News

Doing the Lord’s work generates many beneficiaries. As mentioned in the previous story, BHITC recently dedicated its fifth housing renovation project on Trowbridge Avenue with eight previously homeless veterans already moved in. Yet, as God always would have it, the blessings produce a return to the givers, as well as the recipients. For members at Bethel Lutheran Church located in Bath and Fellowship Bible Church located in Chagrin Falls, who helped turn the dreams of the Trowbridge project’s tenants into realities, the spiritual dividends are high.

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On Saturday, September 21, BHITC kicked off its first-ever Rally CLE event, a new initiative and key element to its community development efforts in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton and Stockyards (CFSY) neighborhoods. The event, which will become a recurring effort, is centered on supporting the ideas residents in these neighborhoods have for improving their own community. Whether it’s a garden, mural, or a community toolshed, BHITC wants to help leverage the leadership that already exists in these neighborhoods through Rally CLE. 

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“Housing is the building block of neighborhoods, especially neglected urban neighborhoods. Leveraging the capacity of the Church to impact housing sends a powerful witness about the lordship of Jesus,” says Brian Upton, Executive Director, BHITC. In the spring newsletter, BHITC expanded upon its housing and community development initiative, which is part of a 10-year vision, and provided an update on a housing project for veterans, located on Trowbridge Avenue in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

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While many faces have changed, the roots of BHITC have always been the same. Humility, dignity, grace and restoration – for people, family, neighborhood, city and world. Phyliss Boggs knows this to be true more than most connected to the BHITC family. Before the organization was officially established, she was invited by a co-worker in the late 1990’s to what was then called “Food for Thought,” a time every Tuesday over lunch where people from downtown – office people and the homeless from the streets – gathered for both tangible and spiritual food.

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“May God bless them.”  Racheal Reech’s words, punctuated by her megawatt smile, reflect her gratitude to the volunteers at BHITC’s The Hope Center (The Center) and its staff who helped her become an American citizen earlier this year.

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A little more than five short years ago, the staff and board of BHITC dreamed of what else God could do through its ministries for the people and the city of Cleveland.  In March of 2016, BHITC signed a lease for 22049 Lorain Road in Fairview Park with a dream of supporting the organization through businesses that do good – social enterprises – the first of which would be a thrift store located in this space. 

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Bringing people from all walks of life into a family, a home and a church. Meet church planter, Josh Miller, and his family who lead Cove City Church in University Circle.
Q:        Tell us about you. Were you born and raised in Northeast Ohio? If not, where?
A:         I was born and raised in Northeast Ohio. Shortly after marriage, my wife and moved to North Carolina. While we lived there, God began to place in our heart a desire to move back to Northeast Ohio to plant a church.

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Watch for even more great things happening at The Hope Center (The Center) now that Building Hope in the City (BHITC) purchased the building!  That’s right, as of February of 2018, the building at 15135 Triskett Road in Cleveland, which the organization began renting two days a week just three short years ago, now officially belongs to BHITC!

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God has an amazing way of weaving people’s stories together, doesn’t He?! Take the stories of Ran Maya Basnet and Stephanie Labovitz. The two originally met in 2010 when Labovitz was a brand-new volunteer tutor with Building Hope in the City (BHITC) and Basnet’s family was newly resettled to Cleveland from Nepal. At that time, BHITC ran a tutoring program at St. Colman Catholic Church on W. 65th St., where week after week, the two began getting to know each other.

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Dynamic, Jesus-loving leaders, such as Pete Pinkowski, a church planter shown here with his family, are the men BHITC supports through this effort. He spent a few minutes sharing with us about how God is at work in his life and the vision he has for leading people closer to Jesus.

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