THE EAST
SUBURBAN COUNCIL FOR OPEN COMMUNITIES
One of
DeMarco's earliest actions was to establish ties with other eastern
suburbs; the resulting network of jurisdictions coordinated their
efforts to promote racial diversity. The alliance, called the East
Suburban Council for Open Communities (ESCOC), consists of the
cities of Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, and University
Heights, and two school districts—the Shaker Heights School
District and the Cleveland Heights/University Heights School
District. ESCOC is supported in significant part by contributions
from these jurisdictions.
The
pro-integration coalition turned its attention to a group of
communities known collectively as Hillcrest. Hillcrest included
overwhelmingly white South Euclid, Lyndhurst, Mayfield Heights,
Richmond Heights, Highland Heights, and Mayfield Village. Homes in
these communities were newer and relatively less expensive than
those in the more affluent areas of Shaker Heights. But none of
them had a counterpart to Winston Richie or Stephen Alfred. In
fact, many of the residents of these communities had moved there to
escape racially changing neighborhoods in Cleveland. They were
reluctant to encourage even a limited growth in the number of
blacks moving to their neighborhoods, much less to fund incentives
for such moves.
ESCOC's
housing service, directed by Winston Richie, who had been a Shaker
Heights councilman, opened an office in 1985 in Lyndhurst in the
center of Hillcrest. By 1988 ESCOC's housing service had found
housing there for 79 black home buyers and 95 black renters. A
Cleveland Foundation grant to ESCOC was used to provide
pro-integration loans for 12 of these buyers. Hillcrest still
declines to participate formally in ESCOC.
THE FUND
FOR THE FUTURE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS AND THE HEIGHTS FUND
In addition
to founding the East Suburban Council for Open Communities, Shaker
Heights and Cleveland Heights concentrated on increasing financial
incentives for pro-integration moves within their borders. In 1985
Shaker sought and received funding from the Cleveland Foundation
and the George Gund Foundation ($100,000, to be matched by
contributions from local donors) to establish an incentive fund for
home buyers making pro-integration moves into targeted areas of the
city. The idea was to incorporate a number of smaller, neighborhood
loan funds found throughout Shaker Heights and to consolidate them
into a new entity, the Fund for the Future of Shaker Heights. The
fund offers revolving loans, about 20 each year, to black and white
buyers. These