Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing

CLASH president Yvonka Hall addresses establishment attacks on black and brown youths in Cleveland. 

Greetings, 

I have been away traveling and experienced the sudden death of my grandma over the last two months. I have tried to keep up with what is going on in my city in regards to crime. I have seen articles where our Police Chief calls the youth that are commenting crimes animals. I realized that no matter how much data we have to talk about the impact of lead poisoning we have yet to fully grasp the impact of lead poisoning. The true criminals in all.of this are those that have done very little to actually address the magnitude of lead poisoning. Making an announcement without following through makes them as culpable as Sherwin Williams. Before Mayor Bibb was elected I had a conversation with him about lead poisoning being public enemy number one. I have heard him and others quote me verbatim but quoting and understanding the magnitude of this life altering issue are two separate things. Council President Griffin worked hard to shut down CLASH in our call for a lead safe Cleveland. He even worked with the foundations to start an organization that sounded very similar to our Cleveland Lead Safe Network our precursor to CLASH. Where is he at now? Silence in a matter that he seemed to be so vocal about. 

Lead is public enemy number one because it is a neurotoxin that robs young people of their ability to think. Lead goes from the blood to the bone and then to major organs as we age. Lead Poisoning impacts infant and maternal mortality, oral health, heart disease, kidney disease and dementia but we don't talk about that. We understand that reasoning skills or the frontal lobe of the brain doesn't fully develop until the late twenties. This is the reason why when young people do things that don't make sense when asked about it their response is a resounding " I don't know", now let's throw lead into the response. They really don't know, understand or comprehend yet society penalizes them for the harm caused by a society that judges Black and brown youth on perfection and then throws them in jail after they have been poisoned. These children are victims.

We have to do everything that we can to address lead. We need to do something about food apartheid which makes it nearly impossible for many communities to acquire fresh fruits and vegetables, we have to do all that we can to make sure that are housing is addressed and fixed, daycares are made to comply with lead poisoning requirements,  youth that are in the care of the County are provided with fresh fruits abd vegetables, mental health services and so much more, we have to address healthy kids meal options in fast food restaurants that are flooding urban areas, we must do something about menthol is cigarettes and vaping devices because lead is found in tobacco, lead is also found in marijuana. We have to address mental health.

The lead and crime hypothesis is real and we have to make sure that we are following the flow of the money that should be used to address lead. We have to call out the actual causes of violence and address the solutions. We can't continue to blame the victims but to put the blame where it lies. Corporate greed has allowed our communities children to be robbed of a beautiful mind.

If you want to make a donation by mail, send your check to CLASH c/o NEOBHC, 18115 Harvard Road, Cleveland 44128.