Over the past few months in my 2089 Intermediate Composition class I have learned a lot about homelessness and gentrification in Cincinnati, which is a thing that I was almost entirely ignorant of before the class. Thats the problem. Before the class the only thing I knew about homelessness was that people suffering from homelessness lived in Cincinnati, and that's just because I had seen a person sitting outside of the Cyclones stadium once. If you asked me what gentrification was, I would’ve given you a guess and said it was some chemical process. My expereince or the lack thereof when it comes to these very important topics is not uncommon either. When I’ve talked to my family, friends, or peers it seems that this experience is relatively universal. I think that this needs to change. 

Throughout this research paper I want to find all of the different resources that exist to help educate people about homelessness or gentrification. My reasoning for this is that with all this ignorance on the subject people are not fighting for change. If you don’t know about a subject, then how are you supposed to know that change needs to happen? We saw this recently with Issue 24 here in Cincinnati. This issue would set aside money for affordable housing and only cost each person roughly 14 dollars in taxes. When presented like this it seems like a no brainer, but it wasn’t presented like this. Issue 24 could’ve helped a lot of people, but most voters don’t see those that are suffering from homelessness. This is why there needs to be more education on the subject.  

Let's start with how I have been educated on the subject throughout my life. I've learned almost everything I know through a college class. This class is a sophomore level Honors course. This option is not accessible for everyone, but many of the resources that we used in the class are, which gives me a good place to start looking for effective educational resources. Looking through all my notes from the class one thing seems clear, 

 the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition’s visits to our class were the most informative on homelessness. Going to the Homeless Coalition's website I have found a lot of different ways to learn about homelessness.  

The first of these that I saw was having speakers come and talk to a group of people about homelessness. It can be done virtually or in person and entails a person, who is currently experiencing homelessness or has in the past, sharing their experience partnered with an employee that gives basic information on homelessness. This only cost $100 for groups of up to 150 and $150 for groups above that count, meaning that this option for learning more should be very affordable, especially with larger groups if everyone pitches in, and as a result very accessible. The fact that it not only gives tons of information about homelessness but also gives a face to those who are experiencing homelessness makes it an excellent starting point for those who were as ignorant as me before taking this class.  

The next of these educational programs that I saw that the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition holds are their walking tours. These, like the speaker bureau programs, can be either in person or virtual. When I took one, I found that they are great at showing the history of the region, while also giving a face to the issues, highlighting gentrification specifically. They have three main tours that they hold: the Over-The-Rhine People’s Tour, People’s Movement Today Tour, and West End Displacement Tour. The OTR People’s tour is the most general and like the name suggests goes through the OTR region of Cincinnati. The People’s Movement Today Tour focuses on how government policies of offloading responsibility and promoting gentrification impact the region of OTR. Finally, the West End Displacement Tour focuses on how “development” projects like the new home of FC Cincinnati, TQL stadium, have displaced people from their homes, leading to an increase of homelessness in the region. They all just take 2 hours and only cost $100 for a group of up to 20 people.  

Continuing down on the website, I saw their training programs. They have four different courses: Homelessness 101-401. I took the 101 and 301 course and found them to both be very beneficial and informative. They are a more formal classroom type of instruction. The 101 course covers all the basic general information on homelessness and the severe lack of affordable housing in Cincinnati. The 201 course digs even further into affordable housing and what it means for housing to be truly affordable. The 301 course gets into the legal history of housing injustices throughout OTR. To round it off, the 401 course focuses on how to build a strong community that has affordable housing so that even economic others can enjoy their right of having an affordable home. All of these courses last about 2 hours and only cost $150 for a group. I found these to be very useful if you want to learn about homelessness and housing injustice in greater detail.  

After that, I started seeing things that I didn’t partake in. The first one I saw was the “Cincinnati Urban Experience”. This is an alternative break program, a program where high school and college students volunteer and attend instruction instead of taking a traditional break, that focuses on homelessness in Cincinnati. The participants volunteer across the city helping those who are currently unhoused, while also participating in educational events that inform them about housing injustice and city policies that perpetuate it. The second of these programs is the “Streetvibes” shadowing program. This is a program where people can work with a seasoned seller and sell papers, while also learning a great deal of knowledge from people who are actively involved everyday with homelessness in Cincinnati. These two programs both seemed excellent, but they aren’t the most accessible as they require a large time commitment. What they did is point out the great resource of “Streetvibes to me. 

“Streetvibes” is a newspaper that focuses on justice for economic others, especially those who are struggling to retain or get into affordable housing. At first, I thought that you had to buy the paper directly, which makes it a lot harder for people to learn with it as it requires them to actually be on the streets of Cincinnati. Then, I realized that it wasn’t just my professor that gave us access to the archives, but that the website allows you to access the archives as weel. Upon further digging I even found out that “Streetvibes” has its own website where they post standalone pieces. Upon perusing some of the archives I have found that these not only give you an idea about the experiences of those who have experienced homelessness, but also have relevant information on what is going on in Cincinnati. I found that this resource is one of the most accessible resources for learning as it is way cheaper than the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition's programs and doesn’t require a large time commitment or a group. The articles give you relative information that can help teach not only about what is going on, but also how to help make change. A great example of this is how the papers were just promoting voting yes on Issue 24. I believe that if those that didn’t vote yes had read this paper, which would not have required a lot from them, then they the majority probably would’ve voted differently just because of how humanizing and informative it is.  

After exhausting the Greater Homeless Coalition’s website of all educational resources, I began to scour the internet for other resources. Sadly, I was not able to find anything from training programs to literature b3sides one book. This book is Econocide by Alice Skirtz and details the hostile city planning in Cincinnati which has effectively destroyed communities, creating more homelessness, in order to make room for more lucrative developments. I read this book for my class, and I found that it gave a very detailed view of all of the policies that have led to the abandonment of the “lower” classs citizens of Cincinnati. I think this a great resource, and with a quick google search I was able to find many sellers of the book for as low as $5, making it a very affordable option. On top of this it doesn’t require anyone to leave their home or to be a part of a group to learn from it.  

I was not able to find any more readily available resources about housing injustice in Cincinnati specifically. I feel like I answered my question of what educational resources are there available to the residents of Cincinnati. Sadly, this has left me with another question. What ways are there to help spread these low publicity sources to the general population? I think this is important because I still believe that education on injustice is important because many people need to work together in order to ignite change, and if the majority of people don’t know that real change is needed nothing will happen. I also think that while the resources I found are very valuable and should be spread they simply aren’t enough because I believe that schools at the younger levels should teach children about housing injustice, much like how we are seeing a rise in the education of other kinds of injustice. Learning about housing justice at the age of 19 in my case or even possibly never in many others’ is just unacceptable. There simply needs to be less agency required to learn about housing injustice as all the resources I found required not only money but also time to participate in, while something like it being in a school's curriculum would ensure that everyone is properly educated, and as a result better be able to make decisions that can help everyone. In genral thoug, I came into this wanting to know what resources exist, and am leaving with a storng belief that more resources need to be developed, and the current ones must be made more ascessible if housing injustice is to be overcome in CIncinnati. 

Works Cited: 

“Education Programs.” Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition, 14 Nov. 2023, cincihomeless.org/about/education/. 

“Cincinnati Streetvibes: News, Social Justice, Creative Writing,.” Streetvibes, www.cincistreetvibes.com/. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024. 

Skirtz, Alice. Econocide: Elimination of the Urban Poor. NASW Press, 2012.