to violence to teachers and as a professional development course for teachers. And I eventually got hired, but I did, and I was also doing assisting with training programs and nonviolent communication with Marshall Rosenberg’s approach. And I was asked to help with one program at Euclid High School. And then after the program, the principal asked me if I would come and help start a mediation program at their high school. Okay. So that’s how I ended up there.

Bali White [00:21:31] Could you tell me a little bit about what you did at Euclid High school as a mediator?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:21:37] Well, initially, I was running a mediation program where students would be the mediators, and so I would train them, and I came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t going to work very well unless we moved, unless we created leadership among the students so that they could do the training and pass it on to each other and they could advocate for it and speak to students for it. So that required that I had a leadership group, and I started a leadership group, which was a course, but it took me a long time to get the school to give it any credit, because I’m not a certified teacher. And there was a lot of resistance in the school to the idea of nonviolent resolution of conflict. They really wanted to either handle everything through some kind of discipline grid that had all the—It was a matrix. It was a matrix. They called it, like, this infraction, had this punishment, and, you know, would be of increasing intensity, and all the adult conflict they wanted to handle totally through the union grievance procedure, and I had initiated. Look, I’ll, I’ll help you mediate conflicts. Nope, not interested. I got a grant to help train other teachers who wanted to make use of mediation in their classrooms that was blocked by the union, even though the principal had signed off on it, and we had the money, and teachers were going to be paid for their time, but it took me several months, and we negotiated an agreement with the union, and we were allowed to offer those teachers who wanted training to have it. And so eventually, after a long time, I was able to get my course credited so that students could opt in. If they had, like, If they were student mediators, and if they were willing to take on more responsibility and they had space in their schedule, they could be in my course. And so those students became the leaders, and they had to lead the training, the mediation training workshops. They had to coach the new mediators and how they were doing with all the, you know, the first interviews, the resolutions, the mediation process, the follow ups, all that. So. And then eventually I realized, okay, sophomores, junior seniors. I got it. The seniors have already done it all, so I got to find some other way to keep them interested. So I decided to get involved in an international program called PeaceJam, which linked high school students with Nobel Peace laureates.

Bali White [00:24:31] And then, for the record, you said, peace jam.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:24:34] Peacejam. One word. J a m. Yep. And you can find PeaceJam on the Internet. It’s still operating in many countries. Some of the groups, like the Great Lakes chapter, has folded because they couldn’t keep it. They couldn’t sustain it, which is very sad. That’s the chapter that we were a part of. So the students would have to be involved in mediation. They’d have to become mediation leaders and trainers. Then they could be Peacejam participants, where they would learn—You have to learn the life story struggles, nonviolence strategies of a particular Nobel laureate that they were going to meet. And then they would have to do some kind of peace or justice action in the school or in the community. And then we would go to one or two conferences that year, regional conferences in the Great Lakes area, where the students would meet the Nobel laureate, You know, the Nobel laureate would give some talks and talk about their issues, and then they had a whole weekend program scheduled, and there was a party on Saturday night that incorporated the culture of the country, of the Nobel laureate. So there would be food from their country, dances from their country, music from their country, and then it just turned into a party after that. So we did that for about ten years, and that was incredible. And eventually, I think eventually, Euclid used the money for my program. This was after 18 years, which I was there. They used the money for another disciplinary intervention program called Positive Behavior Interventions and Support, which was becoming like what the state of Ohio Department of Education wanted every school to be doing, and Euclid was not measuring up to the adequate yearly progress prescribed by the state board of Education and was more in danger of potentially becoming a district that would be taken over by the state. So the school offered me the PBIS position if I wanted it to be the district organizer for that, but it didn’t match my values of how to work with students, so I did not want to do that. So I left there.

Bali White [00:27:07] Thank you. So, previously, you had mentioned St. Ignatius, and here in the Near West side, St. Ignatius has continuously expanded, which resulted in the removal of many homes and displacement of various people throughout the years. So could you share with us how you were involved in launching an initiative to help the neighborhood come to a unified resolution for this issue?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:27:34] I was working at the Cleveland Mediation center at that time. They got a grant, Cleveland Mediation center got a grant, and they hired a consultant to come and look at a way of resolving the issue using not quite the typical community organizing power politics approach, but to use more dialogue and to try to find common ground and mutually acceptable solutions for people. The project did not succeed. And part of the problem was, I think, some of the strategies, the politicians really took over. We had some public meetings and the politicians just took over. In a way. I think in some ways the strategy was inadequate. I don’t think St. Ignatius was, from my impression, I’m not speaking for St. Ignatius, but it appeared to me that they were not interested in being open to other than their own plan that they had already made. So that’s. I’m not speaking for them, but that’s what it appeared to me. So that was really disappointing. Is that the 1996 public meeting you were talking about with 150 residents? I wasn’t sure which meeting you were talking about,

Bali White [00:29:03] No, so that one is actually NEC related.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:29:06] Oh, NEC related. Okay.

Bali White [00:29:07] Yeah.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:29:08] All right.

Bali White [00:29:08] So with St. Ignatius, who would you say was most affected by its expansion?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:29:15] Well, there were certain streets where, you know, houses were taken. I remember going to the public meeting that was held at St. Ignatius, and I was realizing, like many, many of those people, English was not their first language. They didn’t feel empowered to have anything to say or to do. St. Ignatius did not structure in a way that welcomed input or welcomed translating what was happening into the language and meanings of those residents. So. And then particularly, I’m remembering the low income set of townhouses that had been built where the St. Ignatius. That took a lot of community effort and fundraising and organizing to get those townhouses built. I knew some people that lived there. They were torn down. So that’s what I remember now. There are some of those St. Ignatius houses still around the neighborhood, houses that they built, but they were probably. Well, I think I’ll stop there.

Bali White [00:30:40] So how would you say the community at this time was viewing this expansion?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:30:47] Well, it depends on who you ask. Different people would have different points of view. I mean, some people really were very supportive of St. Ignatius, and some people really were not. You know, I know that at the Cleveland Mediation center, they were definitely not supportive of St. Ignatius, what St. Ignatius was doing, and a lot of the local neighbors whose streets were going to be impacted were not supportive.

Bali White [00:31:13] Okay, thank you.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:31:14] Yeah.

Bali White [00:31:15] So we’re going to kind of switch gears and talk about Northeast Chemical Corporation. So Northeast Chemical Corporation, or NEC, operated on Monroe and Fulton from 1983 to 2000. So the community had expressed immense concern in regard to a recycling plant dealing with hazardous waste being in a residential area. Could you share with us what your involvement was dealing with NEC in the Near West side?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:31:47] So you talked to Mark Pestak already, right? So I don’t need to explain the issue at all.

Bali White [00:31:51] Correct.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:31:51] Okay. I was still working at Euclid High School at that time. I was living in one of the apartments that Mike Fiala owns. He asked me to be involved in this community group, which I was. And I think that it was a group of people that were looking to stop the expansion of the throughput for Northeast Chemical because of the predicted number of semi trailer trucks carrying flammable hazardous waste through very narrow streets with wooden, small houses around them and a number of schools. And the particular company, NEC had a real history of accidents and fires and serious fires, and people were not, were concerned that it would not be safe.

Bali White [00:33:01] So the need for lawyers was expressed amongst the community working to oust NEC from the Near West side. Could you describe the events that led to the arrival of lawyers against NEC?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:33:14] Well, the group of citizens, Mark Pestak was kind of the science expert because he knew about—He worked for BP chemicals at the time, and none of us were really very expert in hazardous waste regulations or any of the legal requirements and permitting and violations of permits and all that. And so the Hazardous Waste Recycling Board, Hazardous Waste Management Board, I don’t remember exact title of it was a state organization that was handling this, and so at some point we were going to have to hire some lawyers. Now, we didn’t really have any money, you know, it was just a group of neighbors. And so Mark was kind of despairing. And I said, well, I have no idea. None of us has any idea about this. We just need to pray for some help.[Laughs] So then within two days, we had access to four lawyers. That’s what I remember.

Bali White [00:34:24] That’s an amazing story. So earlier we had mentioned a public meeting in July of 1996. Now, at this meeting, there were 150 residents that turned out. So from doing my research, it seems like the community group kind of held multiple meetings throughout this thing?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:34:46] Was this outside? Was it in front of NEC or where was this hearing? I’m just trying to.

Bali White [00:34:53] I believe it was in one of the churches in this area on Bridge Avenue.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:35:00] St. Patrick’s, perhaps. I thing that’s the big church on Bridge Avenue. Honestly, I don’t remember that meeting. And as I’m looking at it, in July of 1996, I wasn’t working at Euclid yet. I think I was either, I might have still been at Cleveland Mediation or I might have been freelancing at that point, but I don’t remember that meeting.

Bali White [00:35:22] Okay, so I guess the next question, would be—

Kathleen McDonnell [00:35:26] I remember a meeting outside of NEC on the street, but I don’t remember that meeting in a church.

Bali White [00:35:34] Could you share a little bit about that meeting outside?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:35:37] Oh, Dennis Kucinich showed up. You know, and I don’t know if you know Dennis Kucinich, former mayor of Cleveland.

Bali White [00:35:45] Yep, I heard that name.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:35:47] Yeah. So, because Dennis Kucinich came, tv media came, and, you know, so politicized and dramatized and whatever. That’s what I remember from that. Okay, so your next question.

Bali White [00:36:04] The public’s outcry against NEC had prompted the Hazardous Waste Facility Board to recommend that NEC and the community members kind of needed to deal with this conflict through mediation. Could you walk us through what that was like?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:36:23] Okay. So they hired a mediator who was from out of state. I don’t remember if he was from Michigan or Wisconsin, but I know he had to be flown in, and he was some kind of professional mediator. And when he came to meet with the citizens group, what he told us was, look, you’re not going to win against the company, so why don’t you take some time coming up with what terms you want to demand from them in order for them to get this permit? And people were like, well, first of all, we don’t feel confident, even if we did have certain concessions that they had to make that they would actually be kept or over a period of time, be kept, so that we didn’t really want to do that. And I was thinking, like, this is not mediation. You don’t come in and tell one group you’re going to lose. Think of your terms for losing. I mean, that’s not what a mediation is. A mediation, you look for what are the underlying basic needs that people are trying to meet with, the actions that they’re taking that are in conflict, and then try to find a way to meet both sets of needs in a way that is acceptable to both parties. So I said, well, I think that’s. This is not helpful. We don’t want to do that. I mean, I didn’t say that to his face, but I think when we were talking amongst ourselves, I said, I think we need to figure out what is it that NEC wants, what are their underlying needs. They want to expand their throughput in order to keep their business viable. They want to handle more hazardous waste. What does the neighborhood want? We want safety for our neighborhood. That does not make us more vulnerable to fires, air pollution and all these trucks. So once we broke it down to what were our underlying needs, we began to think about what might be other solutions. A mutual solution could be, could they find a larger space, a larger facility to do what they wanted to do in a neighborhood, in a place that wasn’t a residential neighborhood, that wasn’t putting people at risk? And the most, there’s a lot of brownfields already in the Flats. So we proposed to them, would you look at the possibility of moving to the Flats? And they were concerned that they were getting so much resistance from the neighborhood that they weren’t going to get their permit. And so they did do that. They did look for, and they did look for other locations and actually were in the process of finding an acceptable location. And we did not make any further use of the mediator that the Hazardous Waste Facility Board wanted us to deal with because we were making progress on our own. So we didn’t really need to do that. Now, as it turns out, while NEC was in the process of, they actually identified a location where they could move while they were in the process. They were bought out by another company, which eventually led to the local business being closed. So they didn’t actually move to the Flats.

Bali White [00:39:54] Right. I believe 2000, they went bankrupt.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:39:57] Yeah.

Bali White [00:39:57] And then operations kind of ceased from there. Could you describe how you felt after this was all said and done after NEC closed?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:40:08] Well, I think I felt really good, and I felt affirmed by the fact that we can solve this in a mutual way if we use a different approach than who’s going to have power over and who’s going to lose. I felt like I was confident enough that mediation made that possibility available, so I wasn’t surprised by that. I think the NEC administrators, they didn’t know how to solve the conflict any better than ordinary people did. So I think they were, they were open to something that would work. When NEC, we already knew that NEC wasn’t going to expand, so we already felt good about that. They weren’t going to expand in our neighborhood, So, and the initial pressure of that conflict was over. It was a while later that they were bought out and went bankrupt. So I didn’t have any joy about that. You know, I would have— What they were doing is not a bad process, you know, burning hazardous waste and cement kilns and turning it into cement, I guess, dust or whatever. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was just the risk to the local people, which was bad. So I don’t know that I was happy to hear that happen to them.

Bali White [00:41:50] So, switching gears, I guess, you had mentioned that you. Excuse me. You have involvement in a drop in center called A Place 4 Me. Can you kind of share what that is?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:42:07] Well, I’m part of this church here, St. Paul’s. I’m an employee here, and I also am a member. It’s about half a block from Lutheran Family Services center, Lutheran Children’s Services center, which is on Franklin Boulevard, about a half a block away. So there’s a block club in this area, and that would mean that St. Paul’s is a member of that block club, as is Lutheran and all the neighbors as well. The drop in center was initiated by a group called A Place 4 Me, which was housed in the YWCA, and it was also funded by the Sisters of St. Augustine, charity of St. Augustine or something like that. And they contracted with Lutheran and Metro ministries to be the administrator of the program and use of the building. So there was a zoning variance required in order to renovate the building and adapt it to be useful for the drop in center. Drop in centers for youth experiencing homelessness has become, I guess, is called a best practice because it’s a way for young people to come in, be safe, get a shower, charge their phone, find out where they might get a job, get some food, get services that will help them. They can’t stay overnight there, so it’s not a shelter, but just to have a drop in services center has been proven to be helpful for young people experiencing homelessness. So the zoning variant, the Lutheran and A Place 4 Me and the foundation were going to the city board of zoning Appeals to ask for a change of use variance that would allow them to use that building for this. Although Lutheran felt like we’re not changing use, it’s always been a children’s services family and children’s services center, so it’s really not a change of use. But zoning board was requiring it, and some of the immediate neighbors were against it. I think their concerns were because St. Herman’s House of Hospitality is on the same block. St. Paul’s, which also has a long history of providing services for people who are homeless or addicted to substances or in recovery. St. Paul’s sometimes has served as an overflow shelter for people who don’t have homes in the evenings, especially in the winter. So I think the neighbors will look like we got too much of this stuff going on. We don’t want this. It’s going to bring in another whole population of people they shouldn’t—teenagers shouldn’t be coming here when there’s adults who have homelessness and addiction problems, it’s not a good. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of reasons. But the local block club was asked to weigh in on do they support this request for variance? So the local block club includes Franklin Boulevard and then Clinton, the next step. The vast majority of the people in the block club really did support it because there is a lot of community support in this neighborhood for welcoming all different kinds of people at different levels of need, providing services for them such that they can live more fully, whether those people are without homes or dealing with substance abuse recovery or, you know, young people who are homeless. So there’s a lot of— There’s a long legacy of support for that. And a number of the people in the block club supported it, and a number of people did not. And it was pretty intense. So, St. Paul’s was going to have to vote in the block club. So the Minister here was quite worried, like, how can we vote? Because if we say yes to the drop in center, we’re saying no to our other neighbors. And so some of us were feeling like, no, you really can say yes and— to not to be neutral in a situation like this is a principle of nonviolence, and to be neutral in a situation where oppression is happening, which is lots of young people are homeless and trying to go to high school or make a life, to not advocate for that is to be on the side of the status quo. So, of course, you want to advocate that those people can get what they need, and is it possible to be available to the other neighbors and what they need and to take that seriously as well? And some of us at St. Paul’s really felt like, yes, it is like. Like we can listen to what their concerns are. We can make accommodations for their concerns, and so can A Place 4 Me. And some of that had already happened, like Lutheran had made some accommodations to what the local neighbors had wanted. So. But I think that the Minister here, another couple of members here. Well, there’s another peacemaker, mediator member here. And then. So we were thinking, yes, we can do both. And then there’s another person in the neighborhood. Tony, are you going to interview Tony Vento?

Bali White [00:48:39] I’m not sure. I haven’t heard anything yet.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:48:43] Well, he works for, He’s a consultant and trainer, and one of his clients is Neighborhood Connections. If you’re familiar with Neighborhood Connections, it’s a citywide community development group that’s very grassroots. Anyway, he lives in the neighborhood. He isn’t in the block club, but he’s very good at sort of community dialogue and looking for new solutions. That’s what he does. And then the ironic thing is people in this block club, Bill Merriman, the Deacon, the former mail carrier and deacon at St. Pat’s, the two immediate residents that were leading the charge against A Place 4 me and some of their neighbors and the people in the block club, some of them who are leading the advocacy for A Place 4 me, all go to St. Pat’s church. They all go to the same church. So I think Tony and I and the Minister here and Ian, who’s the other mediator, who is part of this church, were thinking like, they all go to the same church. They all are talking about the same things, and can’t we find a way to talk to each other and to the people involved in A Place 4 Me? Then Tony and I got hired by A Place 4 Me because they had a policy of, their policy of how they work on behalf of youth experiencing homelessness is, “Nothing for me without me,” which means youth either who have experienced homelessness or who are experiencing homelessness will be part of their planning and part of the decision making for the program. And because there had been a lot, there had been a number of community meetings where people expressed resistance, resentment, disagreement with the placement of the drop in center, they said they wouldn’t mind it being in the neighborhood, just not in that building, some other place, because some of the young people who were part of A Place 4 Me, who were part of the leadership group, who mostly who were all young African American people who had lived with homelessness or were homeless, they went to all those meetings and spoke on behalf of it and heard all the things that were said to them and about them, which was very painful. And so there were sort of these generalized statements, Oh, bringing more crime and drug abuse and disorder into the community and danger. And, like, a lot of them took that really personally, like, you’re talking about me, you know? And so they came to deadlock of, are we going to go ahead and locate in this building, in this neighborhood, or are we going to give up this location and move someplace else? And the A Place 4 Me board operated by a policy of consensus. So they had to come to a—They weren’t going to vote majority minority on that they were going to have to come to a consensus. So Tony and I got hired to help the young people come to a consensus decision either to stay or to go. So that was tough, but they eventually decided to stay.

Bali White [00:52:39] Oh, wow. Amazing.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:52:41] Yeah.

Bali White [00:52:42] That’s phenomenal work that you’ve been doing towards that.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:52:47] Yeah. So what came of what Tony and Ian and the Minister here, Emily, and another community member, David Kachidorian, who I think was head of the church council at the time, we decided that what we wanted to do was to create, like, the public meetings had been typical of public meetings in the neighborhood here, which is very us against them, very. A lot of animosity, a lot of sort of projecting negative images on the other group of people, labeling people in hurtful ways, characterizing what was happening as a win lose. And sometimes it is a win lose, and in some cases, it is like the vote for the zoning variance was a win lose. One side was going to win, and one side was going to lose. And I was part of that vote. And I voted. You know, I voted for it. And the people who voted against it were very sad and frustrated and hurt by, you know, they were very upset by that. But the church decided what we wanted to do was to create a different kind of community dialogue around it that would involve getting to know people as we had gotten to know the people from A Place 4 Me. We’ve gotten to know the young people, we’ve gotten to know their stories, and that could we create a different kind of meeting where hope? Well, we don’t know if it’s going to go ahead. The people who were resisting the location filed a court case to block— They filed a court case. I don’t know that I can represent it completely accurately, but I think it was challenging the variance vote. So they, I think it was a case against the Board of Zoning Appeals. And then some neighbors did that, and then Lutheran Metro filed a counter-case, which was also against the Board of Zoning Appeals, saying that they didn’t need to get a zoning variance to begin with because it wasn’t a change of use. So that’s been locked up in court for quite a while, maybe close to a year and a half. So what we’ve been doing is, Tony and I got a couple of grants to begin to talk about how can we create widespread community dialogue, not so much between the strong advocates against and the strong advocates for, but all the people in the middle who live here, who are amenable to creating a community of people that listen to each other’s concerns, do something about them and try to support each other. So we are in the process of looking. Who would like to be a part of that? We’re talking to lots of people. So that’s happening now, but it is really slowed down because everything’s bogged down in court cases that haven’t been resolved yet. And one of the advocates of, one of the plaintiffs we did get to interview said that if this court case was decided against the neighbors who wanted to block this location, they would just appeal it and tie it up for another couple years. So in the meantime, if you could possibly have known some of those young people and their stories about how they have lived and why they’re homeless and how they have tried to make it to, some of them go to college but live in their car, you know, some of them have a child, you know, and don’t have a place to live. I mean, it’s, you realize this doesn’t exist in Cuyahoga county. There isn’t a drop in center service center for young people experiencing homelessness. And most major cities, I think we’re the only major city center in Ohio that doesn’t have one. So that’s what I heard anyway at some of the meetings, but I don’t know if that’s 100% true, Or what a major city center is. But anyway, you know that something really has to be done because these people are suffering greatly. And I think the other overlay that’s extremely painful is all the young people that are part of A Place 4 me are all African American, and the neighbors who are contesting the location of it are European American. And so it brings in all the pain of racial differences.

Bali White [00:57:46] Absolutely.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:57:48] You know, and perceptions of racial issues. So it’s very, that in itself is very painful for both sides. Well, actually, some of the people against it might be of mixed heritage as well. So I want to be accurate about that.

Bali White [00:58:05] Okay. Yeah, well, it seems like A Place 4 Me is definitely crucial and needed, and I really enjoyed hearing about that, Thank You

Kathleen McDonnell [00:58:14] Sure.

Bali White [00:58:15] So, lastly, I guess, are there any positive changes that you hope to see in the future for the Near West side?

Kathleen McDonnell [00:58:29] I think one thing I can say is there have been so, like, You’ve probably heard this from other people, but there have been advocates for the acceptance of all people, including low income people, homeless people who are homeless, people who might be struggling with addictions, as these are our neighbors and that we want, and some groups are working to accept them, to support them, to help them in their life and what they need and how they can have a fuller life. There are a lot of groups like that in the neighborhood. A sort of neutral example is like the Public Library, where they add up. They. It’s across from St. Pat’s. You’ve probably seen the public library. You’ve been there.

Bali White [00:59:21] Yes.

Kathleen McDonnell [00:59:21] They make some adaptations so that whoever comes in, whether you’re, quote, a homeless person or, you know, a person who has a lot of money, they serve everybody. It works for everybody. Anybody can use the rooms. It’s really a for everybody kind of organization, not perfectly, and it’s But, you know, it’s an example of what can happen. I think that what my hope is with A Place 4 Me project is if we can, we were, Tony and I were looking at using some of the work of an organization called Essential Partners out of Boston. And they use a process called reflective structure dialogue, which really structures in equity in the conversations and it also begins with storytelling about how people have come to where they are, and it also includes naming the ambiguities and contradictions that we all experience so that it kind of breaks down the Us versus them. And to look at can a new way of relating to each other happen out of that, where people feel less afraid can be mutually supportive in different ways than they had envisioned before. So I think that’s a hope that I have. I think, you know, as I look at, like I pointed out, Franklin Circle Church that is selling its building. It’s a historic building at the corner of Franklin and Fulton. You know, all the churches which have been places of where people can meet who might not be friends or in the same group, like I talked about, everybody at St. Pat’s together, some of those are. They’re getting smaller, they’re closing. They’re having to combine with other churches. So part of my hope is that as those churches find ways to come together and work together, that there’ll be more of that spirit available. Like St. Pat’s is involved in merging with St. Malachi’s, and St. Paul’s Church just lost our minister, and we’re looking, we are working collaboratively with two other Protestant churches here. So I think the churches can carry a sense of everybody matters and we can deal with each other differently. So that’s a hope, too. It’s. I think the gentrification dynamic has shifted greatly since when I first came here. So there’s all kinds of people here who are young couples of European American descent with their dogs and sometimes children that weren’t here then that are living in a lot of the apartments that have been created. In some ways, it’s, you know, for the longer term residents, it’s more and more expensive to live here because the taxes go up, including my husband and I, because we’re now longer term residents. You know, I’ve been here since the seventies and our house taxes are going to go up and up and up and the new apartment buildings get tax abatement for 15 years. In some ways, the economic dimensions have, the preponderance has shifted greatly. It’s probably not as frightening to be on the streets for me anymore. It might be more so for some African Americans or for some homeless people. It might be more frightening to be on the streets. I don’t know, or less. I don’t know so.

Bali White [01:03:27] Well, thank you very much. So are there any last thoughts you have before we wrap this up?

Kathleen McDonnell [01:03:39] Any questions you might have?

Bali White [01:03:41] No. You actually answered in detail a lot of the things I was curious about. So thank you very much.

Kathleen McDonnell [01:03:48] Yeah, I don’t think I have any summative statements. [laughs]

Bali White [01:03:51] Well, I’m Bali White here with Kathleen McDonnell at St. Paul’s community UCC church on Franklin and 45th. Thank you. Appreciate your time.

Kathleen McDonnell [01:04:05] Appreciate your time and what you’re doing, too. Good luck to you, Bali

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.