Choosing Better in 2026: Ending Homelessness Through Action
On December 22, as the longest night of the year settled over Cleveland, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) convened our community in grief and resolve. At its annual Homeless Memorial Vigil, the coalition honored the lives of more than 170 Greater Clevelanders who died in 2025 while experiencing homelessness.
As names are read aloud at each year’s vigil, the purpose is not only remembrance: it is truth-telling. Each name represents a life lost not to fate, but to policies that allow people to live and die without stable housing. This year’s gathering made one reality painfully clear: homelessness is growing, and so is its human toll.
YWCA Greater Cleveland witnesses this truth every night at its Norma Herr Women’s Center (NHWC), the county’s only low-barrier adult women’s shelter. As 2025 began, nightly occupancy surged from an average of 260 women in January to record highs on recent individual nights above 300. These numbers reflect the desperate need for housing that plagues our community.
Recently, YWCA received approximately $192,000 in grant funds from the Ohio Department of Development. In an interview at NHWC with Spectrum News 1, YWCA’s Vice President of Outcomes and Compliance Dr. Adriennie Hatten explained that, with the shelter’s ongoing renovation and expansion, the model will shift from congregate—dormitory-style—housing to individual rooms occupied by one or two people. As this change occurs, YWCA will be able to “specialize and offer people the services that they need and really try to move people to housing even more seamlessly,” Hatten added.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that the United States is experiencing an unprecedented rise in homelessness. Locally, deaths among unhoused people in Greater Cleveland nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025. While the opening of a new seasonal shelter on January 5 is an important step, it is not enough. The demand for safe, dignified shelter continues to far exceed available resources.
One of far too many examples of this harsh reality can be found on Cleveland’s Near West Side, where unhoused individuals remain living in tents at Scranton Cemetery. Though the number unhoused individuals in the cemetery has dropped from more than 30 to roughly a dozen, some who remain have endured nearly six months of uncertainty—and, most recently, winter cold while waiting for permanent housing. One resident, Mikey, captured their plight plainly: “This is horrible. It’s horrible at nighttime. It really gets cold.”
Despite drastic funding cuts, lack of affordable housing, and ongoing threats to resources, YWCA Greater Cleveland has refused to turn women away. When beds are full, women sleep on floor mats. When no mats are left, we offer chairs. We do this because safety, warmth, and dignity are not optional—they are necessities. And no one should be denied life’s necessities because of budget lines or political will.
Homelessness is a policy choice. So is ending it.
As we move into 2026, Greater Cleveland must choose differently. We must invest in housing, protect funding for shelters, and affirm—through action—that every person deserves a safe place to live. Our neighbors’ lives depend on it.