CLEVELAND, Ohio — Local nuisance abatement laws are meant to preserve community tranquility.
They exist “so people can live in peace in their neighborhoods,” said Kelley Sweeney, Euclid’s law director.
But nuisance laws in many communities, including, until recently, Euclid, may make it harder for domestic violence victims to find peace.
Here’s how the laws work: Communities can declare a property a nuisance after a certain number of police responses to complaints for incidents spelled out in the nuisance ordinance. Among them are loud noise, barking dogs, and other crimes.
Many such ordinances locally and across the country include domestic violence as one of those “nuisance” crimes.
But what if the person making the call to police is the victim of domestic violence? Calls for help might lead to the property being declared a nuisance. And once a nuisance is declared, communities levy fines for every police call. What happens then, says Mike Brickner, senior policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, is that landlords who are facing fines evict their problem tenants. Or, worse, victims simply stop calling police.
“The woman is oftentimes then on the street trying to find housing, may be homeless, may lose their employment, and in some of the very sad cases, may even go back and live with their abuser because they have nowhere else to go,” said Brickner.
An NPR story in June focused on Lakisha Briggs of Norriston, Pa., who was warned by the police that she had “one strike” when she called about the abuse from her boyfriend. He later assaulted her with a broken ashtray and cut her neck so badly she was airlifted to a hospital. She returned home to an eviction notice. The landlord blamed the nuisance ordinance.
The ACLU sued and Norristown’s law was changed. Pennsylvania later passed a statewide law to remove domestic violence from nuisance offenses.
Mike Brickner, senior policy director of the ACLU of Ohio.American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio
Ohio has no such law and many communities still include domestic violence on their nuisance ordinances. There are 13 communities in Cuyahoga County, by the ACLU’s count, that have domestic violence listed as a crime that qualifies for nuisance designation, Brickner said.
They are: Bedford, Cuyahoga Heights, Fairview Park, Garfield Heights, Lakewood, Lyndhurst, Maple Heights, Newburgh Heights, North Olmsted, Parma, South Euclid, Warrensville Heights and Woodmere.
Euclid changes law
Euclid was on that list, but City Council voted in December to change the law, prompted by three enterprising Cleveland State University Students whose class project was to make a positive impact in the community.
They succeeded with a compelling argument, supported by impressive research including city police logs, and sobering testimony before a council committee. First, they convinced Sweeney that the city needed to reconsider its law.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this is terrible!” said Sweeney.
CSU Assistant Professor Joe Mead with students Marissa Pappas and Vanessa Hemminger. Mead’s philosophy is for students to see how laws are enacted and enforced in the real world.Michael K. McIntyre/Plain Dealer
The students were Marissa Pappas of Brunswick, Vanessa Hemminger of Akron and Calla Bonanno of Rocky River. Bonanno and Hemminger are students in the Cleveland Marshall College of Law at CSU. Pappas is a graduate student in the Maxine Goodman Levine College of Urban Affairs.
Professor Joe Mead, for his class on law and public policy, wanted to get them away from the textbooks.
“My philosophy is what better way to learn than to do,” said Mead. “So I put them to work.”
There’s been some national attention paid to the nuisance law issue and its impact on domestic violence victims, so Mead suggested it as a possible pursuit.
“We thought, ‘This is so bizarre. This isn’t happening,'” said Pappas. The students targeted Euclid because they knew a law clerk there.
Unknown danger
Many people just aren’t aware of the potential negative impact of the law, said Hemminger.
“You see people that are already struggling, that already having issues, and on top of that the potential to be evicted because of calling the police?” she said. “There’s an immediate visceral reaction that this is something that needs to change.”
She played the NPR story, holding her phone to the microphone, during her council testimony.
Mayor Kirsten Holzheimer Gail thanked the students during that hearing and agreed a change was needed.
“We don’t want to give any reason for anyone to stop and think, ‘I’m not going to call for help.'” she said.
The vote by council, Bonanno said, “restored my faith in local government and getting things done at the local level.”
Since the change, neighboring South Euclid has decided to consider amending its statute.
“I definitely think Law Directors (in every community) should look at these laws,” said Sweeney. Pappas said the student research is available to anyone interested in advocating such change.
But the ACLU’s Brickner said broader change is needed because new laws including domestic violence still pop up even as existing laws are changed. He likened the effort to “a game of Whack-a-Mole.
The ACLU contends nuisance laws are a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act and the Violence Against Women act, Brickner said. They can negatively impact not only domestic violence victims, but others, such as people with mental disabilities and people of color, he said.
“They’re unconstitutional. We as residents have the right to petition our government for help, and that includes being able to call the police if we’re a victim of crime,” Brickner said.
He said he’s hopeful Ohio will follow other states, such as Iowa, Pennsylvania and Illinois, in passing a state law protecting domestic violence victims by removing the crime from local nuisance ordinances.
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