What We Do
Collaborations and Partnerships
The Cuyahoga Land Bank seeks to create collaborations and partners to assist in the fulfillment of our mission to strategically acquire properties, return them to productive use, reduce blight, increase property values, support community goals and improve the quality of life for county residents. We work collaboratively with each of the municipalities where we own property to ensure that these properties are brought back to productive life in a way that aligns with that municipality’s vision for its future.
The Land Bank also maintains partnerships where the use of our properties benefits the community, such as in the instance of community gardening or Urban Search and Rescue team training.
Some of our partners include:
—Court Community Service
—City of Cleveland
—Cuyahoga County
—North East Ohio Regional Sewer District
—Neighborhood Progress, Inc
—City of East Cleveland
—Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority
—Cleveland Restoration Society
—Cleveland Housing Network
—LakewoodAlive
—Cleveland Clinic
—City of Berea
—Polish American Cultural Center
—University Circle, Incorporated
—First Suburbs Consortium
—City of South Euclid
—HELP Foundation
—International Service Center
—Koinonia Homes
—LiveCleveland
—City of Garfield Heights
—Purple Heart Homes
—Village of Newburgh Heights
—ESOP-Concerned Citizens of Mt. Pleasant
—Eden Inc.
We have established groundbreaking partnerships with HUD and Fannie Mae to capture their vacant and abandoned housing stock for either rehabilitation or demolition, preventing hundreds of severely neglected properties from being sold to negligent speculators and further causing our neighborhoods to decay. At the end of 2009, Fannie Mae signed an agreement with the Cuyahoga Land Bank to sell their homes to the Land Bank for $1 and contribute $3,500 toward the cost of demolition. In July 2010, the Cuyahoga Land Bank signed an agreement with HUD that allows the Land Bank to purchase HUD homes for $100 each during a first-look period if the homes are valued at $20,000 or less. Likewise, we can purchase HUD homes valued between $20,001 and $100,000 at a 30% discount before the homes are offered to the public. If the homes go on the market and don’t sell within 60 days, the Land Bank can purchase them at a 50% discount. Each of these agreements was unprecedented and has set the stage for other land banks throughout the country.
They also laid the groundwork for agreements with Wells Fargo and Bank of America in the summer of 2011. Both banks agreed to donate low asset properties to the Cuyahoga Land Bank and provide $3,500 per property in NSP 2 target areas and $7,500.00 per property in the rest of Cuyahoga County toward demolition. Bank of America capped their donations at 100 properties.