In the ongoing saga of Western & Southern vs. the Anna Louise Inn, there have been several court cases and zoning rulings, most of which have been appealed by one side or the other. Today it was the Cincinnati Zoning Board of Appeals’ turn to rule on something that’s already been ruled on, and it went in favor of the Anna Louise Inn. 

The Board upheld a certificate of appropriateness for the Anna Louise Inn’s planned renovation, which essentially also upholds the Historic Conservation Board’s right to issue a conditional use permit — at least for now. Western & Southern is expected to appeal that permit, granted by the Conservation Board Aug. 27, before its 30-day window to do so expires. 

Before this series of appeals can play out, the 1st District Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the Anna Louise Inn’s appeal of Judge Norbert Nadel’s May 27 ruling, which set in motion the Inn’s attempts to secure zoning approval from the Historical Conservation Board in the first place. 

(All of this could have been avoided if Western & Southern would have purchased the Anna Louise Inn when it had the chance. CityBeat previously reported the details of Western & Southern’s failure to purchase the Inn and the company’s subsequent attempts to force the Inn out of the neighborhood here.)

About 40 people attended today’s hearing, including City Councilman Wendell Young, who said he supports the Anna Louise Inn but was not there to testify on its behalf. 

By upholding the certificate of appropriateness, the ruling keeps alive a conditional use permit that could allow the Anna Louise Inn to move forward with a $13 million renovation of its historic building, once the expected appeals process plays out. (CityBeat covered the Aug. 27 Historical Conservation Board hearing here.)

The Board heard brief arguments from lawyers for both Western & Southern and Cincinnati Union Bethel and then entered executive session for about 15 minutes before ruling in favor of the Anna Louise Inn. 

Western & Southern lawyer Francis Barrett, who is the brother of Western & Southern CEO John Barrett and a member of the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees, told CityBeat after the meeting that he disagreed with the board’s finding because a designed expansion of the building’s fifth floor has not yet had its use approved. 

“With this case, the Historical Conservation Board is basically approving for the certificate of appropriateness the design of the building,” Barrett said. “But the design included an expansion of the fifth floor, and until that use issue is resolved the code reads, in my opinion, you can’t approve the design because the use hasn’t been approved.”

Barrett during the hearing read a written statement to the board arguing two main points: that the Historic Conservation Board didn’t have the jurisdiction to grant the certificate of appropriateness; and even if it did, Barrett argued, the physical expansion planned makes it a non-conforming use which wouldn’t qualify for the building permit. 

Cincinnati Union Bethel attorney Tim Burke told the Board that the Anna Louise Inn is not seeking a permit for non-conforming use because it already received a conditional use permit from the Historic Conservation Board. 

“Western & Southern is doing everything it can to block this renovation from happening,” Burke told the Board.

At the Historic Conservation Board hearing last month Western & Southern tried paint a picture of the Anna Louise Inn’s residents contributing to crime in the area because a condition of the conditional use permit is that the building’s use will not be detrimental to public health and safety or negatively affect property values in the neighborhood. But the Board granted the permit, stating that the Anna Louise Inn will not be detrimental to public health and safety or harmful to nearby properties in the neighborhood and that the Board found no direct evidence connecting residents of the Anna Louise Inn to criminal activity in the neighborhood. Western & Southern has until next week to appeal that ruling.

When the stimulus package passed in 2009, the federal government sent out funds that worked to prevent homelessness. The funds, which seek to prevent homelessness instead of just treating the problem after it arises, made their way to local organization Strategies to End Homelessness. With the boost, the group, which coordinates efforts to combat homelessness in Cincinnati, has been helping thousands of at-risk people and those who are already homeless.

But that funding is soon coming to an end. The stimulus package was only meant to be a temporary jolt to deal with the Great Recession. It was not meant as a long-term funding package. For Strategies to End Homelessness, that prevents a new challenge.

The organization used the stimulus funding to partner with United Way and seven other local agencies to coordinate homeless aid. The organization is continuing its partnership with United Way and five of the agencies, but it will have to draw down some of its services.

“When the stimulus funding was in place, we were able to work with 250 households at a time to try to prevent them from becoming homeless,” says Kevin Finn, executive director of Strategies to End Homelessness. “Now, with the level of funding that is available, it’s more like 50 or 60 households at a time that we are able to work with.”

What this means is programs, such as the Homeless Prevention / Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP), will continue to service people who are at risk of becoming homeless, but the program will have a stricter limit on who to help.

One bright spot for Finn is that even though the organization is losing most of the funding, it’s not losing it all. Due to the success of organizations like Strategies to End Homelessness, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has decided to make some of the funding permanent. This will let the organization continue focusing on some preventive measures instead of just focusing on what Finn calls the “meat and potatoes” of anti-homelessness efforts — or services for people that are already homeless — that have always existed.

“Sometimes when you work with the homeless you struggle to find a silver lining,” he says. “That is one right there.”

Finn says preventive measures are very important in fighting homelessness because once someone becomes homeless and the longer someone becomes homeless, the harder it becomes to get them back into new homes. Finn gave one example for why this is the case: “If they would get mugged in the street and lose their ID, an ID is something that you need in order to get an apartment and in order to get a job.”

At the end of the day, Strategies to End Homelessness will continue working in Cincinnati, just with less funding. Finn says he wants his organization’s continuous work to break some misconceptions about anti-homelessness efforts in the city.

“I think sometimes the perception in the community is that services for the homeless and also prevention measures are sort of a number of little agencies out doing their own thing,” he says. “It’s very much a coordinated effort between us, the United Way and these five agencies.”

City Leaders have decided that they don't need to sell Music Hall to a private organization in order for the historic building to receive tax credits toward its renovation. Mayor Mallory on Sunday told The Enquirer that selling the building was not part of any discussion he's willing to have. While city leaders hope a public-private partnership like that which has renovated Washington Park can help update the building, organizers with the Music Hall Revitalization Co. say some donors willing to contribute to the private renovation of the building will not contribute to the project while it is city owned. On Saturday, the Music Hall Revitalization Co.'s leader, Jack Rouse, resigned.

First they had a giant bridge built over their neighborhood. Now the residents of Lower Price Hill who live near the Sixth Street viaduct hope construction crews can take it down without causing too many clouds of lead paint dust to cover their homes. The viaduct is being replaced by a new structure currently under construction south of the existing one.

Ohio's second of four new casinos is set to open in Toledo next week. Cleveland's casino opened last week, while Columbus' Hollywood Casino is scheduled to open this fall with Cincinnati's Horseshoe in-line for an early 2013 unveiling.

Jury selection in the trail of former Goldman Sachs/Procter & Gamble board member Rajat Gupta began today in federal court in Manhattan. Gupta is accused of insider trading stemming from a 2008 phone call that authorities have already used to convict hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence. From the AP:

Rajaratnam has been the biggest catch so far in a wide-ranging insider-trading investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara that's resulted in more than two dozen prosecutions of white collar defendants. But based on Gupta's standing in the world of finance, his trial could draw more attention — and a potential conviction could resonate farther.

Aside from his role at Goldman Sachs, the Indian-born Gupta is the former chief of McKinsey & Co., a highly regarded global consulting firm that zealously guards its reputation for discretion and integrity.

Gupta, 63, is also a former director of the huge consumer products company Procter & Gamble Co., a pillar of American industry and one of the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones industrial average. P&G owns many well-known brands including Bounty, Tide and Pringles.

Researchers have created a national registry of wrongful conviction exonerations that has identified 873 faulty convictions during the past 23 years that have been recognized by authorities. The registry's founders say the collection is only a fraction of such convictions and that it demonstrates a serious problem with America's criminal justice system.

"What this shows is that the criminal justice system makes mistakes, and they are more common than people think," said University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross, the registry's editor. "It is not the rule, but we won't learn to get better unless we pay attention to these cases."

Mitt Romney is having some trouble getting conservative donors to back his campaign. Meanwhile, Obama continues to talk about Romney's business dealings.

The John Edwards jury is still in deliberations today trying to determine whether the former Democratic presidential candidate conspired to violate election laws while hiding an extramarital affair during his campaign. Prosecutors say Edwards solicited more than $900,000 from a 101-year-old woman named Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and a Texas lawyer to hide a child from his wife, who had cancer at the time.

Protests continued in Chicago today during the final day of the NATO summit.

Apparently 25 percent of American teens have diabetes or pre-diabetes, up from 9 percent in 1999-2000.

People in Asia and the western U.S. last night got to see a solar eclipse that looked like a ring of fire.

The private rocket scheduled to launch a commercial space capsule was forced to abort its mission on Saturday but is scheduled to fly up into space on Tuesday.

The anti-abortion politician who urged Susan G. Komen for the Cure to pull its funding from Planned Parenthood has resigned from the charity.

Karen Handel, who was Komen’s vice president of public policy, submitted her resignation letter today, the Associated Press reported. Handel said she stands by her goal of ending grants to Planned Parenthood and is disappointed that Komen leaders reversed the decision after public outcry.

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Despite its founder’s insistence Thursday that reaction had been mostly favorable, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity abruptly reversed course today and is restoring funding for Planned Parenthood.

The Los Angeles Times reports Nancy G. Brinker, Komen's founder and CEO, said that the breast cancer foundation's decision to halt funding to providers who were under investigation was not done for political reasons and was not meant to penalize Planned Parenthood specifically.

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The Freestore Foodbank today began its annual distribution of Thanksgiving meals to needy families. The delivery of meals will continue through Wednesday afternoon.

Workers at the Freestore will deliver boxes to about 23,000 families throughout the Tristate region.

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A man who was once homeless and relied on the Drop Inn Center in Over-the-Rhine for shelter will return there later this month to sign copies of his recently released autobiography.

Donald Whitehead Jr. will sign copies of his book, Most Unlikely to Succeed, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. July 29 at the shelter. The Drop Inn is located at 217 W. 12^th St.

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As part of its annual Christmas Day preparations for the needy, the Freestore Foodbank distributed nearly 300,000 pounds of food, its largest amount ever for the holiday.

During the past three days, the emergency food provider distributed 297,050 pounds of food to 6,677 households. That's enough to feed 18,516 people, according to a spokeswoman.

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An account has been created at a local bank to accept donations to help pay for the funeral expenses of a homeless man who died last weekend.

William "Baldy" Floyd, 45, died late Sunday night after a fire spread through a camp near Mehring Way and Sixth Street downtown. Baldy was featured in a CityBeat cover story about homeless camps in September.

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