I Met With The Mayor Yesterday. Here’s How It Went

I walked out of that meeting exhausted.

In my mind, it was a significant point of importance in this decade-long journey.

My advocacy for this particular segment of homeless people has pushed me into realms of feeling, thinking, and “praying” in ways that no other work has ever challenged me to do before.

This homeless journey takes me into a darkness I never knew existed. The world in which these people are forced to live, along with a society that walks past them without even so much as acknowledging their existence, is the heart of darkness. It decimates my heart and soul.

I have been to, or requested to go to, every court in Ohio for the right to shelter these people.

We once hired a bus to drive countless supporters to city council to let us have this space to shelter people. Only three city council people sided with us. That was what it was when we started. No pleading, tours, or organizing moved anyone else during the entire process. 3 out of 13 people.

I’ve now been told I will be fined or will go to jail if I put one more tent on my land.

So, yes, I was immensely grateful and hopeful for yesterday’s meeting. It’s the only glimmer of hope I’ve had in a long time. I had no choice but to be hopeful, even if the outcome seemed unlikely to be forward-moving.

I worked my ass off for this meeting.

You can see the presentation and all the supporting documentation by clicking here.

I felt like I had to prepare the absolute best I could for this 30-minute meeting I was granted.

The last time I was in the mayor’s conference room was with the Dan Horrigan administration. During those two meetings, I felt like I was walking into enemy territory. Everyone was very standoffish, and the mayor looked extremely uncomfortable being in my presence. He told the press that I had been granted my one meeting, but public pressure made him have a second meeting.

Dan Horrigan’s message always was: THE SYSTEM WORKS.

That wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true today. I called all the shelters in Akron the day before yesterday’s meeting. I was told there was space for a man in the high-barrier, highly Christian shelter, Haven of Rest. There was no place for a woman or a woman and her kids. ZERO SPACE FOR WOMEN AND THEIR KIDS ANYWHERE IN AKRON.

I would say that is, if not a failing system, it is a system that could use some work.

The vibe in the Shammas Malik mayor’s office was completely different. Laurie Hoffman, Executive Assistant to Mayor Shammas Malik, was warm, kind and considerate. Everyone was dressed comfortably. Shammas was wearing a sweater.

The three main office people, Laurie Hoffman, Teresa Lloyd, and the communications director, Stephanie Marsh, all come to the front of the office to meet me at the end of the meeting.

I was promised a half-hour meeting. But we talked for close to an hour.

There were two main feelings I took away from that meeting.

1. Shammas Malik is sincere and thoughtful about this work. He was very aware of the homeless situation in Akron. He talked at least twice about a guy who is camping on Market and how that was affecting him. I remember reading someone who said that Shammas would be a mayor who worked incredibly hard. I saw that being the case when he was Ward 8 City Council person. And I could tell he was that way as mayor.
2. He still has a soft heart. Maybe it’s his age. Maybe he will always be able to be vulnerable and sensitive to the difficulties of the world. He is a genuinely caring person. He’s smart. But he’s not conniving. I know liars. I’ve been surrounded by them in business and in the homeless world. Shammas Malik is not a liar… at least not now in his life.

What I Learned at the Meeting

The biggest thing I learned was that there are “Sweeps” and “Cleanups.”

A sweep is with a camp that has people currently living in it. A cleanup is a camp that is believed to have no people in it.

They believed the camp where I was protesting was a cleanup. They believed there were no people living at the camp.

That was wrong. The “cleanup” happened on October 31, 2024. The sign had been posted 48 hours before the cleanup. Shammas told me that they didn’t send people to this camp to offer services because they didn’t believe people were living there.

This picture was taken on October 31 at 9:32 am:

This is a picture I took the day before the cleanup on October 30:

There were three tents that day. They were fully erected and quite clearly lived in.

Here’s a tent in that same area on October 20:

This is October 8:

This is another view from October 8:

I took these pictures because I was getting pressured by the Akron law department that I had tents on my land. I sent these pictures to John York, Assistant Director of Law at City of Akron, Law Department, on October 8 to show that these tents were not on my land and I was staying in compliance with the law-thing (I forget what they call it) that says I will be in contempt of court if I have tents on my land. This is not my land. It is owned by Larue Corn, who has been dead for over 20 years.

There are times where it is difficult to know if tents are being lived in. Sometimes all the poles are broken in a tent and it looks like garbage. But people are still living in them.

I feel like any average person could look at this scene and agree that this appears to be an active camp.

This should have been a “Sweep,” not a “Cleanup.”

I believe Shammas Malik was lied to by people in his administration.

They told him that this was a dead camp and they just needed to go clean it up. So no services were necessary.

Shammas told me that no services were sent to this camp. He said it was a Cleanup.

Could he be putting down cover for himself? Possibly.

It could also be that he was informed about the “cleanup” after my protest. It could have gone something like:

Malik to the nuisance department: “Tell me about what happened with that camp Sage was protesting at.”

Nuisance department: “It was just a cleanup. Everyone had left the camp.”

Ultimately, I think the policy is to break these down into either a Sweep or a Cleanup.

Sweeps are annoying. They require a bunch of coordination with a bunch of different services. Cleanups are hard too. They need to organize trucks and people and contractors.

It’s just easier for everyone to say that this is a “Cleanup” and then they can move everything along.

It is the most human thing to CYA – Cover Your Ass. We do it as a reflex.

I really took away that the mayor and his Neighborhood Assistance person, Eufrancia Lash, need a way to get more information and eyes on these things.

I’m wondering about pitching the idea of a group discussion tool like Slack. It could be a place where stakeholders can all communicate on sweeps and cleanups.

The idea would be: Upcoming sweeps would be posted on the discussion group. Nonprofits and supporters could go to those locations and send information and pictures of what is the current situation. We could all work together to organize resources and strategies. It wouldn’t be about stopping the sweep. It would be about helping support the people living at the camp that is getting swept.

That was the biggest new information I got from this meeting.

I also learned that when Shammas talks to other mayors, they say homelessness is their number 1 issue. He believes his number 1 issue is safety. I agree with him.

What About The Safe Sleeping Space?

Shammas asked some really hard questions about this. I loved that because hard questions mean that a person is considering it.

I think he’s skeptical that it could work. That the police would just be endlessly called to deal with it. He was also concerned that the people of the city would not like that we are supporting people who they think are probably just choosing to live a reckless, wild lifestyle.

I did everything in my power to show that the national government and other cities are all advocating these kinds of “mitigation” sites. Unstructured and dangerous camps are closed down, and then the people are moved to these temporary structured camps, where they are then moved into services.

I don’t know if Akron is progressive-minded enough to attempt this. But I don’t know what other choice we have. We have very little money for rapid rehousing. I’ve been told AMHA has stopped taking applications because they are so backlogged. Every city in America needs MUCH more affordable housing.

Morals aside, sweeping camps that do nothing other than send people to another camp that will then get swept has been proven over and over again to not work. It doesn’t fix the problem. It just doesn’t. We need to try something else.

And then there is this:

Unsheltered homeless people have increased by 300% in the last 2 years. And look around. There are more homeless people in places that have never had homeless people before.

If this continues, I believe homelessness could become Akron’s Number 1 issue.

Conclusion

Shammas said that we should keep this dialogue going. I believed him.

I need to work on building a good relationship with Eufrancia Lash. He is the main person to organize this. He was pretty quiet throughout the meeting. I don’t know what he thinks of all this. I hope I can learn more about his perspective.

I was extremely pleased with the meeting. I was so happy with how Shammas engaged so meaningfully on this topic. He asked so many good and important questions. That’s critically important.

I need to continue to build trust with them. I need to continue to think about ways to help them continue to get better at managing these sweeps and cleanups.

I just want to try to be a helpful resource for them. I’m going to continue to try my best.