The tale of four complexes: How will Akron address 'widespread, systemic' housing issues?

A mother complained she had to bathe her 4-year-old in the kitchen sink because of mold in her bathtub.

A tenant recounted a story of contracting an illness from a rodent infestation that left her homeless.

Another expressed her hardships living in a building designed for older people and people with disabilities with elevators that kept breaking down.

These were among the stories shared at last week's City Council public comment session. Renters from four complexes serving marginalized groups — including low-income residents, chronically homeless, older adults and people with disabilities — gathered to share their experiences.

“It is a true act against humanity when it comes to the living spaces of people living in Akron,” Dee McCall, a community organizer for Freedom BLOC, a Black-led organizing collective working to assist marginalized groups with fair housing, told council members.

For over a month, tenants have appeared before council to share stories of their “unlivable” apartments.

As residents chronicled their stories of pests, mold and absent management, several council members expressed extreme concern and urged action to address “widespread” and “systemic” issues facing renters in the city.

“We really need you guys to help,” pleaded Edmikia Minter, a resident at Ericsson Apartments in East Akron.

Rodent infestation at Stoney Pointe Commons renders tenant homeless

Teneeka Hamilton moved into Stoney Pointe Commons in May 2020, excited by the prospect of having an apartment in a new building after living in her car and in hotels.

The 68-unit complex, owned by White Pond LLC and built in 2018, was designed to cater to the chronically homeless and people with disabilities. Each tenant receives a project-based voucher from Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, and social services are offered in-house by Community Support Services.

But less than a month after moving into Stoney Pointe Commons, she said she contracted histoplasmosis, an infection caused by breathing in spores of bird, bat and rodent feces.

Hamilton said mice scurried across her bed as she tried to sleep, and she found droppings nearly everywhere in her apartment, including where she prepared food.

“I lost everything,” she told the Beacon Journal before she moved out on Jan. 21. “My furniture, my clothes, my health, my mind.”

Hamilton had to break her lease at the end of January with the help of AMHA and the building’s new management, ABC Management, which took over Jan. 1.

Devon Palmowski, ABC Management's director of operations, told the Beacon Journal they were unaware of the problem prior to the exchange of management and were treating the issue more aggressively. 

"I cannot speak to whatever happened previously because I wasn’t there before [Jan. 1]," Palmowski said. "As far as ABC is concerned, we take these issues seriously, and we are always aiming for the health and safety of the residents. I’m sorry she left, and I wish it could’ve been rectified for her sooner."

Hamilton had to sleep in her car, where she had been living prior to moving into Stoney Pointe Commons, as she waited on a long list for a shelter bed.

Following publication of a Beacon Journal article, Freedom BLOC connected with Hamilton and paid for her to stay in a hotel while she searches for permanent housing with her AMHA voucher, though options are sparse.

But the group cannot and should not be the only ones helping, said McCall, whose work with Freedom BLOC has included assisting in forming tenant unions throughout the city. She said the organization is trying to unionize the residents at Stoney Pointe Commons to speak up about their living situation and demand more from the city, management and ownership.

“We really need to empower these folks to speak up for themselves,” she said. ​”It’s hard because the people are discouraged because they feel like no one is listening or will help them. What we need in this city is to bring the people to the table for these decisions.”

Broken elevators leave older adults and people with disabilities stranded

Meanwhile, at White Pond Villa, a 48-year-old complex designed for older adults and people with disabilities, residents have suffered catastrophic effects of elevator shutdowns. An outage earlier this month resulted in four days without access to an elevator, and breakdowns are ongoing.

For residents, many of whom rely on mobility scooters, wheelchairs and canes, not having access to an elevator means missing doctor’s appointments, scrambling to get their medication or fearing what would happen if an emergency evacuation needed to occur.

For now, the owners installed a temporary part — a solution that is just a “band-aid fix,” said Akron Fire Department Capt. Michael Haas. 

Duane Groeger, the city's housing administrator, said the owners are planning to replace the elevators in a process that will take between six to nine months.

“I don’t believe these owners are giving up on these elevators,” Groeger said. “I don’t believe a reasonable owner could say abandoning these elevators is even an option for a number of reasons.”

Issues with the elevators are hardly new, residents say. Deborah Holman, who has lived at White Pond Villa for six years, said she remembers problems ever since she moved in, along with other complaints.

There are four active case files among the 170 units, three of which have violations the owners have been ordered to correct, Groeger said. The fourth resident is working to schedule an inspection. 

Groeger said attempts to reach the ownership have proved unsuccessful.

According to Summit County property tax records, the property is owned by New Jersey-based Apex White Pond L.P.

The complex is managed by a regional property manager Naftali Levenbrown, who did not respond to an email from the housing division prior to last week's meeting but spoke with the city on Feb. 2. Attempts by the Beacon Journal to reach him by phone and email were unsuccessful.

“This is not the first time we’ve talked about out-of-state property owners that are difficult to get ahold of,” Ward 8 Councilman Shammas Malik said. “The band-aid fix … the unresponsiveness; that’s all very frustrating because these property owners have a legal responsibility, but they also have a moral responsibility.”

Tenant Deborah Holman wants accountability now.

“I would like to see people be held accountable for their actions,” she said. “They’re making money off the residents knowing they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing as a landlord.”  

She took matters into her own hands by forming a tenants association in 2020, though they have been unable to meet much throughout the pandemic. She plans to reinvigorate efforts this month in response to the elevator outages.

“Nobody should be living this way,” she said.

Tenants continue to organize against poor living conditions at two East Akron complexes

With the help of Freedom BLOC and Community Legal Aid, two housing complexes in East Akron, Wilbeth-Arlington Homes and Ericsson Apartments, formed tenant unions in October 2021 as renovations upended their already poor living situations. 

Frequent ownership and management turnover have adversely affected residents of the low-income complexes, where tenants have long endured issues with roaches, rodents, mold, broken windows and doors and more.

After both properties were purchased by Texas-based Redwood Housing Partners in 2021, the company began $40 million in renovations to update each unit. In a presentation to City Council on Jan. 3, Redwood and KMG Prestige, which manages the properties, explained their renovation process and how they are addressing tenant complaints, including pest control, inspections and treatments.

“I certainly understand some of the concerns. The property was in poor condition,” Connie Mathes, the regional vice president and director of compliance at KMG Prestige, said during the presentation.  “I think that we’ve done a lot to address their concerns. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely.”

They said they plan to complete renovations by this summer.

Edmikia Minter, the president of Ericsson Apartments' tenant union, said she was moved into a renovated unit with her two children in November and found cockroaches her first night there. She said despite contacting management several times, pest control has never entered her apartment. In addition, a broken toilet she has complained about since December remains unfixed, leaking water she must regularly mop up.

Council President Margo Sommerville noted a recent visit where she saw a “brand-new window that was not installed properly” which caused “wind to blow in on a child sleeping in a bed right next to it.”

Ownership attributed those concerns to supply chain issues with procuring windows and said it should no longer occur. Additionally, they assured they were addressing problems as they come up.

Both Redwood and KMG representatives said they want to work with the tenant union and are meeting regularly with them.

“We want communications from our residents,” said KMG’s CEO Paul Spencer in the Jan. 3 presentation. “That’s the only way we can run a highly effective community … We really want to enhance people’s lives.”

Minter said Redwood and KMG contacted her for the first time in January, months after the unions were formed and complaints had been leveled. Leadership of both tenants unions now meet virtually with ownership and management every other week to bring forth ongoing complaints.

Minter said things still haven't changed.

"I feel like we repeating ourselves every two weeks, I swear," she said.

Redwood Housing Director Nick Boehm said in an email he understands tenants have suffered from "decades of underinvestment and/or mismanagement" that Redwood is "committed to reversing by raising the standard of living." 

He said renovations go through several inspections before a tenant is moved in. An online resident portal also is being developed to submit work order requests directly to property management.

"Our primary goal is to raise the standard of living in the Akron community," he said. "We cannot do this alone and welcome any communication from the union(s).

Donnie Kammer, Ward 7’s council representative, said he is in weekly communication with Redwood and KMG.

In addition, Kammer, Ward 5’s Tara Mosley and at-large council member Jeff Fusco have attended meetings with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Redwood and representatives from U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office.

How will Akron address rental issues?

Because these problems are systemic, Malik said, there’s “no quick fix.” Instead, he told the Beacon Journal, there needs to be a prolonged, sustained effort toward making housing more equitable in Akron.

Most immediately, he believes the city should use some of its $145 million in federal COVID relief dollars toward increasing staff within the housing division.

The city employs four inspectors and two supervisors in its housing division. With the city’s upcoming operational budget hearings in March, multiple council members have said they believe it would be an opportune time to hire additional inspectors, even temporarily using federal stimulus funds.

In addition, Malik recommended taking a closer look at the city’s housing code and making sure the enforcement “has teeth” with fines and repercussions in place.

In the cases of complexes with a high turnover in ownership such as Wilbeth-Arlington Homes or Ericsson Apartments, Ward 4 Councilman Russ Neal said he doesn’t think ownership should be allowed to change while there are active health and safety violations. 

He also suggested excluding complexes with multiple violations from the city incentive programs, such as Akron’s 100%, 15-year property tax abatement program established in 2017. Any new builds that are beneficiaries should be held to a high standard, he said.

“To hear the stories week in and week out about circumstances that are so heartbreaking and so just unrelenting and to keep hearing these stories and to know these circumstances exist is to be called to do everything we can,” Ward 1 Councilwoman Nancy Holland said. “We have the ability to examine what can be done to assure that Akronites have access to safe housing and fair housing and an avenue of recourse when these things come up."

Published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Feb. 11, 2022.

'I lost everything': Rodent misery, illness drive tenant from Akron housing complex

As Teneeka Hamilton wheeled a cart through the hallway of her apartment complex — the contents of which were all she had left — she felt relief, anger and frustration. 

“This is so depressing,” she said Friday as she waited for the elevator. “Because once I check out of my hotel tomorrow at noon, I have no idea where I’m going to go.”

She couldn't help but contrast the feeling of despair to where she was last May when she first moved to Stoney Pointe Commons, a 68-unit supportive housing complex built in 2018 at 1791 Vernon Odom Blvd. for low-income tenants and people with disabilities.

After struggling with mental health issues and sleeping in hotels and her car, the idea of having a new apartment to herself was “exciting.”

“She was so happy coming in here,” said Hamilton’s mother, Gail Brooks, as she helped her daughter pack up what few belongings remained in her apartment on Jan. 20. “I really thought it was going to work out for you.”

But now, after more than eight months of battling an infection caused by ongoing rodent infestation issues, Hamilton “would’ve just stayed homeless” if she had known what she was facing. With few possessions left and nowhere to live, she is “really depressed" and considering a lawsuit against the complex and its management. 

“I’m back in my car — where I started before I ever came here,” she said. “I still lost everything, and have to start over again.”

Rodent issue leads to 'nightmare' medical diagnosis

Hamilton moved into unit 219 at Stoney Pointe Commons in May 2021 with a project-based subsidy from Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority that paid $435 of her $691 rent.

The building is owned by Stoney Pointe LLC, according to county property tax records, but all 68 units receive housing vouchers from AMHA and social services from Community Support Services.

Hamilton said she wanted to live in the building because it was less than 3 years old at the time. The terms of her subsidy required her to sign a one-year lease to be eligible for a tenant-based voucher, formerly known as Section 8.

Almost immediately, she fell ill. At first, she chalked it up to an asthma flare-up, but soon her inability to breathe, as well as major body aches, fever and chills, became unbearable.

“I thought I was dying,” she recalled.

After a trip to the emergency room in June and multiple doctor’s appointments, she tested positive for histoplasmosis, an infection caused by breathing in spores of bird, bat and rodent feces. Around the same time, she began noticing small droppings throughout her apartment.

Months wore on and her diagnosis became a medical “nightmare,” draining her financially, requiring a procedure to remove tissue from her lungs and a slew of prescription drugs to begin to recover. The droppings became more frequent, and she started seeing mice — and even rats — in her apartment. 

“This is scary,” she said. “I’m here because I have a mental health disability, and they’re supposed to help me stay stable, but I’ve been so unstable. … I feel like I’m fighting for my life.”

Hamilton found droppings in her cabinets, oven and microwave, and she worried she had contracted her illness from ingesting feces. She became so anxious about preparing meals in her home that she no longer cooked and relied on fast food or takeout.

When the Beacon Journal visited her near-empty unit last week, there were rodent droppings throughout the entire unit: behind the fridge, on countertops, in the bathroom, on the wall where her couch used to be and even in the coils of her stove.

Per her doctor’s orders, she threw out anything that might’ve had contact with the pests. She had spent more than $1,000 to furnish the entire apartment in May and had to toss her new rugs, couch, mattress, bedding and most of her clothes.

When she moved out, all she carried with her to her car — where she is currently living in subfreezing temperatures — was a suitcase and a few other small items. She used what “little money” she had left to book a one-night stay in a hotel.

Her primary source of income is disability checks. She lost her job at the Romig Road Amazon distribution center because she was "too sick to get there."

“I’m at the end of what I can handle right now,” she said. “I had to throw away everything I have. I have a couple outfits and hygiene things I tried to save. They told me not to keep anything but I had to keep something in order to live.”

Beyond monetary costs, the emotional and mental toll was "much worse." Each night when she tried to sleep, she said she would hear squealing in the utility closet off her bedroom where she would often spot the rodents coming from.

The terror kept her awake for months. She worried if she closed her eyes, a mouse would scurry across her bed — which she said had happened before.

She could hear them in the walls too, she said, as they made their way between apartments. 

“It sounds like running water,” she said. “But it’s not. It’s rodents running through the walls.”

Pests are a problem in new building

Hamilton is not the only tenant who is experiencing rodent problems at Stoney Pointe.

Two other tenants along her hallway told the Beacon Journal that they had been living in the building since it was built in 2018, and had rodent issues ever since.

“[Management] would send out these complaint sheets, but it takes them awhile to do anything,” said neighbor Ken Hunter, who has been living in his unit since it was built. Management companies changed Jan. 1. “I’ve caught probably five or six [rodents].”

On the day she moved in, Hamilton and her mother both said they saw mousetraps in the hallway outside people’s doors and in common areas, such as the garbage room on her floor.

“They keep giving me sticky traps, but I’ve had to tape my cabinets and try to block where they can get in myself,” said Ernest Chatman, another tenant who has been living in the building since 2018. “I was sick all week in the hospital last week. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s got to do with that."

Hamilton said she is worried that not all tenants, many of whom experience mental health issues, are able to advocate for themselves. She hopes sharing her story and her possible suit against the complex will improve the living conditions for others after she's gone.

“No one should have to live like this,” she said. “If I got sick from the rats, imagine how many other people are sick and don’t even realize why.”

She complained to the previous management company, National Church Residences, on multiple occasions, but said all they ever did was place sticky traps on the floor of her unit and a poison trap on the counter. If a rodent was caught, she said she would have to deal with it herself.

At the beginning of 2022, ABC Management took over supervision of the building.

After Hamilton called the city this month, the housing division sent an inspector to her unit on Jan. 19. The citation, provided to the Beacon Journal, requires that management must eradicate rodents on the premises and extermination must begin “at once.” Management must comply with those orders by Feb. 10, according to the document.

AMHA interim Director Debbie Barry said she hadn’t heard of the problems at Stoney Pointe Commons prior to a Beacon Journal reporter’s inquiry, but she immediately contacted management to get an update on the rodent issue. ABC Management said despite receiving reports of both, pest control hadn’t found evidence of rat droppings, but did acknowledge a mice problem.

“According to a conversation with the owner’s representatives, since it’s been built they had an occasional issue so they had pest control on a monthly basis,” Barry said. “I think in November they just became aware that it was a bigger problem. At the time it became a bigger problem, the management company gave notice they’d be out by the end of the year.”

Devon Palmowski, ABC Management's director of operations, said the company was unaware of problems in the building prior to taking over Jan. 1, and it promptly began treating the building aggressively.

Palmowski said due to Hamilton's complaints,  an exterminator was hired to make an assessment and seal entry points, which should be completed at the end of the week. If any additional treatment is needed, such as laying traps, that will be addressed as well, she said, though the problem is not "building wide."

"One tenant’s concern and what she stated was enough for us to bring in the proper people for an assessment," she said.

Typically, if a building fails inspections three times, all AMHA funding to the property ceases and tenants are issued a voucher, but infestations are “tricky,” Barry said. Because pests can take a while to be eradicated, a landlord just needs to prove they are treating the issue. Palmowski said she is hopefully the issue will be solved after their efforts this month.

"I cannot speak to whatever happened previously because I wasn’t there before [Jan. 1]," Palmowski said. "As far as ABC is concerned, we take these issues seriously and we are always aiming for the health and safety of the residents. I’m sorry she left and I wish it could’ve been rectified for her sooner."

Problems lead to broken lease, possible lawsuit

Hamilton was desperate to leave the complex after dealing with problems and health concerns for eight months, but her project-based voucher barred her from breaking her lease and leaving early.

Per regulations set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, tenants with a project-based voucher must live in that unit for at least a year before they can switch to a tenant-based voucher, which allows a broader range of housing options.

The only way to break that agreement, Barry said, is for reasonable accommodation for a medical condition.

To prove those circumstances, Hamilton’s doctor wrote a letter on Jan. 7, saying she had “no doubt” that her living conditions caused her initial diagnosis, worsened her health and made her unable to improve medically. In the letter, provided to the Beacon Journal, she makes a “strong recommendation” that Hamilton “never return” to the apartment to protect herself from further worsening her health.

AMHA and ABC Management agreed to break her lease, and Hamilton was finally able to leave Jan. 21. 

After she turned in her keys, she spent a night at Hilton Garden Inn on East Market Street. Rest was essential, she said, because she hadn’t slept a full night in months.

“I’m really depressed,” she said in between tears. “I’m just tired. I just want to rest. That’s the only way I’m going to get better for my health and stay sane. It’s so overwhelming, man.”

After she checked out on Saturday, she was back to living in her car as temperatures dipped into single digits. She is using the restroom at a local fast-food restaurant or a family member’s house to wash up.

She is on a long list for a shelter bed, though she is hesitant to stay in one out of fear of contracting COVID-19 on top of her current health troubles. But as temperatures continue to remain low during a January cold snap, she doesn’t feel like she has much of a choice.

Hamilton was able to secure her housing voucher a few hours after moving out. Though Akron City Council passed legislation barring landlords from income-based discrimination last year, she said it will likely be awhile before she can find a permanent residence.

She has hired a lawyer who has taken on her case and is currently investigating. She is considering a suit against the complex.

“I lost everything,” she said. “My furniture, my clothes, my health, my mind.”

Published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Jan. 27, 2022.

West Hill task force canvasses Akron neighborhood to assess needs, provide direct aid

When Josy Jones walked into a laundromat on a Thursday night with a stack of free bus passes, manager Becky Bydo’s face lit up. 

“I could just hug you right now,” she told Jones. 

It’s a simple thing, really, but Bydo insists that kindness from a neighbor not only changed her entire night, but weeks to come.

“My husband has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and we were really stressing about how to get there,” she said. “And in here, I see people from all walks of life. There have been times I’ve handed people my own cash for the bus. Now I can just give them one of these.”

The stop at the laundromat was part of a greater canvassing and outreach effort by Jones and three other neighbors who calls themselves the “West Hill Comeback Task Force.”

“We’re really trying to revolutionize how community advocacy is done,” said Fran Wilson, a 26-year-old West Hill resident.

With a $20,000 grant from Akron City Council’s COVID relief funds, the group banded together under West Hill Neighborhood Organization, the neighborhood’s community development corporation, to provide direct aid and community programming for the residents and set the stage for bigger plans on the horizon.

Addressing direct needs through canvassing and surveying

The group received the grant from City Council in November. The goal was to address immediate needs related to the pandemic, while also using the opportunity to gain a better insight as to who lived in the neighborhood and what long-term goals they had for it.

“I do not have a title under West Hill Neighborhood Organization,” Wilson said. “I'm just a neighbor who cares a lot about our community and wants to see the possibilities for West Hill if basic needs are met.” 

To get an accurate assessment of those needs, the team has spent months going door-to-door canvassing homes to gather data from neighbors to inform programming.

The group has also posted flyers in highly-trafficked West Hill businesses and at bus stops with a QR code to take an online survey. To incentivize as many people to answer as possible, particularly low-income residents who tend to be left out of community organizing, the flyer promotes the possibility of winning free bus passes. A targeted texting campaign also promotes the survey, collects data and spreads positive messaging.

“We need to meet people where they’re at, especially in blighted and under-resourced neighborhoods,” Wilson said.

The survey begins by collecting basic demographic and identification questions, including price of rent, cost of utilities and sliding scale to rate tenant’s relationships with landlords for the 72% of the neighborhood’s population that are renters.

Similar to much of Akron, a majority of the housing stock predates the 1940s: an issue that particularly plagues the neighborhood as it was one of the first established in the city. Residents can indicate in the survey if they are in need of car or home repairs for things such as kitchen, bathroom or roof fixes. Wilson said the group is currently seeking further funding and grants to provide that aid to the people who indicated they need it.

Neighbors are also prompted to answer questions about what their favorite and least favorite thing about the neighborhood is, where they spend their free time, what sorts of businesses they’d like to see in the neighborhood, if they’re considering opening a business and if they’d like to volunteer for community events.

To offset some of the significant economic challenges throughout the pandemic, the group has also distributed hundreds of bus passes and grocery cards.

“I am quite excited to see the long term impacts of simple things like handing out bus cards,” Wilson said. “Anybody who has lived in poverty or relied on public transportation knows a bus ticket has a profound impact on somebody’s day and their well-being.”

Creating an engaged community in ‘disconnected’ neighborhood ‘bursting with potential’

West Hill is situated between two of Akron’s most central social and economically prosperous communities: Downtown and Highland Square. Despite its benefits, being juxtaposed to these two hubs can cause an identity issue for the neighborhood, especially because of its geographic challenges, such as the Innerbelt separating it from downtown.

“West Hill is a funny neighborhood being so close to Highland Square and downtown, but people not actually feeling connected to those places,” said David Swirsky, a member of the task force. “There’s a lot of opportunity, it’s just connecting the dots.”

Through canvassing, Jones has also discovered a lot of people in the neighborhood “don’t even know what West Hill is.”

“We’re more of a pass-through neighborhood versus trying to come here to do something,” Jones said. “Currently, anyway.”

And the neighborhood’s population, she’s found, is relatively transient.

“When people don’t stay in neighborhoods, it’s because they don’t feel at home in that neighborhood,” she said. “We see this as a really cool place that could be unique in the city of Akron. We want people here to see that too.”

Jones had unofficially been canvassing the neighborhood since she moved to Akron in January 2017. The playwright and performer has used her art to catalyze community engagement and inform her work. A lot of her art has centered on a special live-work zoning code specific to West Hill, which allows residents to operate a business out of their homes.

“Not a lot of people have an understanding of what it is or are taking advantage of it,” Jones said. “And we need more gathering spaces to combat that disconnectedness. There are places you could come to, but with the [live-work zoning], it’s ripe for change or for things to be even better.”

As the organization works on those long-term visions for the neighborhood, they are looking at simpler ways to spur community engagement more immediately. 

Funds from the City Council grant are being used to bolster existing projects, such as constructing picnic tables in the Oakdale Pocket Park. The task force has also organized community events in recent months, including fall and winter fests at the pocket park and Balch Street Theater with activities and snacks.

As for future steps, it all depends on what they learn through their survey.

“It’s about working with a community, not for a community, and that process takes longer,” Jones said. “The CDC could just say, ‘I’m going to develop this thing and tell no one’ versus taking the longer route, which is what we’re doing, and the impact lasts a lot longer.”

Published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Jan. 19, 2022.

Middlebury’s demolition rates are among the highest in the city, but building new homes in their place isn’t easy

By Abbey Marshall and H.L. Comeriato

On Oct. 12, 2020, a family still lived at 426 McGowan St.

In its final weeks, the house loomed empty, every window an empty socket. On the second floor, a thin curtain waved in the wind, pulled outward through a crack in the glass. Upstairs, cigarette butts and crayons littered the floor. A note taped to a door ripped from its hinges acted as a reminder: “No friends over until after the weekend — Mom.”

On Jan. 12, the house was gone. A layer of straw covered a muddy lot in its place.

“It is sad,” one resident says in passing as he looks over his shoulder at the lot across the street and walks inside his home. “But you’re used to seeing it in Akron.”

This block on McGowan Street is only about a tenth of a mile long. Yet the block between Clark and Johnston Streets in Middlebury, south of Mason Community Learning Center, has seen at least seven houses torn or burnt down in the past decade. 

The Summit County Land Bank demolished 322 housing units in Middlebury between January 2010 and September 2020. That’s 12.8 demolitions per 100 homes, the second highest rate in the city, behind Summit Lake.

Read more about housing in Akron here.

Beautiful, easy data visualization and storytelling

The houses that are still standing are often in need of serious repairs and renovations. But with property values struggling accordingly, neighborhood advocates and nonprofit developers say it is very difficult to attract new construction to fill vacant lots in the neighborhood. 

And today, more than two-thirds of Middlebury homes are rentals, meaning many residents have limited control over the safety and health hazards that often accompany aging housing stock. 

‘Lost cause:’ Foreclosures hit Middlebury homeowners hard

Middlebury, which stretches from Grace Park in the north to I-76 in the south, was the city’s first neighborhood.

In the early 1900s, an uptick in industry along East Exchange Street spurred a housing boom. According to the City of Akron, 70% of all homes in Middlebury were built before 1940. But the 1970s brought an economic downturn that left Middlebury residents struggling to find employment and cut off from the rest of the city by freeway construction.

By 2018, Middlebury’s unemployment rate was nearly double the City of Akron’s unemployment rate, and the neighborhood’s median household income was among the lowest in the city.

Patrick Bravo, the executive director of Summit County Land Bank, says Middlebury, like many Akron neighborhoods, was devastated by foreclosures during the Great Recession.

“At the end of the foreclosure crisis in 2008, there were an estimated 100,000 abandoned or blighted structures throughout Ohio, and we knew that number was severely underreported at the time,” Bravo says. 

Between 2000 and 2014, there were at least 13 tax and mortgage foreclosures on McGowan Street between Clark and Gage Streets — a three-block stretch with just 37 total residential lots.

By 2020, the city estimated 68% of 2,668 housing units in Middlebury were rental properties.

Today, grass lots dot McGowan Street. Homes still standing from the housing boom more than a century ago sit crooked, sinking into muddy lawns, many of them in need of serious repairs. Near the corner of McGowan and Corley Streets, one yard is littered with scrap metal. A thin blue tarp covers a hole in the roof.

But it wasn’t always this way, says Pam Vaughan. She’s lived in this area for about 30 years, 16 of them in the home she owns on McGowan Street. 

She watched the neighborhood change as people left for one reason or another, until landlords leasing properties outnumbered homeowners and properties fell into disrepair.

The way Vaughan sees it, the area is a “lost cause.” 

“I wish they would just tear them all down,” she says.

When asked if she’d move given she had the time and money to do so, Vaughan shrugs. 

“This bulls— happens everywhere here.”

Hundreds of homes have been demolished in the last decade

In 2012, the Summit County Land Bank received federal funding to begin demolishing the county’s more than 5,000 blighted and abandoned structures. By 2014, the agency had demolished more than 900 properties, and it planned to raze an additional 600 via its Neighborhood Initiative Program through 2019.

Drew Reilly, a staff attorney at the Land Bank, says deteriorating properties aren’t just dangerous for the people living or working near them, but also for unhoused people who sometimes use them for shelter. Without regulations, repairs or access to utilities, these homes often become ongoing safety and health hazards.

“It’s like going to the dentist,” Bravo says. “You have to remove the bad before you can start rebuilding the good. You have to take care of the cavity that’s sort of left behind for these abandoned and blighted properties.”

After a dangerous structure is demolished, the Land Bank and other agencies turn their focus to other parts of the housing puzzle, like building new properties, renovating existing homes or selling properties to other organizations who will help renovate them.

‘He won’t fix it’

Of the 16 remaining homes on the 400 block of McGowan Street, 12 are renter-occupied. Several tenants told The Devil Strip their landlords do not complete adequate repairs. 

“I got cracks in the foundation, the water leaking through the hole in the roof, creatures in between the ceiling and floors,” says Larry Carter, a tenant on McGowan Street. “[My landlord] says ‘oh, you’re just missing shingles,’ but no, there’s a hole in my roof. He won’t fix it.”

Larry Carter. (Abbey Marshall)

Carter’s property is owned by Gary Thomas. Thomas also owned 426 McGowan St. before it was torn down by the Summit County Land Bank, a reutilization corporation that aims to strengthen neighborhoods and communities hit hard by abandonment, blight and foreclosures.

Patrick Bravo, the Land Bank’s executive director, says landlords like Thomas are all too common in neighborhoods like Middlebury.

“Those landlords are a problem,” Bravo says. “We’ve had problems in some of the properties Mr. Thomas owns where we’ve had stoves heating up by themselves. Properties with no front door or no windows on the second floor.”

“The folks who were living in [that] housing don’t oftentimes have a lot of options,” Bravo adds. “They don’t have great credit scores to just be able to quickly move to another apartment. They’re in those properties and putting up with that for a reason, and they’re being taken advantage of.”

In 2018, the Land Bank acquired scores of Thomas’ properties, with a collective tax delinquency approaching $1 million.

Even when state and local agencies know about landlords like Thomas, Bravo says there are few legal options to keep landlords like him from acquiring more properties. 

Thomas could not be reached for comment. 

Carter is at a loss. He thinks his rental could eventually be torn down — but he doesn’t care to stick around and find out. 

“I just need to move to a better neighborhood,” he says.

Ebony Simmons, who lives a few doors down from Carter, agrees. She’s been at her home for about two years — “two years too long,” she says.

She was happy to see 426 McGowan St. go. As the mother of a 9-year-old boy, she was anxious about the dangers the dilapidated house posed to her child.

“It’s better because I can see my son walk to the store [across the lot]. It’s better that way,” Simmons says. “I don’t know if people was inside there doing meth. I didn’t let my son go down that way. There’s no telling what a kid could get into.”

The safety concerns about surrounding houses mount on top of health concerns in her own rental property: Mice have eaten through her son’s new school clothes. 

Simmons says when she complained about the rodents, she was told they were her responsibility.

“I’d rather just move,” Simmons says.

The home Simmons rents was built in 1889. According to Summit County property tax records, the property is owned by Grandesco Real Estate, LLC. The company acquired Simmons’s home in 2018 and has been charged a $100 penalty for failing to register the two-unit property as a rental with the county every year since. 

According to the Summit County Fiscal Office, Simmons’s home still isn’t registered with the county — though it was registered in the City of Akron’s rental registry in 2019. 

But a second database of rental properties maintained by the city lists an owner identification number for Simmons’ property that names Eco Realty Investments, LLC as the owner. 

Ohio business filings identify Sarah Melton as the incorporator of Grandesco Real Estate. The Devil Strip reached someone by that name who denied any affiliation with the company. Zac Hoyt, who is listed as the owner of Eco Realty Investments, LLC, did not reply to requests for comment.

Many landlords work with property managers, who deal with tenants directly, adding a layer of friction between tenants and landlords. At times, prospective landlords invest with companies that offer to help them purchase properties as well as manage them.

Further, property investors can bury their identities beneath LLCs, making it difficult to untangle who owns a given home. 

For tenants, multiple layers of ownership and management can make it difficult to know who should be responsible for addressing health or safety hazards in their homes.

What will it take to bring housing back to Middlebury? 

Areas where teardowns are concentrated are at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting new development. For-profit developers typically pass over neighborhoods like Middlebury and opt for investments in neighborhoods where home values are already stable. 

Nonprofit developers such as Habitat for Humanity can subsidize construction with federal funds and volunteer builders. But if a for-profit developer can build the same home in another neighborhood or suburb and turn a profit, they will do so, says Rochelle Sibbio, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Summit County.

“I’m at a loss from the time I put a shovel in the ground and dig that hole,” Sibbio says. “I know I’m losing money. A for-profit builder is not going to come into neighborhoods like that because they know they’ll go bankrupt.”

Habitat for Humanity of Summit County, has built five new homes in Middlebury since 1986 and completed 27 home repairs since 2010, when they started their renovation program. Sibbio says Habitat loses at least $20,000 with every house it builds. 

“A lot of these neighborhoods are at a tipping point,” Sibbio says. “A lot of demolition and blight took place, but they aren’t quite ready to be redeveloped.”

Further, she says, many families buying homes through Habitat choose to leave the neighborhood.

“Habitat families are eligible to select a piece of property, and if we own land outside the city of Akron — in Twinsburg, Stow, Copley, other parts of Summit County — those lots get picked first over lots in Akron,” she says. “The biggest reason is they want to raise their kids in a safe neighborhood with a yard and good schools.”

Akron is attempting to slow flight to the suburbs through housing initiatives like a 15-year tax abatement. That policy dismisses property taxes on new construction and significant renovations. 

In Middlebury, the nonprofit East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation applied for a tax abatement on the Middlebury Commons, a 40-unit apartment complex for older adults. During a 2020 interview with The Devil Strip, the developer called the tax abatement “incredibly helpful.” 

Generally, though, new home construction that qualifies for the tax abatement has been concentrated in neighborhoods where housing markets are more stable. 

Although certain major home renovations qualify for the tax abatement, most basic home repair projects like new roofs or siding do not. The city does, however, offer the City of Akron Minor Home Repair Program, which targets low-income, elderly homeowners or homeowners with disabilities to assist with repairs such as new roofs, new furnaces and plumbing and electrical updates.

Nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity and The Well Community Development Corporation are trying to help stabilize Middlebury’s housing market by helping homeowners repair their aging homes or rehabilitating existing properties themselves.

The Well is in the midst of renovating 60 homes in 60 months, an initiative they plan to complete later this year. They rent out 35 of those units and have sold two of the completed homes at cost of the projects.

“One of our arguments is to rehab first,” says Reuben Auck, The Well’s housing manager. “With our rehabs, we believe that, for the most part, we could sell and recoup those funds, then put that back into the next project.”

The Well will break ground in a few months on a duplex, their first new build in the neighborhood. The project is heavily funded by federal dollars. Auck does not believe it would be likely that new homes would be built without government support.

Of the duplex project, Auck says, “we’re trying to maintain the identity of the neighborhood… We want to make it feel like it belongs there. A lot of times in low-income neighborhoods, you can go by and pick out who built what at a reduced cost. We didn’t want the neighbors to feel like it didn’t belong on the street.”

Auck, who lives in Middlebury with his wife, acknowledges his neighbors can’t help but feel hopeless about housing conditions in their neighborhood. But through his work, he wants to bring hope back.

“We view everything as being very much intertwined and linked. Housing is just one of our three initiatives: restoring housing, creating economy, supporting place,” he says, citing other programs like working in schools, supporting food entrepreneurs and more. “We try to do all three of those things for our neighborhood, and we think that’s the only way to restore the hope.”

Originally published in The Devil Strip and the Akron Beacon Journal on March 11, 2021.

The Home in Akron series was produced by The Akron Beacon Journal, The Devil Strip, News 5 Cleveland, Your Voice Ohio and WKSU. It is part of Reveal’s Local Labs initiative, which supports lasting, sustainable investigative collaborations across the country.

Here’s what Merriman Valley residents want to see from the cities’ upcoming master plan

Between Akron and Cuyahoga Falls sit the Merriman Valley’s rolling hills, flowing river, and shared sense of pride over the neighborhood’s natural beauty and resources.

But the valley is at a crossroads when it comes to its future. It’s a neighborhood of contrasts: the recent site of several large development proposals, which have received public backlash from homeowners who want to preserve the unused green space; some of the city’s highest home values as well as some of its largest apartment complexes; and a distinctly suburban feel despite residents and business owners’ visions of a recreational economy.

The cities of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls are convening to begin a yearlong process to develop a master plan for the area, which will be implemented over decades to come. Cuyahoga Falls City Council will vote this month to choose a consultant for the project. If approved, both cities will commit $100,000 to the planning process.

The Devil Strip spoke to homeowners, renters and business owners to learn about their wishlist and expectations from the upcoming master plan.

A neighborhood across two cities

Parts of the Merriman Valley used to be Northampton Township, a rural farming community in the valley along the Cuyahoga River. In the 1970s, Akron and Cuyahoga Falls began annexing parcels of its land before merging the remainder of the township with Cuyahoga Falls in 1986.

Today, the Merriman Valley is split between the two cities. That arrangement complicated things when it came to planning and development in the neighborhood.

“It’s an area that sprung up at the intersection between Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Fairlawn and the [Cuyahoga Valley] national park,” says Shammas Malik, who represents Ward 8, including parts of the Merriman Valley, on Akron City Council. “It never really had a comprehensive plan, in some ways because the Akron and Cuyahoga Falls governments haven’t communicated well until recent years. They’re communicating now, and the master plan is the product of those discussions. ”

A consultant for the master planning process, Farr Associates, was named March 5 after a months-long search. Akron and Cuyahoga Falls are budgeting at least $100,000 each for the planning process. The implementation of the recommendations are not included in that figure.

Farr Associates is a Chicago-based architecture and planning firm that specializes in planning, urban design, sustainable architecture and environmentally sensitive design. 

Cuyahoga Falls will introduce legislation to their city council to hire Farr Associates on March 8. Public discussion will take place March 15. If approved, Cuyahoga Falls will serve as the fiscal agent of the project contracting with the firm. Akron will contract with Cuyahoga Falls to reimburse that city for half the cost.

The planning project is expected to begin this spring and conclude in early 2022. 

Many Valley homeowners have vocally opposed further housing development

Merriman Valley residents rally to oppose housing development on Theiss Road on Nov. 7. (Photo by Abbey Marshall)

While the rest of Akron developed in the early and mid-1900s to accommodate a population boom, the Merriman Valley did not begin to fully develop until the 1970s when its land was annexed by Akron and Cuyahoga Falls.

About 6,000 residents lived within Akron’s limits of the Merriman Valley in 2010, according to the city’s neighborhood profile that pulled from 2010 census data. The neighborhood’s housing stock is newer and more expensive than the rest of Akron, with a median sale price of $159,000 in December compared to $116,000 citywide, according to Redfin data. It also has the lowest vacancy rate of any Akron neighborhood.

“Looking to grow our own population, this is an area that could be desirable for people to live in,” Segedy says, citing the neighborhood’s proximity to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Blossom Music Center and other amenities. “In our overall plans to grow this city, we want to create many different environments for people to live in, whether that’s in an apartment downtown or living in a subdivision on the edge of the city in an area like this.”

In recent months, the most contentious debate in the neighborhood has been about what to do with undeveloped green space.

Proponents of residential development note how an increased population in the community could enhance the neighborhood, from increased patronage to businesses to amenities they complain are missing from the Valley, such as a grocery store and post office.

“There are some wonderful things happening here already, but there’s so much potential,”says Eric Starr, who owns Arkham Tattoo at 1562 Akron-Peninsula Rd. “If more people move here, that’s more visibility on our storefronts, more patrons of our bars and restaurants. I think a little more diversity as far as new businesses down there would be great.”

But the members of the Preserve the Valley citizen action group are staunchly opposed to new residential construction — at least while they await a master plan. From protests alongside the heavily trafficked Merriman Road to scores of public comments from city councilmembers in recent months, they’re determined to be heard.Months after Preserve the Valley’s efforts encouraging the city not to sell 45 acres of public green space at Theiss Road for residential development, the city reopened bids specifically for conservation efforts to be considered alongside the five development proposals.

Merriman Valley residents rally to oppose housing development on Theiss Road on Nov. 7. (Photo by Abbey Marshall)

“I really wasn’t expecting to organize a group,” says Shelley Pearsall, a resident of Merriman Valley who started a petition that has garnered over 15,000 signatures in opposition to development. “One day, I just went and stood on the property with my sign that said ‘Save these woods,’ and I was really stunned by how many people honked or pulled over to speak to me in support of what I was doing. It made me realize how passionate everyone here is about green space and the identity of our neighborhood.”

Residents fought a similar battle against rezoning residential development at plots of land at Sourek Trail and the former Sycamore Valley Golf Course in Cuyahoga Falls. They ultimately lost that fight when proposals for housing development, including more than 140 townhomes on each site, were approved in 2018 and 2019. The Villages at Sycamore are now on sale, with prices starting in the mid-$200,000 range.

A proposal for residential development at the former Riverwood Golf Course was approved by Akron City Council on Feb. 1. Petros Development Group plans to build 190 housing units (35% of which will be rentals) on 78 acres of land 100 feet from the Cuyahoga River, even after officials say they received “literally thousands” of emails from Northeast Ohioans in opposition, citing concerns ranging from income inequality to environmental issues to school funding.

Rich Swirsky, whose Ward 1 includes part of the Valley, opposed the vote. Malik, the other council member representing the neighborhood, abstained due to a conflict of interest with a former employer.

Some in the area argue it’s not one or the other: both development and conservation can exist in the Valley.

“It’s a great untapped resource as far as a residential neighborhood is concerned,” Starr says. “I’m definitely somebody that loves the metro parks but also owns a business down there. I think there’s enough land down there for additional housing, enough resources to get new recreation, more tourism. I think everything can be served, and I don’t think there’s any downside.”

Fred Guerra, Cuyahoga Falls’ Planning Director, says the goal of the master plan is to balance those interests.

“There are a lot of natural assets that need to be protected, and we plan to do that, but we also allow for appropriate growth with the plan,” he says.

Most Valley residents are renters

Even as the city plans to attract new homeowners to the area, renters make up 74% of Valley residents on Akron’s side, according to the city’s neighborhood profile.

Though Damien Betts, a renter at Timberland Village Apartments, wants to eventually leave Ohio, the 22-year-old says he and his neighbors have input for the cities’ consideration — even if their stay in the area may be temporary.

In the short term, Betts hopes to see a grocery store and increased walkability. Besides walking his dog in the parks, he says he has to leave the neighborhood for almost everything else.

“There are some inconveniences. I would really like to see more stores in the area,” he says. “I mostly have to drive, and I’d really like the option to walk to local businesses nearby.”

Thousands of tenants like Betts live in apartment complexes such as Cedarwood Village and Timber Top Apartments, which offer lower rents than many other complexes in the city. Akron’s 2019 median gross rent, a metric that includes rent and utilities, was $830. Timber Top currently lists one-bedroom apartments for as little as $650. Cedarwood’s one-bedroom options range from $700 to $760.

“I would want to see (the cities) focus on the housing that exists first,” adds Carley Yontz, a resident at Timber Top Apartments. Timber Top, a complex with more than 1,800 units, filed around one eviction per month from 2017 to 2019, according to Summit County records. “A lot of people who live here are lower income, and I don’t want them to be ignored to build brand expensive new housing. I would love for them to help with infrastructure issues here to create affordable housing with good conditions.”

Kyle Herman, a resident living at Cedarwood Village, believes housing could be a key to economic sustainability for the area.

“I’d like to see how development could happen in a more sustainable way,” Herman says. Originally from Stow, he left Washington, D.C. and moved to the Valley for affordable rent close to home when the pandemic began. “Both environmentally sustainable, but also economically sustainable so that there is tax revenue going to fix the problems that exist. All of the other services that they’re proposing depend on that revenue.

“As a renter, I don’t see a problem with more housing stock,” he continues. “I don’t think anyone else should not be allowed to live here when we do. We shouldn’t destroy entire forests or entire ecosystems to do that. There has to be a balance.”

Commercial development and zoning to be reimagined

While residential development is contentious, nearly every resident The Devil Strip spoke to agreed that Merriman Road needs to be reimagined.

At present, retail and restaurants along Merriman Road are clustered into strip mall-like structures that line the street. Those strip malls include dining options, gyms, bars and shops, but residents have to leave the neighborhood for basic necessities, such as a grocery store or a post office.

Some residents and city officials believe more housing options would bring those resources to the area.

“If you separate all the neighborhoods [in Akron], they all are all just basically little townships with grocery stores, post offices, et cetera,” Starr, the owner of Arkham Tattoo, says. “The Valley doesn’t have either of those.” 

With poor street lighting in some areas, a lack of crosswalks, and sidewalks that start and end where the cities’ jurisdictions switch, the neighborhood is not currently very walkable. 

“When a lot of the development in the area was happening in the ‘70s and into the early ‘80s, it wasn’t on the radar as much to function more like a walkable town,” city planner Segedy says. “There wasn’t as much consciousness about how that would interface with the rest of the area.”

The city hopes to attract more pedestrians and bikers to the area when a Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad depot opens on Merriman Road in 2023. The station is planned for 1762 Merriman Rd., between Happy Tails Thrift Shop and Valley Mart.

But business owners worry that lack of walkability will stop potential customers from reaching them.

“We’re all excited about that and think that’ll be a good attraction,” says Michael Meeker, owner of Big Tree Fitness at 1698 Merriman Rd. “Let’s say a family wants to go to Quarter Up to play pinball, or a couple wants to grab a drink. Until they put in crosswalks and meaningful, thought-through changes, it’s nearly impossible for them to do it.” 

“I know there’s a lot of residents that are calling to preserve the valley and don’t want to see changes, but I think we can make changes to where bringing more tourism in and bringing more residents will force the city to address things like the lack of sidewalks, which will benefit us all,” Starr adds. “It’s not a walking neighborhood, but it’d be simple to turn it into a walking neighborhood.”

In addition, residents are asking city officials to reconfigure the layout of roads. Business owners complain that, due to heavy traffic and speeding on Merriman Road, customers are sometimes unable to access their storefronts.

“You’ll see several wrecks a year down here because of that problem,” Meeker says, noting that customers have difficulty accessing his businesses in traffic without turn lanes. “The idea of people being able to access our businesses freely is a nightmare for most of us. It gets to be irritating.”

Segedy says a major part of the master plan will focus on coordinating transportation improvement, not only for streets, but for pedestrians and bikers. Parts of the neighborhood could be rezoned, he says.

Ideally, Segedy would like to see Merriman Valley’s hub of retail and restaurants transform from its current strip mall appearance into an area that looks and functions like a “small, quaint village” similar to Peninsula. That could be done by implementing codes requiring buildings to be constructed closer to the sidewalk and limiting parking or requiring lots behind businesses instead of in front of them.

At the same time, he wants residents to be realistic about the city’s limitations. 

“We couldn’t impose or do this all overnight, but we can take a look at development patterns and zoning issues,” Segedy says. “The residents are rightfully so eager for a plan to take place, but local government, we’re still going to have limited ability to dictate what is built and how it’s built. Our zoning codes can limit factories and Walmarts from popping up, but we can’t micromanage every single detail of how something’s built.”

Residents envision a “recreational economy” for the area

If not residential development, what would Akronites like to see happen to land in the Valley?

A simple answer some give is: Nothing.

“We need a master plan, but I would prefer no development. We’ve maxed out. We’ve peaked in the valley,” says Jodie Grasgreen, a member of Preserve the Valley. “We really have to realize that the environment is not an extra amenity. It’s something we need to cherish and preserve.”

Others think the land can attract tourists, and that future development can be catered to that goal.

“The city of Akron deems us a recreation destination, and yet our recreation is being taken away with these developments,” says Karen Zampelli, president of Merriman Valley Neighborhood Association, about recent housing developments on closed golf courses and undeveloped land.  “We should focus on drawing people to this area for tourism and activate existing structures within the city to accommodate those tourists.”

Many residents The Devil Strip spoke to believe with proper zoning for outdoor recreational activists, the neighborhood could enjoy an economic boost. Suggestions included canoe liveries, fishing depots, mountain biking trails, white water rafting and more.

The seeds of that desired recreational economy are already blooming in the area. Between its close proximity to the national park, the 101-mile Towpath, Sand Run Metro Park, Hampton Hills Metro Park and businesses such as Second Sole and Blimp City Bike and Hike, the valley is already a destination for local runners, hikers and bikers.

“Once the final dam at Gorge [Metro Park] is removed from the Cuyahoga River, the entire river will be connected from Merriman Valley through Downtown Cuyahoga Falls,” says Andrew Holland, a Cuyahoga Falls resident. “Imagine how unique it will be to have those opportunities here, and bringing in those tourists will help businesses not only in the valley but across both our cities.”

All residents and business owners say they expect to be included in the planning process and implementation as the plan progresses.

“There’s a lot to be done. We should take our time and follow the master planning process,” Malik says. “Everyone needs to be heard here: residents, conservationists, developers, planners, and more. It needs to be a participatory process. This is a really unique area with people who all have a vision for the identity of the valley.”

Originally published for The Devil Strip on March 8, 2020.

University of Akron students are losing faith in institution amid layoffs and budget crisis

After three generations before her at the University of Akron, senior English major Kaylie Yaceczko is getting ready to walk away.

Following graduation, the third-generation legacy planned to pursue her Master of Fine Arts from the NEOMFA program, a collaboration between UA, Cleveland State University, Kent State University and Youngstown State University. 

But now, she says she doesn’t see much of a point in pursuing graduate school at the university that laid off English faculty members — including her literary magazine’s founder and faculty advisor — in a round of deep cuts to nearly 100 union faculty positions over the summer. 

“It was a big shock and difficult to deal with,” Yaceczko, the editor-in-chief of the student-run literary journal, AshBelt, says. “You build a repertoire with a professor and you get to know them. They help you with your education as a student and growth as a person, and that was taken away without any warning.”

Now Yaceczko doesn’t know what to do.

“That threw a huge wrench in my plans,” she says, saying she is likely going to take a year off to consider her options and look at other schools. “I’m really sad, because I’m leaving the university with a bad taste in my mouth that I didn’t have before this.”

After a series of missteps that led to a financial crisis at the university, many students have lost faith in the university. Despite the university’s plans a decade ago to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on facilities to accommodate growing to 40,000 students, enrollment has dwindled to about 17,800.

Graphic by Abbey Marshall

Declining enrollment coupled with what some faculty members call poor financial planning and a decrease in state funding brought about deep cuts this July, when the Board of Trustees voted to eliminate 178 positions — 96 of which were filled by faculty members, many of whom were tenure-track.

Among that sea of numbers was Thomas’s mother, who was laid off in July. Thomas, a student who asked his full name be omitted out of fear of retaliation from the university toward his family, was struck with an unexpected burden just months before fall semester resumed: he lost his tuition waiver and health insurance with two years of school remaining.

“It definitely adds a burden,” he says. “I have three siblings, and it’s just hard when it’s just coming out of nowhere. You plan out your university career and to see it disappear very suddenly is like, ‘Oh gosh. Time to think of some creative way to come up with more money.’”

While he feels fortunate that he is a scholarship recipient and his dad still works, Thomas says this was another hurdle on top of an already difficult year. 

“I just feel like the quality of education is going to go down,” he says. “The administration keeps saying it’s not going to affect the quality, but they’re not fooling anyone — if you’re reducing your staff, we’re going to have larger class sizes. The quality will go down. It’s going to be an unfortunate experience, having to do more independent learning versus getting more time with the teachers.”

Prior to the July layoffs, the faculty to student ratio was 18:1. Currently, it is 21:1. The average class size for 2020-2021 is 13, the university says.

Photo by Abbey Marshall

23-year-old chemical engineering graduate student Greg Brown, who completed his undergraduate degree at the university, is leaving graduate school as a result of the layoffs. His Ph.D. advisor was laid off, and he says the school did little in the way of helping him figure out what to do next.

“When [my advisor] told me she had been fired, I actually collapsed and fell to my knees,” he recalls of the days following the July 15 announcement to lay off faculty. “It was one of those things where it was like, ‘this cannot be coming from a position of logic.’ It was just so mind-boggling.”

Brown, who is resigning from the program in December and pivoting to opening his own business focused on health and wellness, said he didn’t believe it made sense to pursue a field of study without an expert at the university.

“That opportunity will not be there for future students,” he says. “Unfortunately, when the going got tough, people didn’t matter, numbers mattered.”

Similarly, Yaceczko says she was given little information about what would happen to the classes she was enrolled in that were supposed to be taught by laid-off professors. She decided to drop a course altogether — even though it would have counted as a graduation requirement. 

“I was already concerned about the quality of education with the pandemic, and now that there are fewer professors,” she says. “That’s the whole point of education, at the end of the day: to learn from experts. If there are no experts, what do you really have?”

She also is concerned about faculty members being spread thin as the university scrambles to fill each class with an instructor, even if that instructor had never taught the course before. Not only will the faculty suffer, she says, but the students.

“It’s so overwhelming because they had to take on all this extra work they didn’t sign up for or aren’t being paid to do in such a short period of time,” she says. “It’s hard to feel cared for as a student when faculty and staff are being treated the way they are.”

Nathaniel Haufe, a senior majoring in cybersecurity, echoed concerns about larger class sizes and less time with faculty. This year he faced more limited options when it came to scheduling courses. Some courses, like his senior project, were replaced with what he called “inadequate substitutes.”

“This year, they’re not offering a senior project within my major,” Haufe says. “I have to take a substitute course. I know that’s not what I’m paying for and that’s not what employers are looking for. I should be taking the proper courses with the proper professors. It makes me feel that the quality of education is at times not up to par.”

“There’s no point in going somewhere where I’m not going to get anything out of it,” says Brown, the student dropping out of grad school. “There is no point in continuing my academic pursuit when the person I wanted to study under is no longer present. The value of Akron is ultimately in the faculty and the people that make it what it is.”

Originally published by The Devil Strip on December 14, 2020.

‘We don’t have the reserves to wait out a volatile situation:’ How COVID-19 expedited University of Akron’s budget crisis

The University of Akron made deep cuts this past summer, laying off 18% of the faculty and consolidating programs and colleges, citing a projected $65 million budget shortfall and $360.4 million in debt.

It’s easy to blame a global pandemic: Fall 2020 enrollment was expected to drop at nearly every university nationwide amid Zoom classes, virtual coursework and socially distanced instruction.

But deep cuts were inevitable at the University of Akron, university administration says, after student enrollment declined by a third in the past decade, state funding was decreased, and the university was locked into debt payments after heavy investment in campus amenities.

Those cuts, says university spokesperson Cristine Boyd, were expedited by the anticipation of  financial losses from an enrollment drop and less state funding due to COVID-19.

The faculty blames university administration, including six presidents over the past six years, for what some call budget mismanagement and financial recklessness without regard for students or academics. 

Some faculty members claim the university is misrepresenting its financial position altogether, saying COVID-19 is an excuse to purge more positions than necessary — even filing a complaint of unfair labor practices against the university.

“It’s taken a really ugly turn this summer,” Pam Schulze, president of Akron-AAUP, UA’s collective bargaining unit, says of the tensions between the union and the university over collective bargaining negotiations. “I’ve never felt this kind of division between faculty and administration we have now. Never. And it’s been bad before.”

To understand the financial challenges facing the university, The Devil Strip analyzed previous budgets, reviewed previous financial decisions and spoke with more than a dozen faculty members, both currently employed and laid off. Many were hesitant to use their names publicly out of fear for retaliation, but their accounts informed this reporting.

UA spent in preparation for 40,000 students. There are now fewer than 18,000. 

In a press conference on July 15, the day layoffs were finalized by the board of trustees, President Gary Miller said the financial crisis set up years prior meant a reduction in staff was inevitable. The university told The Devil Strip they were facing $360.4 million in debt as of June 30, just weeks before the layoffs. 

That crisis was in part spurred by the “Vision 2020” initiative launched by former university president Luis M. Proenza in 2012, the year after enrollment peaked at just shy of 30,000 students. The vision was for UA to be a university competitive with other highly enrolled state universities, aiming for upward of 40,000 total students, including more students who lived on campus. 

Even in 2012 when enrollment levels were at 28,771, the goal was lofty. The university’s student base was traditionally made up of commuters who lived nearby and drove to classes each day or attended school part-time and worked. Proenza, faculty members recall, was adamant about changing that image, pushing the university’s facilities to grow and grow. 

Additionally, the university pursued campus modernization projects that came with a $630 million price tag throughout Proenza’s 15-year tenure. Not only did the university sink more than $60 million into a new, 27,000-seat football stadium that opened in 2009 — despite a loss of approximately $21.52 million per year on athletic programs for the last 10 years, the faculty union says — the administration also purchased Quaker Square for $22.7 million in 2007 with an additional investment of $700,000 to renovate for student use. On top of all that, the school tore down and rebuilt residence halls.

“The university was poised to be very successful 10 years ago,” says Sue Ramlo, former Akron-AAUP Vice President and a laid-off professor in what was formerly the Applied College of Science and Technology before it was dismantled this summer. 

“We had so many nontraditional students,” Ramlo continues, noting that many students were commuters in their mid to late-20s who took courses in tandem with a job. “That was the path of success. That got blown up by mismanagement.” 

Proenza stepped down in 2014 and the university abandoned Vision 2020 due to “long-term effects” of the 2009 economic crisis, Boyd says. At that time, significant debt had already been racked up.

The new facilities were built in anticipation of 40,000 students. But in the past decade, student enrollment has declined by more than a third. At present, enrollment is just over 17,800 students.

By 2020, the year the university turned 150, the university was facing a budget crisis — and faculty were facing major cuts as a result.

After Proenza stepped down, the university ushered in — and promptly out — six acting, interim and permanent presidents in six years.

Following Proenza, the board of trustees hired Scott Scarborough, who had financial and management expertise. Scarborough made a series of unpopular decisions among faculty and students, which included sweeping cuts to help dig the university out of debt. In 2015, Scarborough and the board approved a plan to reduce $40 million in university costs, including cutting the baseball program, outsourcing dining services, negotiating health care plans and slashing 215 jobs — a fourth of the university’s staff. The board also allocated $950,000 to renovate the presidential home despite a $60 million deficit. No faculty layoffs occurred at that time, however, and revenue from graduate and undergraduate tuition fees increased by $10 million.

Scarborough was removed from office in 2016. Three presidents, some of whom served interim terms, stepped in until Gary Miller took the reins in October 2019, only months before the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on campuses nationwide and talks of another round of sweeping cuts began.

Boyd says the university believes enrollment can increase “modestly” in the coming years through aggressive marketing and recruitment. She says the previous vision of 40,000 students was undone by long-term effects of the 2009 economic crisis.

But even in the face of another economic crisis, she says the university is working to not only retain students but increase enrollment through application fee waivers, eliminating the admissions requirement of standardized test scores and offering a $500 scholarship as an incentive to those who complete the application process. 

“In the midst of the pandemic, recruitment and retention of students are more difficult, but we are optimistic about our future post-COVID,” she says. “We remain invested in serving our students and our Akron community and fulfilling our promise to them for a better future.”

COVID-19 expedited inevitable layoffs, administration says

Universities across the country felt the blow COVID-19 delivered, though University of Akron’s situation was exacerbated by its already poor financial situation and already declining enrollment.

In July, the university announced an estimated $65 million budget shortfall in the budget for the 2021 fiscal year. They acted fast to offset that loss by gutting academic programs and their instructors.

Payroll constitutes 60% of the university’s total budget, Boyd says. While enrollment decreased 34% since 2010, adjustments to personnel had not kept pace with that rapid decline: The size of the faculty had fallen by 18.5% and full-time, non-faculty employment decreased by 25.7%.

On July 15, only a month and a half before fall semester began, the board of trustees unanimously authorized the elimination of 178 positions, including 96 bargaining unit faculty, 70 of whom were tenured or tenure-tracked. An additional faculty member worked in the law school, which is not part of the bargaining unit faculty. The remaining positions were staff and contract professionals.

Additionally, 21 faculty members opted to voluntarily separate via retirement or resignation.

Faculty size reduced by 25.7% between falls 2019 and 2020 between layoffs and voluntary separations, falling to 421 from 567.

The general fund budget for the 2021 fiscal year, approved in August with expenses totaling $186.1 million, detailed $44 million in cuts and an additional $29.6 million in lost revenue compared to fiscal year 2020, which ended June 30. $35 million of those cuts came from payroll and other employee compensation. 

A separate auxiliary enterprises budget includes housing, dining services, and athletics. That budget shows a $23 million anticipated loss of revenue from 2020 to 2021. Athletics incurred a $4.4 million budget cut to help mitigate the losses, though many faculty members have advocated for more cuts to athletics, including a shift from Division I to Division II.

Faculty members rally on July 15, the day layoffs were finalized. (Photo by Abbey Marshall)

“We’ve tried all summer to work things out,” Schulze says. “They’re so determined to cut… They said that they had some plan to address [the budget crisis] maybe 3 years down the road, but because of COVID, they say they had to accelerate the pace of what they already planned to do.”

In a virtual press conference that took place on July 15 after the board finalized cuts, President Gary Miller confirmed that because of the university’s financial crisis prior to COVID-19, a reduction in staff was “something that would have to happen anyway.”

“Under normal circumstances, we would’ve taken three to four years of normal processes and making strategic decisions,” he said. “The COVID situation placed a burden on the institution to act immediately. We don’t have the reserves to wait out a volatile situation.”

The university maintains the same position it did in July, Boyd says.

“The University has not waivered on its analysis and the need to cut costs in all areas,” she says. “Given our financial challenges brought on by pandemic, coupled with our overall enrollment decline and our debt burden, it was critical that we were proactive and used every opportunity available to us to create sustainable financial stability for the University.”

Projected financial situation does not match the reality

Schulze told The Devil Strip multiple times this summer that she believed the university was misrepresenting and overexaggerating their financial situation to make sweeping cuts. Indeed, so far, the university’s projections have not come to fruition.

UA initially said they anticipated a 15% drop in enrollment — or a $20 million loss — and an 8.8% reduction in state funding, or an $8.9 million loss. 

Ultimately, enrollment dropped 7.2%, equating to a $10.8 million loss in tuition, including the savings from awarding fewer scholarships. 

State funding fell by about 4.9% between 2020 and 2021 budgets, about half of what the university was anticipating, though the 2021 budget shows the lowest level of state funding since 2007.

Graphic by Abbey Marshall

“We were pleased that enrollment numbers increased before the start of classes,” Boyd says. “While enrollment was not as we had projected, we did experience more than a 7% loss, as well as losses in the amount of students residing in housing, a decline in food service sales, campus facility rentals, athletic revenues and a reduction in state funding. 

“The cost of cleaning, [personal protective equipment], and additional costs of signage, barriers, etcetera due to the pandemic also increased our expenditures,” she continues. “We also have to plan for the possible decline in the second semester enrollment, housing, etcetera. Even now, we expect the pandemic to cause additional revenue losses for the spring semester.”

Faculty received notice of their layoffs in the days following the university’s July announcement, and though there has been a back-and-forth process in the subsequent months between the university and the union refuting the decision, those faculty were definitively told they would not have jobs come fall semester. 

“I wasn’t really surprised, but I was very sad,” says Chelsea Monty-Bromer, who was laid off after teaching chemical biomolecular and corrosion engineering at the university for 11 years. “I have four graduate students at the University of Akron who are still seeking their PhDs. When you have a group like that, they’re really your family. I very much felt like I was abandoning them.”

Photo by Abbey Marshall

After an “exhausting” few months of feeling steamrolled during negotiations with the administration, Schulze and the Akron-AAUP team filed a complaint against the university, alleging breach of contract through unfair labor practices used within negotiations. The complaint alleges that the university interfered with and coerced faculty with “false, misleading and threatening statements to bargaining unit members.”

In addition, the complaint alleges the university unlawfully delayed and failed to provide an accurate portrayal of its financial situation and would not provide data for Akron-AAUP to independently verify the administration’s claims of severe financial pressure that resulted in so many lost positions in a timely manner. 

Although the information was eventually provided,  Schulze says the delay gave the union’s financial consultant, Rudy Fitchenbaum, very little time to incorporate those figures into his report for their arbitration brief.

“The biggest thing that I would like to have seen are the university’s draft financial statements,” says Fitchtenbaum, a professor emeritus of economics at Wright State University. He has been working as a consultant analyzing the finances of colleges and universities for the AAUP and published a study on UA in an attempt to verify the university’s claim of economic crisis.

“I’m going to assume they’re not lying and instead they’re just not giving everyone the same data they use to understand the same issue,” Schulze adds. “But frankly, if it is as they say: why wouldn’t they provide the data so we could independently verify and see they’re right?”

The university, however, insists “the University of Akron complied with every request given to us by the AAUP in a timely manner,” Boyd says.

After months of deliberation, the arbitrator sided with the university’s administration in its termination of unionized faculty on Sept. 18. The 67 faculty members who were on the list and had not since retired since the July 15 announcement are unable to return to their jobs. The ruling saved the university $6.9 million.

“I was basically fired by email, and so was anyone else who was in our college,” says Ramlo, the union vice president. “I’m absolutely heartbroken. I am a 58 year old woman who was exemplary as a faculty member… in a world where there are no academic jobs.”

High administration salaries amid faculty cuts raise tensions

Though administrators vowed to take a year-long 10% pay reduction, Schulze says that’s not enough. She calls for a permanent 20% reduction.

According to Akron-AAUP, members of the bargaining unit faculty, which includes all full-time faculty except for visiting and law school faculty, earn a median annual salary of $81,646.

Graphic by Abbey Marshall

Administration officials make far more: President Gary Miller takes home $427,500 annually; Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. John Wiencek makes $315,000; Interim Senior Vice Provost Dr. Joe Urgo makes $250,000; Vice Provost and Director of Academic Administrative Services Dr. Rex Ramsier makes $286,094; and Interim Chief of Staff Dr. Cher Hendricks makes $150,000, according to a university records request made by The Devil Strip.

Proenza, who returned to faculty after stepping down as president in 2014, made an annual salary of $341,445 in a contract through 2027. This October Proenza took a buyout of $850,000, foregoing the $2.5 million sum that remained on his contract.

“This is a public institution. It’s funded by taxpayers,” Schulze says. “They owe those taxpayers the clearest explanation possible of how their money is spent. They aren’t forthcoming with clear data on where the money is actually going.”

Originally published in The Devil Strip on December 14, 2020.

Akron wants to help small business owners grow, but officials say they need more help from banks

PNC and Huntington buildings in Downtown Akron. Photos by Abbey Marshall

Rubber City Match — an entrepreneurial development program that, city officials say, is designed to give historically marginalized business owners a boost to help them get lending from banks — has so far had a big problem: Getting lending from banks.

Rubber City Match offers business coaching to new and expanding small businesses, then helps connect them to vacant retail spaces. It is based on a successful program in Detroit in which participants were mentored and created business plans to pitch to a board of lenders in pursuit of funding, as well as pairing them with vacant retail space.

At the end of the first cohort’s programming, the city is providing $100,000 in grants. Qualifying participants can apply for up to $50,000. In a program of 17 people, up to 12 of whom are eligible to apply for the cash award, that could mean stiff competition for funding. The cohort is 75% Black and 60% female.

The $100,000 was an investment in the program and its mission, but Deputy Mayor for the Office of Integrated Development James Hardy said the department cannot afford much more than that. 

That’s where they were hoping banks would help: After aiding the business owners, the city’s role is theoretically to connect them with lenders. 

“The city will never be able to lend the capital needed to move the needle on this issue,” Hardy says. “It’s really important that we have equitable lending from our finance institutions, because they have more resources to lend than we ever will as a city.”

Akron banks respond to the ask — and some sign on after request for comment

By the end of the program, all the business plans will be vetted and the owners will be  thoroughly trained: the makings of a low-risk investment, the city says, citing as evidence the capital it put toward the program itself.

Still, Hardy says, “I was in the room with local representatives of every bank with a presence in Akron,” including both collaborative and one-on-one meetings with representatives from each of the banks in 2019. “All of them declined to participate.” 

As a result, instead of all participants getting a chance to present to a lending committee made up of banks, only two will receive those $50,000 grants from the city with support from nonprofit lenders. 

That is, until The Devil Strip reached out for comment in September. Three of the five banks contacted — Huntington, PNC and Fifth Third — then scheduled meetings with the city to discuss how to participate in the program.

• Huntington reached out to the city to support the program after The Devil Strip requested comment, with spokesperson Emily Smith saying: “We always appreciate the opportunity to learn from our communities and do our part to support them. We’ll continue the conversation directly with the city to learn more about how we can help.” 

• PNC said they were approached in September 2019 for support, but could not consider it because the 2019 budget was already appropriated. PNC needed time to consider the request and did not reconnect to confirm or deny support due to the pandemic, says PNC regional president for Akron Joe Luckring, but they plan to meet with city officials in early October to discuss participation.

• Fifth Third Bank said the representative in those meetings retired earlier this year. After request for comment, bank representatives said they will reach out to the city to establish a new point of contact and review the program.

• The city met with the U.S. Bank district manager and team members on two occasions in 2019. The city said U.S. Bank declined to participate. U.S. Bank declined to comment on the program, stating, “U.S. Bank is not in a position to comment about a program that we are not currently involved in, but we remain committed to supporting the Akron community and are always open to opportunities to invest in our shared future,” citing other financial commitments to other local nonprofits such as the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation.

• A city official said they met with a KeyBank representative in 2019 who declined to participate. KeyBank declined to comment about the program, but told The Devil Strip they have provided more than $110 million in small business loans to businesses in “low-to-moderate income urban and rural communities” in Northeast Ohio. “We invite anyone interested in learning more about grant funding through the KeyBank Foundation, and the formal process through which organizations can apply, to contact us,” says KeyBank spokesperson Matthew Pitts. Hardy did note that KeyBank was instrumental in a new small business revolving loan being launched at Western Reserve Community Fund next month that otherwise would not be able to get off the ground.

Hardy thinks the banks’ reactions reflect a systemic problem, however. 

“There is a huge problem in Akron of POC- and women-owned businesses trying to secure traditional lending at the same success rate as their white male counterparts,” Hardy says. “It seems like with the banks, there’s no recognition of the structural racism that has played a huge role in Akron and places like Akron that dictated your credit score or being able to lean into friends and family for equity — all the things we as the majority take for granted.”

What can Akron learn from Detroit? Work with nontraditional lenders, that city’s leaders say

Motor City Match, the model on which Akron based its program, has been wildly successful, fronting $2 million in grants for about 40 businesses a year and connecting award recipients to retail space and lenders.

Launched in 2015, the program sought to solve two problems common in the Rust Belt: too much vacant retail space in the city and a lack of capital access for small business owners. In addition to cash grants, businesses can apply for assistance with business planning, space and design.

“The premise of our program is that there are very talented entrepreneurs in Detroit that lack access to capital,” says Drew Lucco, small business development manager at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, which runs Motor City Match.

“We know that one of the reasons is because it is generally harder for minority entrepreneurs to get loans,” he says. (Detroit’s population is 79% Black; Akron’s population is 30% Black.) “It’s generally harder for any first-time entrepreneurs to get a loan from traditional banks, really. We came into the program with that as one of the premises. The idea was, if we can offer some capital, that would allow people to complete projects without a loan or make it easier to get loans.”

Lucco said he did not find it surprising that Akron had difficulties with securing banks’ participation. They haven’t had much luck with traditional lenders either. 

“Very few of our projects get funding from traditional banks,” Lucco says, though he did note that they’ve worked with a few over the years for other programming. “We are very blessed in Detroit to have a community of nontraditional lenders… They think of themselves as character-based lenders rather than credit-based lenders. Their goal is to lend to projects that contribute to community development.”

Akron has been successful in onboarding nontraditional lenders with similar visions. 

“We’re a nonprofit for a reason,” says Chris Faircloth, the lending manager of Economic & Community Development Institute (ECDI) Akron, a nonprofit that provides training, technical assistance and loan capital to entrepreneurs who do not qualify for traditional bank loans. 

“We spend more time with clients than would be financially feasible on a lending process to turn a profit on it with interest,” he says. “[With banks,] there’s just no time to really sit down and evaluate if your credit is low, are you irresponsible with credit or did you have a bad life circumstance? It’s a numbers game. To lend to small businesses at a profitable level, you can’t really spend an inordinate amount of time doing those things.”

A majority of ECDI’s clients are referred by larger regional banks, such as the ones mentioned in this story that partner with nonprofit lenders. The ECDI then makes a closer, character-based determination.

Lucco emphasizes the importance of that approach when it comes to small business funding in Motor City Match, particularly for minority business owners. First-time business owners have less credit and less experience, and it’s difficult for startups to get loans without a significant amount of collateral.

“It’s a Catch-22,” Faircloth says. “You can’t get a loan because you don’t have cash, and you need a loan because you don’t have cash.”

Detroit’s Motor City Match supports about 10 businesses per quarter, doling out $500,000 in grants ranging between $5,000 to $100,000 to each of its winners. In some cases, the grant will not cover all the costs associated with a startup, especially because the retail space had been vacant for years and might need significant rehab. That’s when the lenders come in at the end of the program to provide a loan. Lenders view the $50,000 grant as equity, so it changes the underwriting, allowing entrepreneurs to secure a loan more easily.

What does this mean for the Rubber City Match program?

But Akron’s story is different from Detroit’s. The city cannot yet afford to front $2 million each year. 

In a program where 75% of the businesses of the first cohort are Black-owned and 60% are female-owned, Hardy says the lack of participation from banks leads to questions about systematic oppression that has kept certain groups out of economic development.

“I have heard the term ‘unbankable’ more times in those meetings than I’ve ever heard in the last five years,” Hardy says. “It makes you wonder that really means. No one could seem to give me a definition.”

All of the major banks in Akron The Devil Strip contacted for comment — Huntington, PNC, KeyBank, U.S. Bank and Fifth Third — received the highest rating awarded by the Community Reinvestment Act, which monitors how well banking institutions meet the credit needs of the areas they serve.

That doesn’t eliminate Hardy’s questions, however. “Through my conversations with constituents, it’s just not happening. There’s just a fundamental disconnect between what banks are saying happens and what people are saying happens.”

While some banks are not participating as traditional lenders, many in the list above, including PNC, Fifth-Third and U.S. Bank, have provided funding and grants for nontraditional lenders participating in the program, including the ECDI and Western Reserve Community Fund.

Hardy says there’s an open invitation from the city to the banks to participate in the Rubber City Match program or any future initiative to include entrepreneurs of color.

“We’re not giving up,” Hardy says. “The invitation [to the banks] is always there. We think we’re going to have very bankable businesses in our program, but there are very bankable businesses right now that are not successful in the traditional lending market.”

Originally appeared in The Devil Strip via Report for America on Oct. 12, 2020.

What would “defunding the police” mean in Akron?

Illustration by Chris Harvey for The Devil Strip

When activists marched in the streets in June demanding racial justice after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, people across the country united under a demand to elected officials: “Defund the Police.”

The specifics of that demand run the gamut, from full-fledged police abolition to revoking a small percentage of the police budget and reallocating it to other city departments.

In the heat of protests against police brutality in June, Akron’s Freedom Black-Led Organizing Collaborative, or BLOC, sent a letter to local elected officials with a list of demands, including a call to reduce the police budget by 25% and use those funds instead for crime prevention and community health programs. 

“We need to invest in people and invest in our schools as opposed to investing in law and order,” says Ray Greene, executive director of the organization. “If you couple that 25% with asset forfeiture money and put it into nonprofit organizations and community projects, you’ll see changes in the community.” (On top of reducing the budget, Greene has called for asset forfeiture money to be used to fund community projects.)

To gain better insight into the distribution of city resources, The Devil Strip analyzed public records, including service call logs and the city budget reports, and talked to local activists and the Akron Police Department. 

In brief, we learned:

• The Akron Police Department’s budget grew 30% between 2015 and 2020.

• Calls for service have decreased by about 5% each year since 2016, with a larger drop-off of 8.9% between 2018 and 2019.

• Based on a sample police log from July 2019, out of 17,820 calls for service, only 13.8% of incidents (2,466) warranted written police reports. Of those reports, 26.3% — or 3.6% of calls overall for the month — were for violent crimes, including forcible rape, robbery, assault, intimidation, arson and other crimes.

• Activists say other professionals, such as social workers or mental health professionals, are better equipped to handle some of the situations police commonly deal with. The department insists its officers are best positioned to respond. 

The Freedom BLOC’s list of demands have been in place since 2004, Greene says, but they have gotten little to no traction over the past decade and a half. He believes it’s time for activists to take matters into their own hands by training and supporting elected officials who will propose and implement policy changes.

Some local elected officials have expressed openness to reallocating some police funding and redirecting certain calls for service to other agencies. 

City Council will convene a special committee that reimagines public safety and policing, with groups focused on personnel and culture, accountability and transparency, and technology and equipment. The committee will present concrete recommendations on Dec. 7.

Shammas Malik (Ward 8), who serves on the city’s Budget and Finance Committee and Public Safety Committee, said in a July 7 Freedom BLOC town hall that he is “absolutely” willing to reassess the budget.

“It’s not the most radical ask in the world,” he expressed then. “What we are talking about now in the country and here locally is, what is the best way to create public safety? We certainly have things we need the police for, but we have a quarter million calls for service a year. What percentage of those could be done other ways?”

APD’s budget continues to increase, despite lower service calls

The recently released 2020 budget surpassed $70 million. 

The amount of money allocated to the police department continues to increase, despite the police department receiving fewer calls for service every year since 2016.

Calls for service represent all calls except station calls, which are created when police are performing non-patrol tasks like filing paperwork or tagging evidence; out-of-service calls, which are created when an officer is unable to answer service calls, such as when they’ve recently ended a shift or have a flat tire; and meal breaks.

Graphic by Abbey Marshall

The primary reason for the 30% budget increase in the past five years is labor costs, City of Akron Finance Director Steve Fricker says. 

Salaries and overtime pay make up about 54% of the total costs to the department. 

The current count of uniformed officers is 458, including supervisors and the 45 new recruits hired in late 2019. Since their hire, about 10 officers have retired. The 2020 budget allows for 468 officers and 31 additional police personnel.

Base salary for a new police officer is currently $66,768.

Additionally, those rising labor costs include a 2.75% cost of living adjustment to all city employee salaries, as well as incremental pay increases for police officers according to experience, longevity and promotions.

Finally, Fricker says some grant funding that had been allocated specifically to subsidize officer salaries ran out in recent years, so money from the city’s general fund needed to go to the department to continue paying those officers.

Fricker says the police department has been understaffed in recent years, so while service calls may be decreasing, the budget is growing alongside units the department is trying to develop.

“That’s a big complaint that the city council members get from citizens. They are asking for more traffic enforcement, and we haven’t been able to do it to the level they would like to do,” he says. “Because of our low staffing levels, there’s not really a working vice unit like they used to have. There’s areas like that where they haven’t been able to staff functions typical to police departments.”

According to data from Governing, a nonpartisan publication that analyzes state and local government and policy, cities with a population between 100,000 and 200,000 have an average of 15.9 officers per 10,000 people.

Akron, a city with a population of 197,000, averages 23 officers for every 10,000 people. 

How the police department is funded

Graphic by Abbey Marshall

Approximately 83% of the Akron Police Department’s funding comes from the city’s general revenue fund. Another 16% comes from the “special revenue fund,” which includes income sources like Issue 4, which voters passed to increase taxes for public safety and infrastructure. The remaining 0.7% comes primarily from cash or property confiscated by police. 

The city has wide latitude over how to spend the general fund. That money comes from taxpayers, through income and property taxes, as well as court revenues and some funding from the State of Ohio.

The city decides how to divvy up the general fund almost a year in advance, led by Fricker and the finance department. That department passes a temporary budget to cover the first quarter of the year while the proposals are pending. Then the finance department prepares a budget and presents their recommendations to city council over several days in the spring. City council members can propose changes, though Fricker doesn’t recall any alterations being made this year, and it is adopted at the end of March as law, effective immediately.

The special revenue fund is an account established by the city government to collect funds that must be used for a specific purpose or project. This may come in the form of grant money specific to police or special levies. For example, Issue 4, passed in 2017, increased income taxes to generate about $15 million each year, split evenly between police, fire and infrastructure. Fricker says most of this fund is used for capital needs, like replacing old patrol cars. The special revenue fund is the money that is likely unable to be diverted from the police department. 

The trust and agency fund, which only generates $501,000 of the $71.1 million budget, is hardly used, Fricker says. It is mostly funded through civil asset forfeiture, which is money and property confiscated when someone is arrested. As their case works its way through the justice system, the judge decides based on court proceedings if the money will be returned to the person or remitted to the city. Typically, the city has to give a portion of that money to federal, state and county governments as well. 

Because so much of police funding comes from the aforementioned general revenue fund — which is essentially the big pot of cash the city divvies up when they create and approve the budget — it could theoretically be moved to any other department, Fricker says.

“In theory, there’s really nothing that is [untouchable],” Frick says. “Other than the existing staffing that we’re trying to maintain in the police and fire departments — there’s nothing dictating how we allocate the money to go in the general fund.”

The service runs patrol officers make

The Devil Strip obtained public records of all service calls made in July 2019 to sample what incidents patrol officers face on each run. The log reflects any patrol officer activities during the month, whether it is responding to a call or self-generated, meaning an officer initiates an activity without a citizen call. (We selected July 2019 because summer months are typically when crime reports peak, and 2020 months are likely to be skewed due to shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Nearly 9% of calls for service are created when officers call the station to report off-duty extra jobs, such as working security for an event outside of their police duties, as required by department policy. Approximately 8% are people calling and requesting to meet with an officer, for anything from a civil complaint to a vehicle failure. Another 6.8% are traffic stops, and 5.9% are police checking in on specific locations, either at the owners’ request or because they’re the sites of previous problems.

The duties above, which are the most frequent calls for that month, comprise about a third of the call activity log. The rest include at least 170 other tasks, including responding to security alarms, verbal fights, drug offenses, shots fired and burglary, but those calls are far fewer than those listed above.

Of those 17,820 service calls, only 13.8% of incidents warranted written police reports (2,466), according to the city’s database of reports made during the same time frame. 

Of those written reports, 26.3% — or 3.6% of calls overall — were considered violent crimes, including forcible rape, robbery, assault, intimidation and arson.

Graphic by Abbey Marshall

In all of 2019, Akron police received and responded to a total of 182,260 calls, resulting in 33,536 reports throughout the year.

The station averages about 500 calls for service per day and between 12,000 and 13,000 calls per month, APD spokesperson Lt. Michael Miller estimates. He says a “large percentage” of people call 911 for non-emergency issues.  (911 calls are initiated by members of the public. Calls for service include 911 calls as well as activity initiated by police officers themselves.)

“As a patrol officer, you have to stay dialed in and focused or in a condition to go up or down, left or right,” says Miller, who worked as a patrol officer 18 of his 21 years at the Akron Police Department. “It varies a lot. You could be not very busy three or four hours straight, or it could get very rough. Anything from low-level calls, civil disputes, property crimes with no victims to a homicide or death call.”

‘Investing in the community:’ Activists say some police duties can be reallocated

Photos from a Downtown Black Lives Matter demonstration on May 30 by Garrick Black/Noir Creative.

Nationally, lots of communities are talking about taking some responsibilities away from the police and ceding them to organizations who specialize in working with vulnerable populations, including homeless people and people experiencing domestic violence, for example. Some activists are calling for total abolition of police forces. Others are pushing for police departments to shrink, but not disappear. 

When we asked who was best equipped to handle various service calls, activists offered a variety of solutions. Greene recommends investments in already-existing programs to combat specific problems police may not be thoroughly trained to handle. 

“W.O.M.B. already deals with most of those issues,” Greene says. “W.O.M.B, Freedom BLOC, Harmony House — if they had money, would be able to deal with and prevent some of these issues like disorderly conduct, vagrancy, trespassing.”

Activists suggest investments in other organizations that could respond to calls related to their area of specialization, as well as prevention initiatives. Instead of police responding to someone having a mental health incident, Greene says, a mental health worker could be funded and trained to deescalate the situation and provide proper medical care to assist that person and prevent any future issues. In the case of a domestic dispute, a battered women’s shelter could intervene. 

“When we think of community safety, what would it look like when we invest in community counselors?” DaMareo Cooper, BlackPAC’s national field director, said at a July 7 virtual town hall hosted by Freedom BLOC to discuss policy changes to protect Black Akronites. “Police officers have been trained to stop the threat, but what if the threat isn’t violent?”

Miller, on the other hand, says he believes police officers are in fact the best department to handle what he labels as “non-police activities,” such as responding to calls about child welfare and mental health incidents. (Welfare checks make up roughly 3.8% of calls for service in the log from July 2019.)

“People will say ‘defund, defund, defund,’ but based on the dynamics of situations, we might argue the police are best suited to handle a very combative, aggressive person experiencing a mental health crisis,” he says. “A counseling agency wouldn’t be the first agency for a situation like that.”

Miller argues a lot of calls are time-sensitive and come in a way “where there would be no realistic timeframe to refer to another agency.” 

“When people call the police, they want an immediate police response,” he says. “Is it even practical on a Wednesday afternoon to tell this family not to expect a response from child services or the hospital until next Tuesday? Their crisis is right now. The degree we can go listen, offer resources; that’s all in our toolbox to do.”

Activists counter that, if social service providers had more resources, they could help prevent the occurrence of incidents, and respond more effectively when incidents do occur. 

“Stop thinking about it as defunding the police, and think about it as investing in the community,” Cooper says. “We need to spend money on what makes communities thrive and invest in people.”

A 2011 study by the Police Executive Research Forum, mandated by the City of Akron to assess the effectiveness of APD, analyzed the amount of time tasks such as calls for service, self-initiated activities, meal breaks and administrative tasks took up, and called that amount of time “higher than some comparable agencies.”

The report recommended that “the Department should initiate alternative methods for responding to service demands” to give patrol officers more time to engage with the community.

“We wear a lot of hats and handle a lot of non-police related things,” Miller acknowledges. Still, he says, “police officers are the best equipped to handle those dynamic situations.” 

Some local officials are open to reallocating police funds 

As calls to defund the police grow more widespread and detailed, some local officials are ready to listen to constituents. Others have already prepared proposals for changes to the department. 

Graphic by Abbey Marshall

Russ Neal, the city council member for Ward 4, contacted The Devil Strip about a plan to reallocate $5 million from the police budget to other means of community investment. He said this discussion had been taking place long before the protests, but current events are an impetus for others getting on board.

“I’d like to look at how we could better utilize resources regarding community policing,” he says. “When people have a need, the only place they call are the police. We are looking at diversifying that and how to better utilize those dollars.”

Neal’s first proposal would be to hire at least four community liaisons for each of the 10 wards, be they social workers or mental health workers, at a salary of $40,000 each. Those 40 jobs would cost the city $1.6 million and provide people with the professional skills to deal with social work situations and mental health crises as an alternative to the police. 

Next, he says, each ward should receive $250,000 for community wraparound support dollars for organizations and programs that uplift and support those who live there, such as after-school programs.

“We’re all pretty cash-strapped,” he says. “Last year, I requested a grant for over $140,000 for my entire ward. I only got $8,000. Every ward did.” 

Finally, he suggests hiring two additional part-time community ambassadors per ward, paid $25,000 per year, to engage with youth in the community. 

All of his proposed programming amounts to $4.6 million, leaving a surplus of $400,000 that he says could be invested back in the police if need be, as some of those calls will likely still go back to the police.

“You save money, and you’re better able to service the community,” he says. “The idea would be to create a community network working with the police officers so you could more intimately serve the community.”

Neal says he is waiting on updated statistics and information to come through from the police department before he makes solid proposals in council.

“Our police officers and our police department have been taking a beating for stuff they haven’t done that is happening across the nation,” Neal says. “We want to make sure they’re part of conversation on how to better utilize resources, actually saving them money and freeing up their time to do more police work.”

Two other elected officials — Veronica Sims of Summit County Council and Shammas Malik of Ward 8 —  joined Freedom BLOC’s July 7 virtual town hall to express their openness to advocate for altering the police budget and have conversations with constituents about what future policing looks like in the city.

“It’s government by the people for the people,” Sims said on July 7. “It’s not what we want to do with the budget; it’s what the people want to do with the budget. I’m open to doing whatever we need to do to address the myriad issues, but people keep needing to speak out.”

In July, city council announced a special committee that will reimagine public safety and policing, including four groups: personnel and culture, accountability and transparency, prevention, and technology and equipment. Each city council member will serve on a committee in the fall with the intent of proposing concrete recommendations in a report scheduled to be released to the public on Dec. 7.

None of the committees focus explicitly on the police department budget; and some possible reform initiatives, such as expanding police training, will likely require additional funding. 

Police abolitionists want investments to prevent crime for a future without officers

Photos from a Downtown Black Lives Matter demonstration on May 30 by Garrick Black/Noir Creative.

Greene argues that police are ineffective in that they are a band-aid: a response once damage has already been done and a crime is already committed.

“I want to see the police go away. I know that’s not a conversation we’re ready to have,” says Greene, who is one of the growing number of activists calling on a total abolition of a police force.

The key to a successful society, he says, is prevention.

Each crime boils down to a fundamental need not being met in underfunded Black communities, he says. Economic crimes such as burglary and theft could be prevented with the implementation of a living wage of $15 per hour and the implementation of entrepreneurship instruction in public schools. Assault and intimidation, both behavioral crimes, could be curbed through investment in school counselors that work on communication skills and de-escalation tactics at a young age. Destruction of property could be stopped through after-school and community outreach programs.

“It’s about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: giving people affordable housing, living wage, childcare, healthcare,” he says. “You do those things, you’re looking at a different Akron in 10 years.”

“These things are going to continue to happen for sure,” Greene says. “Let’s not create a false narrative to think that once we get rid of 25% of the budget that everything is going to be peaches and cream. When it fails, they want to go back to the norm. We can’t let it. This is 400 years in the making. 10 years is going to just be the foundation to change the thinking of the government and our people.”

This article originally appeared in The Devil Strip on Sept. 11, 2020.

Is Akron’s tax abatement program working? Here’s who is using it and why

Ryan homes development. Photo by Abbey Marshall

Akron is passing on the opportunity to collect millions of dollars in property taxes in hopes of spurring housing development. 

Akron in 2017 launched a 100% residential property tax abatement. The owner of any qualifying newly constructed home or home renovation does not have to pay property taxes for 15 years after construction, which can amount to tens of thousands of dollars in savings. 

Officials say it’s starting to work: Hundreds of property owners have applied for the tax abatement, and hundreds more likely will when homes currently under construction are finished. 

The city boasts that, since the program launched, more than 400 new housing units have been built within city limits or will be completed by fall, up from just 14 units in 2015. At least 60 additional homeowners have applied for tax abatements after making renovations to their homes. Total construction costs tallied in the 153 abatement requests — both new and additions/renovations — have mounted to $52.8 million so far. 

And there are hundreds of additional homes under construction that will, presumably, apply for tax abatements after construction is complete. 

While the city is focused on reeling people back from the suburbs, the program comes with trade-offs — primarily, giving up the ability to collect nearly $2 million in new property tax revenue per year. 

And the program’s benefits have largely been concentrated in neighborhoods where housing markets are already stable.

“We had this exact conversation with City Council, and my response was, 100% times zero is still zero,” says Jason Segedy, the city’s director of Planning and Urban Development. “If there is no house, we’re not losing any tax dollars. It’s not as simple as saying, ‘the city is losing these property taxes,’ because these projects by and large weren’t being built. We were getting zero tax dollars from houses that don’t exist.”

This story is part of “Home in Akron,” a project by the Akron Media Collaborative based on community feedback from a series of 2019 town hall meetings across Akron. Throughout 2020, we’ll be exploring the complex issues confronting Akron’s housing and rental markets and the impact on citizens and the city’s goal of growing its population. The collaborative includes journalists from the Akron Beacon Journal, The Devil Strip, WKSU, Your Voice Ohio, News Channel 5 and Reveal – The Center for Investigative Reporting. 

Is the tax abatement program working?

The goal of the tax abatement program, officials say, is simple: To help spur population growth by offering alternatives to Akron’s suburbs. 

Akron’s population peaked at nearly 300,000 people in the early 1960s and has been shrinking since, falling below 200,000 presently. City officials, setting an ambitious goal of growing the population to 250,000 by 2050, are now asking: how does Akron bring back people from the suburbs and foster economic development within city limits?

The city cites the sheer number of new homes under construction as a positive indicator. 

Development in Akron plateaued after the population boom, with 64% of homes in the city built before 1960 and more housing built during the Great Depression than since 2000. In 2015, just 14 new houses were built in Akron. 

That number has skyrocketed since, with more than 400 housing units completed and an additional 1,200 in the planning, design and construction phases, the city says. 

“[The property tax abatement program] is kind of set up as a way to lure people of means back in from the suburbs so the city can capture their income tax,” says Kyle Julien, the recently departed director of urban planning at the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation, a nonprofit developer. “That’s important. We currently have a lot of people driving into the city from the suburbs, and we don’t want that trend to continue.”

Who is using property tax abatements?

The tax abatement program, Segedy says, is designed for just what Julien describes: winning middle- and upper-income households back from the suburbs. 

Early adopters of the program are primarily developing single-family homes that are much more expensive than the majority of homes within city limits. 

About 58% of 153 applications filed between the launch of the program and Aug. 24 involved single-family housing units, with a median value of $271,500 built by both for-profit and nonprofit developers. That is high-end in almost all of Akron: At present, the median price for a home listed for sale in Akron is $116,000, according to data from real estate brokerage Redfin.

Segedy notes that in comparison to the suburbs, a house priced in the mid-$200,000s isn’t all that expensive. According to Redfin, the median price for a home listed for sale in Cuyahoga Falls is $154,000; in Green, $243,000; and in Stow, $207,000.

About 8% of the tax abatement applications, or 13 out of 153, came from nonprofit community developers like Habitat for Humanity and the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation.

Those who want to upgrade older and existing homes are eligible for tax write-offs if they complete a renovation that totals $5,000 or more, such as new roofing, windows, garages and more. Renovations accounted for 60 applications, totaling about  $17.5 million — $9.8 million of which accounts for 17 housing units at the East End, the old Goodyear Heights campus being converted to a 1.4 million square foot, mixed-use property for offices, medical and retail uses, hotel rooms, restaurants and apartments.

More than half of renovation applications have come from just four neighborhoods: Northwest Akron, Fairlawn Heights and Merriman Hills, where home values are already among the highest in the city; and Cascade Valley, home to the Northside development, where owners received tax abatements to build out seven units. 

Segedy himself applied for a tax abatement after he added a sunroom to his home. He called his participation a good test of the program, which requires a two-page application and a $50 fee. The city processes applications and passes them along to the Summit County Fiscal Office for approval.

“In the case of an addition, the tax value went up slightly, so it knocked a little off of what our taxes would’ve been,” Segedy says. “It won’t make a giant difference in your property tax bill, but it’s still a nice incentive.”

The city hopes that the tax abatement will encourage people to put money into their houses with the hopes of getting it back once the market is stronger.

“We need to start where we can start,” Segedy says. “The alternative is that there are no new houses built anywhere in Akron. That doesn’t help anyone.”

What are the trade-offs?

Though the city is hoping to boost population growth and housing development, Akron stands to lose out on approximately $30 million in new property tax revenue over 15 years — and that’s without any additional applications. 

“There’s a trade-off here that needs to be thought through,” Julien says. “The city is primarily funded through income taxes, but we have a lot of entities funded through property taxes getting a short side of this deal.”

Those entities include Akron Public Schools, which are the primary recipient of property taxes at about 66% of the bill. The city only receives about 13% of Akron residents’ property taxes, with the rest going to the Akron Zoo, metro parks, city libraries, Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board and others, according to a sample property tax bill provided by the city.

Akron Public Schools relies on local property taxes for about 35% of its funding. If Akron’s population were to grow and more students were to enroll at APS schools, the district says it could handle them, even without additional property tax revenue.

“Largely, our property tax base has not grown since the 2008 recession because of the depressed home values, so stimulating that growth will give us more revenue once we’re able to collect,” says Ryan Pendleton, the Chief Financial Officer and treasurer of APS. He also notes that, while enrollment has been stable for about five years, schools are operating with buildings at about 85% capacity to accommodate changes in enrollment.

The tax abatement is viewed as a down payment for a larger return on investment, he says. Though the city won’t be netting new property taxes for 15 years, theoretically, many more people will live within the district once the abatements expire, and schools will get a boost in funding that didn’t exist before.

In the meantime, Pendleton says the district receives about $4,800 from the state per student enrolled. State funding currently accounts for about 65% of APS funding. 

The city is primarily funded by income taxes, so it hopes to see a spike in the tax dollars it collects if higher-income families buy homes within city limits.

Tax abatement has few benefits for renters, though it has helped non-profit developers

But what about the people who already live in Akron? 

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, between 2000 and 2018, median rent in Akron jumped 48% while incomes rose just 29%. Adjusting for inflation, renters have lost $4,074 in purchasing power as rent has kept pace with the annual cost of living.

People who own their homes have done much better, financially, than renters. The median income of owner-occupied homes is up 41%, from $41,679 in 2000 to $58,586 in 2018. And since 2010, monthly housing costs have risen 15% for renters while falling 16% for owner-occupants.

The proportion of Akronites who are renting is rising, too. In 2000, 40.6% of the roughly 90,000 housing units in Akron were rentals compared to 49.4% of the 85,000 units that remained in 2018.

The tax abatement program was never designed to fully address those issues, Segedy says. 

According to a review of tax abatement applications, new home and apartment construction in neighborhoods where housing markets aren’t already stable are almost exclusively tied to Habitat for Humanity, the Urban Neighborhood Development Corporation and the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation. These nonprofit development companies are latching onto the program to provide homeownership options to those who may otherwise be unable to secure mortgages. 

Habitat for Humanity, which acts as both financier of its projects and mortgage servicing company to qualifying buyers, has used the tax abatement program 11 times so far with eight others under construction expected to apply, according to Rochelle Sibbio, president of Habitat for Humanity of Summit County.

“I just think that it’s a wonderful opportunity for low-income families,” Sibbio says. “When you look at what payments are on a monthly mortgage (in Akron) versus homes we’re building in other parts of the county, the payments are generally $200 less a month in Akron” because of the property tax abatement.

Segedy argues that the tax abatement program may still aid renters. Apartment developers can apply for tax abatement and could theoretically “implement lower rent costs from the property tax savings,” he says.

“The program isn’t really intended for low-income groups, but it does help with rental projects for sure,” adds Julien, citing a recent application for Middlebury Commons, a 40-unit apartment building for low-income seniors.

“That’s a big deal,” he says. “It’s very expensive to develop new buildings. Our margins as developers for affordable rental housing are pretty slim, so to get that 15-year break is incredibly helpful.”

Though the majority of tax abatement applicants have been located in neighborhoods with higher median income levels, Segedy remains optimistic that those numbers will change as additional projects are built. For instance, he cites the LeBron James Family Foundation’s I PROMISE apartment building on Cedar Street, which is expected to apply after it is built.

Segedy believes that bringing wealthier people back to the city will have trickle-down effects, too. He argues that retail businesses have left Akron over the last few decades, taking jobs with them. If Akron’s population grows — especially its population of comparatively wealthy homeowners — he believes it could bring those job opportunities back to the city.

“I think getting new housing in Akron is very important, whether or not low-income people are the people living in it,” Segedy says.

What does the future of the program look like?

Segedy says the indicator of success of the program is that the city “gets rid of it.”

“I can’t wait for the day we get rid of it,” Segedy says. “Cities don’t want to lose out on tax dollars. Our position has been: we need this as an incentive for now.”

The tax abatement, still in its infancy, has lots of room to be altered based on results. For example, Segedy says, if the real estate market takes off in certain neighborhoods, the city could remove those areas from the program to attempt to spur growth in other parts of Akron. They could also change the number of years homes are exempt from property taxes.

He also notes that the program is not intended to fix every housing issue Akron faces — for instance, the problem of old homes that are expensive to renovate. He calls urban revitalization a “long game.” 

“We will know the strategy is working if our population begins growing again in the 2020s, if we see a modest uptick in our artificially low housing prices and property values — $60,000 houses now becoming $80,000 houses, et cetera — which will mean more wealth and equity for existing homeowners in Akron,” Segedy says.