Cleveland — Alex Rees and Joyce Hood are perfect examples of people who are proud of their homes. Proud of their little corner of the world that is the east side of Cleveland.
Channel 3 News has watched them, digging in to stand up for it, as homes next door crumble and give way to crime.
And sure enough, they believe they are starting to see the city turn the tide on abandoned homes.
It was August 15th when we found Alex Rees and his nightmare that is lurking next door.
"I don't know what’s in there. There could be a dead body in there, I don't know," said Rees in August.
But the bright spot in the blight was that Cleveland City Council had approved $950,000 in federal grant money to board up and tear down abandoned dangerous eyesores.
A month later, when we went back out on September 27th, the city had indeed started the process of pulling down the home on Elizabeth Street that had been vacant for what neighbors believe is 12 years.
Still, It's disgusting,” Hood said.
“I look outside my door and there it is right across the street from me. It's dangerous."
She and Rees have lived here on Elizabeth St. more than 30 years.
"She's they mayor of this street,” Rees jokes.
Hood is quick to counter, "This is my vice president right here!"
While we were at Alex Rees’s home, Ward 2 Councilman Kevin Bishop was nice enough to stop by.
"This one needs to come down right away," Bishop said.
Bishop sees the writing on too many dilapidated walls.
"We can't get these structures torn down fast enough. It’s overwhelming. The number of homes that need to go is overwhelming," said Bishop.
And 2 months after we first met Alex Rees, there's good news. Work on his eyesore next door has begun.
Rees says the city told him it would be down by “the end of October."
Bishop says in 2018, more vacant homes have been torn down in Ward 2 than in any other ward.
"The last report I saw was 117 properties torn down in ward 2 in 2018. That’s quite a bit of homes. We still have quite a few on the list," said Bishop.
Slow progress is better than no progress.
"We are tearing down some of those houses that have been standing for decades. Not just years, but decades,” said Bishop.
When we asked Joyce Hood in taking the pulse of progress, if she believed progress was in fact happening on her Elizabeth St. right now, she answered simply, “Now. yes".
She and Alex Rees hoping to cross one more dangerous dilapidated vacant home off the list in the neighborhood they call home.
In the meantime, Joyce Hood is already looking forward to out with the old, in with new.
A new page in a renewed neighborhood.
New life.
New neighbors.
And is already willing to extend the invitation.
“Come be a part of our street club coalition," Hood smiles.
So we felt it is only appropriate to let the de facto mayor of Elizabeth Street sum it up, in what is see the possible at its finest when she says, “Just make sure everybody stays vigilant in getting that message across. Don't accept what anybody…the city…I don’t care who it is… has to say. That you have to live exactty like this”, (she motions to the dilapidated mess behind her soon to be a memory) and adds, “You don't."