The Cincinnati CAN commission — Cincinnati Community Action Now — has been mocked as Cincinnati CANNOT and Cincinnati Action Later. Since it was created by Mayor Charlie Luken after the April riots, people have been wondering what, if anything, is getting done in all those closed meetings.

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        “We created expectations that stuff would be done by the end of the summer,” said Ross Love, one of the three co-chairmen. “For many people, CAN was the hope that things would happen quickly. We need the hope.”

        But we also need patience, CAN leaders said in a meeting with the Enquirer Editorial Board on Wednesday.

        “The low-hanging fruit has all been picked,” said co-chairman the Rev. Damon Lynch III. “What remains are hard, systemic issues that Cincinnati needs to face.”

        So what has been going on?

        CAN leaders said they will begin making a better effort to inform the public and be more open. They admitted many volunteers are frustrated with the lack of openness and the criticism of CAN.

        “We have not sat down with the community to tell them where we were going,” said Tom Cody, the third co-chairman.

        CAN leaders resist talk of reports, because their goal is to get results, not recommendations that sit on a shelf at City Hall. What CAN leaders discussed on Wednesday were preliminary suggestions that are far from final.

        But the goals and programs they talked about give Cincinnati a rough idea of the directions the CAN commission is taking to make “substantial and sustainable change to reduce disparities” in six major categories:

        • Education and youth development.

        • Economic inclusion.

        • Police and the justice system.

        • Housing and neighborhood development.

        • Health care and human services.

        • Media, communications and cultural change.

        Following are excerpts from the discussion of goals and proposals that have been developed by the group over the past six months.
       

Police and the justice system
               The goal is to improve relations between police and the African-American community. “We need a cultural change on both sides,” said Mr. Love. That means raising the consciousness of police officers about their habits and attitudes toward African Americans and creating a positive attitude about the role of the police in the African-American community.

        There are ingrained adversarial relationships that must be overcome.

        Proposals include:

        • Implementation of a police/community partnership plan that includes an assessment of police practices; the creation of programs targeting youth needs; community input into police priorities; and creation of regular communications between police commanders and community leaders, as well as day-to-day contacts in the neighborhoods.

        • Creation of a new, more credible citizens' police review system. “What we have doesn't work,” Mr. Love said. He said a proposal would be issued in two weeks.

        • Improving the quality and accountability of future police chiefs and assistant chiefs. CAN points to the passage last week of Issue 5, which allows the city to go outside the city to fill these positions, as a major success in this area.

        • Eliminate city/county judicial disparities which disproportionately affect African Americans such as bad check and adult diversion programs.
       

Education and youth development
               Early childhood development is crucial to success in later life, yet there is very little money spent on programs in this area. As many as 75 percent of the children in the suburbs attend some type of preschool, an opportunity that is available to only about one out of ten children in the city, Mr. Love said. As children grow older, problems that begin in the early years are compounded. “If we don't do something, we're looking at a graduation rate of one in three for African-American students,” Mr. Love said. CAN proposals include:

        • Full-time preschool for all children ages 3-5.

        • Where necessary, provide boarding schools as alternative parent/family structures for those children most at risk.

        • Upgrade and expand early childhood intervention programs. Mr. Love pointed to a preschool reading program in which doctors at city health clinics are distributing 10,000 books and prescribing daily read-to-your child sessions to 4,000 mothers.

        • Expand on the summer jobs programs created last summer in the wake of the riots.

        • Restructure schools to meet the “unique needs of a predominately African American student body.”
       

Economic inclusion
               Black unemployment here is three times that of whites. Mr. Love praised the “wonderful” commitment to minority supplier programs by Cincinnati-based corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Federated, Kroger and Cincinnati Bell.

        But in some programs, 95 percent of the minority companies are not from the Cincinnati region. “If even 15 percent of those suppliers were from Cincinnati, it would make a tremendous difference,” he said. Targeted proposals include:

        • Identifying promising business entrepreneurs. Atlanta and Detroit have built their “renaissances” on a base of African-American owned businesses.

        • Creation of a capital fund.

        • Include public and private jobs at one-stop employment centers in neighborhoods. Training in how to get and keep jobs

        • Create transportation options to help to connect inner-city residents with jobs in the suburbs, especially for second and third shifts.

        • Encourage in inclusion of those who understand the needs of the African-American community on local corporate boards.
       

Housing and neighborhood development
               “Home ownership in the African-American community here lags in the 22 to 23 percent range — only about half the national average of about 55 percent,” Mr. Love said. The availability of affordable housing in the inner city needs to be increased and the quality of neighborhood business districts needs to be upgraded to make the city's neighborhoods desireable places to live. Proposals to reach these goals include:

        • Identify a hit list of development projects that could be advanced with a little extra help.

        • Target vacant lots and vacant buildings for redevelopment.
       

Health care and human services
               The goals are to improve the behavioral health of African Americans through improved mental health services. It is no surprise that patients respond better to doctors and other health care workers to whom they can relate. Access needs to be improved to culturally sensitive health care. Quality dental care for inner city residents also is in short supply. Proposals include:

        • Expand services at neighborhood health clinics to include mental health treatment and dental care.

        • Create a plan for indigent health care that coordinates the efforts of local clinics, hospitals and other providers.
       

Media and cultural change
               A public meeting is scheduled for Dec. 5 and every two to three months thereafter for dialogue on race on how we affect each other. Mr. Love noted how public opinion mobilized by groups such as MADD and Partnership for a Drug-free America brought about positive changes in behavior.

        • A public service announcement campaign to change attitudes and behavior. The CAN leaders said efforts are under way to find financial resources in the private sector — foundations, grants — and public sector.

        The CAN co-chairmen emphasized that the proposals are not final and few, if any, of the problems identified can be corrected with a quick fix. “I would hope that in a year or 18 months, we would have started to put into place all of the major recommendations,” Mr. Love said.

        That may seem like a long time to wait for solutions to pressing problems, but as Mr. Love said, the goal was never to come up with a final report, but to create a process to encourage and implement improvements.

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