On a recent Monday afternoon, Ayonna Blue Donald is winding up a phone conversation about a policy issue in her bright and airy office, located at the end of a narrow hallway in a downtown Cleveland office building. Donald, vice president and market leader for Enterprise’s Ohio market, is the last person there at the end of the day and points with pride to the office’s sweeping view directly onto the city’s Progressive Field baseball park. The transformation of the office in this historic building, Donald says, reflects the team who works there — deeply committed to the city and not afraid to tackle difficult issues.
Donald, originally a Detroit native, has made a home in Cleveland. “There’s something about its grittiness combined with Midwestern charm that has kept me coming back. People here move quickly, and they’re here to makes things happen,” she says.
As Enterprise’s Ohio market leader for nearly three years, Donald is clearly here “to make things happen,” as she oversees coalitions and partnerships aimed at repairing homes in Cleveland, addressing homelessness, and creating housing and economic opportunity for Ohioans across the state.
Even after cross-country moves, Donald has ended up in the city where she began her career. She completed an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at Case Western Reserve University before moving to California. After a career change and completing law school in San Francisco, she moved to Texas — where she practiced law — before returning to Cleveland.
Donald spoke with us recently about her unconventional path to affordable housing and her work to build coalitions for greater economic opportunity in her home city and state.
How did you make your way from engineering to law to affordable housing?
It was serendipitous. When I moved back to Cleveland, I applied for a job in the Department of Housing for the city of Cleveland, even though I’d planned to take the bar exam and ultimately practice law in Ohio. But after I landed in the housing department, I fell in love with the work I was doing helping people and communities more broadly. My supervisor said at one point, ‘you are never leaving,’ and that's essentially what happened.
The work I was doing at first was really the first step — or pre-step — toward creating affordable housing. I worked with community development organizations to smooth the way for housing, through code enforcement, demolition of abandoned properties, permitting. Housing is such a basic need for everyone in society. You live somewhere, you sleep somewhere, you rest somewhere, you make a home somewhere. But so many people don't have a safe, healthy, affordable place to call home. That’s what we in affordable housing are here for.
How would you describe the housing affordability issue here in Cleveland?
When you consider the state of affordable housing, people do look at Cleveland and Ohio in general and think housing is so cheap. People coming from D.C., New York or California, where it can be difficult to even afford the basics, might think they can live in a $500,000 mansion here. Unfortunately, that has attracted unscrupulous investors to our communities – to reap the rewards but not to reinvest. They may buy a property, but they don't always take care of those properties. They're not doing well by the people who are living here. When you have people who are not doing the right thing, at the expense of people who just need a place to live, it becomes a dangerous cycle.
Rents have increased by 16% over the past year in Cleveland — and 17% in Columbus — so if you ask someone in Ohio if it’s affordable, they're going to say no. Affordability is relative. Many people are very cost burdened here.
I’m a native of Detroit, so it’s interesting to me that there are so many similarities between these two cities – from the character of their homes to the type of families who live here. Their histories also: the auto industry fled Detroit and in Cleveland, the steel industry left, leading to a similar kind of disinvestment and population loss.
With disinvestment, you have communities here that are blighted, and you have people who have been living in their homes for 20 years without the resources to upkeep them. If the value of your home is $40,000, how do you get a loan for home repair? Deferred maintenance is probably the biggest threat in both Cleveland and Detroit — we don't have enough resources to make sure that our housing stock is in a habitable condition. How do you make those changes? You do it through advancing policy changes, and by creating programs that get more home repair dollars out the door to communities that need it. But it's tough.
Speaking of home repairs, can you tell me about the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition that Enterprise manages?
Lead poisoning is a public health crisis with a housing solution — and it’s been a huge problem in our area for decades. Initially, the coalition pushed for legislation, successfully advocating for a lead safe ordinance that centers housing solutions. In 2019, we created a fund to repair homes and really tackle this problem from all sides. We received a catalytic $52.5 million investment from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation a couple years ago, which is having a big impact. But it’s still a big challenge and lead is an insidious toxin — we don’t always see the immediate effect on children until it’s too late. That’s why Enterprise continues to invest so much time and effort managing this coalition, onboarding new administrators, and recruiting lead safe workers to do the work in the community.
What are some other big policy concerns and priorities for the Ohio market?
One of our biggest priorities is advocating for fair housing policies. Our state and local policy director, Hazel Remesch, came to Enterprise from the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland where she started the Right to Counsel program. We find that often people don’t understand their rights when it comes to landlord-tenant laws. Cleveland used to have a tenants' rights organization, but it disbanded in 2018 due to lack of funding. There's been an upswell in the community to try to restart that Cleveland tenant’s organization. We’re working on that.
Another of our biggest priorities is to increase the availability of housing for people who were formerly incarcerated. It’s unfair that justice-involved individuals who have paid their dues and done their time, so to speak, still carry a stigma with them forever that can prevent them from finding a place to live.
Enterprise’s work in this area began before I joined — we had a contract with Cuyahoga County's Office of Reentry, and we came up with a plan to expand access to transitional housing and permanent supportive housing — but also homeownership opportunities, which can be transformative for individuals who were previously incarcerated and their families. When you buy a home, there's no criminal background check. For renters, there is a stigma with landlords, and it’s a huge hurdle to overcome. So, we’re really focused on pushing for fair housing legislation that protects renters from housing discrimination. Everyone needs a place to live, no matter their background, and it is better for society when all people have the housing and services they need to thrive.
Recently, in the case of City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Constitution does not protect against punishment for sleeping outside, even if people have no alternative. What is your reaction and how will this impact your work to address homelessness in Ohio?
It’s unconscionable, especially considering the shortage of affordable housing in our country and in Ohio. But this ruling continues to highlight the importance of our work advocating for more resources for affordable and permanent supportive housing and services. We will continue to work with our partners like the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio (COHHIO), Cuyahoga County, and the City of Cleveland, to provide thought partnership and guidance on best practices to implement in Ohio.
For example, I sit on COHHIO’s Policy Committee where we are focused on ending homelessness and promoting decent, safe, fair, affordable housing for all, with a focus on low-income and special needs individuals. Additionally, the city of Cleveland recently dedicated staff and resources to clear two encampments not by criminalizing people experiencing homelessness but by pulling together community partners (including Enterprise) to think through a compassionate way to house the most vulnerable in our community. We need to be thinking creatively and proactively about real solutions to homelessness as municipalities begin to change their policies in light of the ruling.
What are you most proud of since joining Enterprise?
Even though it’s still fledgling, I’m proud of the Make It Home Cleveland Program, which we started with initial support from the Rocket Community Fund. The goal of this program is to give people living in tax-forfeited properties the chance to become homeowners before properties are sold to someone else. Right now, team members are reaching out to residents who may be eligible to discuss the program and available services, such as one-on-one homebuyer help, home repair support, legal assistance, and other services designed to help ensure a smooth transition to homeownership.
In the coming year, we aim to work with Make it Home partners and Legal Aid Society’s Right to Counsel to put together a program that will have an even bigger impact on our community. There are more properties out there than we can address on our own or with our one program. I’m inspired to light the fire for others to find new ways to create wealth building opportunities as part of an even larger community. That’s what drives so much of our work with coalitions in Ohio, and what I find exciting.
Make it Home addresses an interesting area that no one — in our community at least — has touched. There are plenty of people looking at foreclosed properties or even forfeited properties that are not occupied. But what about people currently living in a home, who may have been paying rent to a delinquent landlord, but now find themselves at risk of displacement? What do you do? That’s the beauty of Enterprise – we tackle a lot of the issues that are hard, that many people have walked away from.
