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Columbia, holding Congress could consider aesthetic as well as health concerns when enacting the legislation. 3 The Court noted: “Miserable and disreputable housing conditions may do more than spread disease and crime and immorality. They may also suffocate the spirit by reducing the people who live there to the status of cattle. They may indeed make living an insufferable burden. They may also be an ugly sore, a blight on the community which robs it of charm, which makes it a place from which men turn. The misery of housing may spoil a community as an open sewer may ruin a river.” 4 Cleveland was first awakened to the housing court concept when several city councilmen attended the National Conference of Councilmen & Aldermen in Baltimore, Maryland in March 1950. 5 Baltimore’s housing court, the first in the nation, had been established in 1947. The Plain Dealer reported that the Baltimore Housing Court combined features of Cleveland’s board of appeals and municipal court, and dealt with violations of the housing, zoning and sanitary codes. 6 In late April 1950, the Plain Dealer published a statement by the editor of American Builder magazine, E.G. Gavin, that cities should “clean up slums, don’t tear them down . . . and in the case of rental units— which most slum dwellings are—to make owners conform to the law.” 7 Gavin advocated the creation of a housing court to prosecute property owners who otherwise did not comply with code violation notices. His attitude was a prelude to the spirit and process of the Cleveland Housing Court today. Clevelanders again put the spotlight on Baltimore’s housing court in 1952, inviting that city’s redevelopment director, Richard Steiner, to speak to the Cleveland chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). His message: if voters fully understand the benefits of redevelopment, which depends on enforcement of building codes, they will allocate money for it as they did in Baltimore. 8 By 1953, Cleveland’s activist community started to advocate a housing court as a way of preserving the City’s neighborhoods. “Speak out,” Rev. Hubert N. Robinson, pastor of St. James AME Church, told the annual meeting of the Central Areas Community Council. “It is our right to have decent housing, but it is also our responsibility to get all those plans off the drawing board.” To residents of the Central neighborhood, he issued his strongest challenge: “. . . be vocal and be loud. . . .If you don’t speak out as an individual, as a citizen, as a victim of bad housing, how can you expect hopefully that someone else will?” 9 Locally and nationally, momentum for redevelopment and eliminating slums was building. Housing courts often were part of the proposals. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) released a threepart plan in July 1953 to eliminate blight. It called for creation of a housing code to “put a floor of decency under every home,” housing inspectors to check violations, and the establishment of a housing court to ensure compliance. The plan further contemplated an aggressive public relations campaign to inform the public. 10 The movement was bolstered in 1954, when Cleveland Municipal Judge John V. Corrigan called for a Cleveland Housing Court. The current system, he noted, was ineffective and slow, and he cited Baltimore’s success in enforcing housing, sanitary and fire codes. 11 No one took action on the idea for five years. In January 1959, Cleveland Mayor Anthony J. Celebrezze, along with several suburban mayors, met with Cuyahoga County’s state legislators. They recommended establishment of a housing court as a branch of Cleveland’s alreadyexisting judicial structure. In October of that year, the City hired fifteen new housing inspectors, doubling their ranks. In an editorial, The Plain Dealer conceded there “may be a need” for a housing court: “Frankly,”
Witt and Wisdom in a Problem-Solving Court Housing Court works hard to give parties opportunities to resolve cases without trial. The Court reserves the most complicated and delicate of these cases for Alternative Dispute Resolution Specialist, C. David Witt. In the summer of 2010, Mr. Witt helped parties resolve a contentious dispute involving a Warehouse District nightclub. Residential tenants and nearby businesses complained about the large, unruly crowds attracted by the hip-hop club. The owner of the building took legal action against the owner of the club, who, backed by the NAACP, claimed that racism was behind the efforts to shut down his business. Three lawsuits were filed, including one in Housing Court. The landlord claimed that the club’s noise levels violated the lease. Judge Pianka directed the case to Mr. Witt for alternative dispute resolution (ADR). After multiple settlement conferences, the parties resolved the case with an agreement that encompassed noise levels, the role of bouncers and the eventual expiration of the club’s lease. Though hardly typical of the cases he handles, Mr. Witt points to it as an example of how ADR works. “We don’t settle everything, but we settle almost everything,” he says. In fact, 92 percent of 235 civil cases that went to Mr. Witt for ADR in 2014 resulted in non-trial settlements. “Ruling on a case is usually about winning and losing. At least half your parties leave disappointed. Mediation, on the other hand, is not about winning and losing. It’s about problem solving. In that sense, a successful mediation is a better resolution of a dispute, both emotionally and practically.” ADR isn’t just for the large and complex cases, however. Many eviction cases also are resolved through mediation. Gary Katz, a Housing Court Mediator, estimated that he handles 1,400 of the more than 10,000 civil cases that come before the court each year. In a typical resolution to an eviction case, the tenant agrees to leave, and the landlord gives the tenant more time to find other accommodations. The Judge and Magistrates can refer cases to mediation or other ADR opportunities, or the parties involved can request it at any stage. “It’s a practical thing to bring a case to an agreed resolution and know what that resolution is, rather than leave it up to a third party like a magistrate,” Witt says. “Sometimes mediation can be a cathartic experience. Finally they get to tell their story, and having told the story, they might be more amenable to reaching a settlement.” editors wrote, “we think the Municipal Court judges who now try these cases have not given enough thought to the cancer which slums and rank overcrowding have created in this city. . . The wrist-slapping business must be stopped.” 12 The clarion call for a housing court continued into the 1960s. The Urban League formed a community action group in April 1961 to keep up the pressure for immediate action on unsafe housing. They asked that landlords’ and tenants’ responsibilities be posted in multi-family dwellings throughout the city, and were charged with exploring the usefulness of a housing court in Cleveland. 13 In 1964, freshman councilman (and former housing inspector) George L. Forbes, moved City Council to request the General Assembly to establish a housing division within Cleveland Municipal Court. 14 Several months later, on February 1, 1965, three councilmen consented to make the request of state legislators as part of their proposal for a new neighborhood rehabilitation program. 15 Forbes responded in April by proposing a “housing clinic” to augment the work of Cleveland Municipal Court in fighting neighborhood blight. 16 The rhetoric intensified that September, when mayoral candidate Carl B. Stokes declared war on slum landlords as part of his campaign platform: “I would make absentee slum ownership an unprofitable business,” he declared. He added that as mayor, he would set up a housing court independent of Cleveland Municipal Court. 17 The rallying cry persisted through the remainder of the decade, with local and state candidates and officers of both political parties calling for housing reform. Actual progress toward creation of Cleveland Housing Court did not come about, however, until well into the tumultuous 1970s. 7
Page 1 and 2: We Shape Our Cities, And Thereafter
Page 3 and 4: he Housing Court has jurisdiction o
Page 5: It has been my privilege to be the
Page 11 and 12: ocial and Political Change Bolsters
Page 13: Housing Court - Justice Beyond the
Page 16 and 17: hiring more than one Housing Specia
Page 19 and 20: oactive Court The 1990s ushered in
Page 21: collaborating with the Northeast Oh
Page 24 and 25: The often unscrupulous practice of
Page 27 and 28: evitalization and Resilience As the
Page 29 and 30: first year, 2008, this family-frien
Page 31 and 32: 2000’s 2010’s 2003 The Court be
Page 34 and 35: Notes The Early Years: The Emergenc

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