November 17, 2009. The Columbus Dispatch.
Two years ago, the social-activist group BREAD labeled truancy a major problem, urging the Franklin County prosecutor’s office to help keep kids in school by notifying their parents when they weren’t. The KEY Truancy Program was begun and has since reduced chronic truancy in six pilot schools by 55 percent.
Payday lending, neighborhood blight and health care are other issues recently tackled by BREAD (Building Responsibility Equality and Dignity), a nondenominational religious group.
But last night, BREAD leadership returned youth to the spotlight.
At its annual assembly at Rhema Christian Center on the North Side, members cast 175 votes for youth issues to be its next target. Runners-up were lack of jobs (120 votes) and crime (67).
Some recreation centers have closed, pay-to-play sports are proliferating in schools and children have less adult supervision than ever, said Bishop William Polley of Zion Christian Assembly.
One of his congregants told of her grandson being suspended for two months after a friend he was with brought a BB gun to school.
“It’s only going to make him more difficult to follow when he gets back in school,” Polley said.
BREAD cited school violence, lack of jobs, insufficient after-school programs and summer-program cuts among challenges facing young people.
A May 3 action meeting at Veterans Memorial will kick-start the campaign, following strategy sessions and an April 12 rally.
Abandoned housing was BREAD’s most recent target issue. In May, the group toured the 85 “Worst of the Worst” properties in Columbus. A committee has since decided to discuss developing a land bank, similar to the model used in Cuyahoga County.
“The foreclosure crisis has completely destabilized cities like Cleveland and now the inner-ring suburbs,” Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis told the group last night.
The “get-rich-quick property-flipping game” has gutted property values and destroyed home equity, he said.
Land banks borrow money from the county to pay off outstanding property taxes on vacant properties owned by absentee landlords or banks. Penalties and interest on this debt go into the land bank.
Cuyahoga County collects about $8 million a year and owns the homes, “selling the best, mothballing a few and tearing down the rest,” Rokakis said.
June Frankel, a committee member working in Columbus, said both city and county leaders have been slow to move toward such a system.
“They’re going to have to convince Mayor (Michael B.) Coleman and the city of Columbus that this is the right thing to do,” Rokakis said.
