June 7, 2018 [Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer]
CLEVELAND, Ohio – An excavator provided the entertainment and bricks served as take-home favors for guests at a watch party Thursday morning for demolition of the old Brooklyn YMCA building.
Neighbors joined City Council President Kevin Kelley, Councilman Tony Brancatelli and the Metro West Community Development Corp. to cheer the end of the eyesore on West 25th Street and Selzer Avenue in Brooklyn Centre.
Built in the 1950s and closed in 2006, the building was torn down by the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., commonly known as the Cuyahoga Land Bank, for the Housing First initiative.
Housing First, a coalition of community organizations, will replace it with Emerald Alliance XI – an apartment building with 71 one-bedroom units for chronically homeless individuals. Construction should be finished in 2020.
Housing First aims to end chronic homelessness in Cuyahoga County by establishing permanent supportive housing. Performing above expectations, the project has seen a return to homelessness of less than 2 percent for its first 10 “permanent supportive housing” buildings.