WESTERN HILLS PRESS Your Community Press newspaper serving Western Hills, Cheviot, Green Township and other West Cincinnati neighborhoods
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2020 | BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS | PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
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Lower Price Hill housing project may get $1M from city after all Sharon Coolidge Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
Tim Como, 62, of Green Township sits at the bar at Price Hill Chili in West Price Hill on Sept. 24. Como says he’s voting to re-elect Donald Trump in the upcoming election. PHOTOS BY HANNAH RUHOFF
‘You’re stuck here’
My election trip home to the West Side Scott Wartman Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
Editor’s note: This is one of in a series of stories we’re calling “Going Home” in which journalists from the USA TODAY Ohio network return to the communities where they grew up to share fi rsthand how the contentious 2020 election is playing out in various corners of this battleground state. OK. Let’s get the most important question out of the way fi rst. I went to Elder High School. Some of you might say, so what? But where I’m from, it’s a big deal. What high school you went to is the fi rst thing that usually comes up among Cincinnati West Siders who meet abroad, such as when we fi nd ourselves on Cincinnati’s East Side or across the river in Northern Kentucky. When asked about my roots, I’m proud to identify which side of Cincinnati I grew up on, blue-collar and not blue blood like those East Siders (Kidding! I kid because I love. Don’t @ me.) It’s the type of mostly suburban enclave so many pundits and experts across the country are watching intently this election cycle. So I went back home to fi nd out what people in my old neighborhood and high school think about the 2020 election. The verdict: Most of the West Side just outside Cincinnati’s city limits is still President Donald Trump country, but Joe Biden could get more votes here than past Democrats. In the West Side neighborhoods of Price Hill, Westwood and South Fairmount, all in Cincinnati’s city limits,
Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld announced Oct. 8 that he’s identifi ed the fi nal $1 million needed to start work on a aff ordable housing project in Lower Price Hill that will house nearly 50 families. The project has been approved by Cincinnati Planning Commission and has $10 million in state funding, along with another $1 million raised by the project coordinators, Community Matters and Over-the-Rhine Community Housing. It needs $12 million. The groups had thought the city would grant the project $1 million in federal grant money that fl ows to the city. But at the last minute, just as the fi nal funding plan was due, city administrators told the groups they would not get the funding. Mayor John Cranley said he prefers owner-driven aff ordable housing, not rental units. Sittenfeld recently held a hearing to determine exactly why the project was nixed at the last minute, but got few answers. Lower Price Hills resident and business owners pleaded with council for help at the hearing, saying the housing is needed for people who work at manuSee HOUSING, Page 8A
Pat Bruns, 69, of West Price Hill poses with several Democratic campaign signs outside her house in West Price Hill on Sept. 24. Bruns says she will vote for Joe Biden in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
Hillary Clinton easily won in 2016 beating Trump 71% to 23%. But once you get to the suburban hillsides and villages of Green Township, Cheviot, Delhi and the more rural communities of Cleves, Harrison and Whitewater Townships, Trump dominated four years ago, 65% to 28%. That dynamic still seems largely at play with some diff erences around the edges.
‘They don’t let you out’ Set back miles from any highway
with dozens of Catholic churches visible near most street corners, change has come slowly to the suburbs of Cincinnati’s West Side, or not at all. Geography and history have made my hometown traditionally conservative. People often move out of their parent’s house and buy the neighbor’s house. “It’s always been a very conservative, older community,” said Barb Nieman sitting on the porch of her twostory Green Township home on a See WEST SIDE, Page 2A
A mural on a private building on Hatmaker in Lower Price Hill, adds some color to this community that dates back to the 1850's. Community Matters in Lower Price Hill is planning to renovate several buildings for affordable housing. The rental properties would be efficiency up to three-bedrooms. LIZ DUFOUR/THE ENQUIRER
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