| The City of Cleveland saw a population loss of over 400,000 citizens from 1950 to 2000. The legacy of urban flight includes a city poverty rate of 28% (with a majority of neighborhoods having poverty rates over 40%), homeownership under 50%, and 75% of renters with incomes below 30% of the median spending more than 30% of their income on housing. The 2000 Census shows a population that is 51% African American and 7.3% Hispanic/Latino. Minority populations are not equally distributed across the city and the suburbs remain a challenge for housing choices. Studies have found Cleveland to be one of the five most segregated urban areas in the country.
Many people have abandoned Cleveland's traditional neighborhoods because they felt isolated or believed that change could not happen. Those who remain share a sense of isolation and a desire to do more and be more effective. Many community leaders did not choose to become leaders but by being active in their community were seen as a community resource. Community leaders are burdened by what they always have heard are the limits of the neighborhoods. They lack information that would be helpful to them in their activities, are self-taught in their leadership skills, and lack a support structure.
At the same time, Cleveland has a well-established older network of 46 community development corporations (CDCs) serving the various neighborhoods and the city as a whole. Cleveland also benefits from 21 deep-rooted neighborhood centers, some dating back over 100 years to the early establishment of settlement houses across the city. The CDCs and neighborhood centers represent a wealth of opportunity for neighborhood revitalization and transformation. While many of the CDCs have traditionally focused on housing development, some have branched out into other fields, including community organizing. For formal training in community organizing, however, interested staff have been forced to travel out of the state.
CSU's Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC), in partnership with the Neighborhood Centers Association, developed and has institutionalized Neighborhood Leadership Cleveland (NLC), which has successfully trained over 450 grassroots leaders since 1996. NLC has created a mutually supportive network of leaders who respond to problems of isolation, racial segregation, despair, and lack of access to resources and information. NLC now has been expanded into a leadership continuum, providing training for emerging as well as existing neighborhood leaders. The COPC also conducts a community organizing training program for CDCs, provides technical assistance and capacity building assistance for community organizations, addresses urban problems associated with housing and homeownership, and serves as a resource for databases, maps, and trend analysis for neighborhood planning to support revitalization
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