Greater Cleveland Congregations nears success in drive to create diversion centers
The mental health centers that were a key demand
of the community’s progressive leaders during the intense political battle over
the financing of renovations to Quicken Loans Arena seem closer to being born following
the Criminal Justice Action mass meeting orchestrated by Greater Cleveland
Congregations this past Thursday at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church.
Over one
thousand GCC members from dozens of area congregations across the county packed
Olivet’s sanctuary, located in the heart of Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood, for
updates and action on what has largely been an under the radar struggle over
the past three years to secure the necessary political and financial support to
reimagine and reform the county’s broken justice system.
The
assembly heard from their leaders, celebrated their power, received testimony
from mothers of two young men whose lives might have been saved by a more
enlightened justice system, approved a roadmap to create two new crisis diversion
centers, and at the end, received endorsements and pledges from community
health leaders and key public officials to make the centers a reality.
Citizens
and experts agree that crisis diversion centers would keep people out of jail
who don’t belong there, and also save lives and money. But public policies don’t
get implemented just because they make sense, even where government is
progressive. And moving the public apparatus of a defensive, decentralized,
dollar-strained and often dysfunctional county government is no easy task.
GCC’s
efforts in 2017 to secure the crisis centers were joined and supported by
noteworthy allies, including the SEIU, AFSCME, and ATU labor unions, along the
Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, were insufficient to galvanize the
community into addressing the issue at that time.
On
Thursday, as the coalition of forces, including key public officials in the
criminal justice and health systems who have since come aboard, appears on the
brink of establishing the centers, GCC paused to acknowledge its early allies
in the struggle.
It is
now clear that the initial rebuff by the array of private and public interests
against creating the centers was not the end of the discussion. Seated front
and center on stage were the present and former presiding and administrative
judges of the county court system, the county prosecutor, and the chief of
staff for the county executive. The public systems they represent are all now at
the table, working to make the diversion centers a reality.
[This post will be updated momentarily. Thank you for your patience.]
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