The city of Cleveland is home for many. 

Chris Dugan, an Ashland University student, was born in Cleveland but grew up in the Dayton/Cincinnati area.

Recently, Dugan began exploring Downtown Cleveland with his fiancée Hope McFadden, also an Ashland University student, and fell in love with the city. But when he noticed the poor living conditions and empty business buildings tucked within the East Side, Dugan decided that he wanted to make a difference.

“What if we could help people part-time in the summer and fix up their home?” said Dugan.

He began to develop a non-profit organization called ‘Cleveland Matters.’ The idea behind this organization is to reach a wide range of subjects, including education, jobs, housing, community space and community development.

While there is community development, housing development and other development centers in Cuyahoga County, Dugan’s goal is to focus on one small part of the city at a time and take on the many projects within. 

The first step of ‘Cleveland Matters’ is to renovate the old, rundown houses.

“Every 18 months the whole neighborhood flips [on the East Side] and there’s no stability,” said Dugan. “People don’t know their neighbors, they don’t become invested in where they live and then the neighborhood turns into crap because renters aren’t invested in the property.” 

Dugan’s plan is to buy houses from the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, in which ‘Cleveland Matters’ would fix them up to living conditions and resell the house to people with a high to moderate income to then lease to people with a lower income. 

“That way people don’t have to keep renting month to month,” said Dugan. “They have a piece of property that is theirs and take the step to the American Dream of homeownership.” 

Once homes are renovated, Dugan hopes that ‘Cleveland Matters’ can redevelop the sense of community in Cleveland neighborhoods. 

“We want to get that sense of neighborhood and citywide pride,” said Dugan. “We can make our lives better.”

Dugan would also like to locate on the West Side near the Cleveland Stockyards between West 44^th Street and Dennison Avenue. With no non-profits in the area, and a population of about 7,000 people in the diverse community, the Stockyards have a lot of potential for the kick-off of ‘Cleveland Matters.’  

“When there are folks that are contemplating on building a new non-profit, they have 1—a lot of good company, 2—a lot of membership and peers in the space,” said Nathan Kelly, Deputy Chief of Staff for Development. “But then they should also consider what the other non-profits that they could work with are.” 

Dugan has already begun working with other non-profits in the Cleveland area, including Building Hope in the City and representatives in Ohio City for a one-on-one development.

‘Cleveland Matters’ also signed on contractor Chaz Ickes, who was one of Dugan’s former colleagues at Malone University. 

“My goal in ‘Cleveland Matters’ is to help make quality living affordable and to create communities centered on growth, both as individuals and as a community as a whole,” said Ickes.

In the meantime, Dugan wants to develop a Board of Directors that will help him develop a corporation with a full set of plans for ‘Cleveland Matters’ to propose to the city of Cleveland. He is also looking for community developers and community relations to build a connection with the Cleveland neighborhoods. 

The overall goal of ‘Cleveland Matters’ is to become the voice of the people in these Cleveland neighborhoods. 

“Ideally, it’d be nice to create a middle layer between the people and the government where services that the government isn’t providing that we can provide,” said Dugan. “And if the people need something, their voice can be heard through us.” 

The development of ‘Cleveland Matters’ goes hand-in-hand with Cleveland’s ‘Rising.’ They hope to build up the city by making people proud of the communities they live in. 

“Cities are only as strong as the communities compose it,” said Dugan. “And communities are only as strong as the individuals.”

Are you proud of where you came from?

‘Cleveland Matters’ is projected to launch in January 2016.

#ClevelandRising: A trend that is full of stories about the many changes and developments that are impacting the rise of Cleveland.