Tough Sell

Tracey Kirksey still remembers the Y that never was. Sitting in her office, she runs her fingers over the colorful architect's drawings, imagining the building brought to life -- parents jogging on new treadmills, children doing homework in bright, clean rooms. The YMCA of Greater Cleveland was promising a new, $12 million building to replace the crumbling wreck that had served the Glenville neighborhood since 1957. Kirksey, executive director of the Glenville Development Corporation, spent 18 months preparing for it, deciding on the floor plan -- even choosing the carpet.

"It was beautiful," says Kirksey.

The dream shattered in stages. In December 2002, the Y said it couldn't afford a new building. Instead, it suggested a $4 million renovation of the existing one. Then the Y hired Glenn Haley as its new director. To his dismay, he found an organization that had run million-dollar deficits for 10 of the last 12 years, that was on track to lose $2.4 million in 2003 -- an organization with no endowment, no savings, no money at all. "I said to the board, 'Guys, you can't even maintain what you got, let alone do something new,'" Haley says.

So he made Glenville a new offer. Either someone in the neighborhood takes ownership of the building, or the Y will padlock the doors, possibly within the month.

The YMCA's clumsy handling of its dire financial situation has frustrated and angered people all across the city. "Glenn talks out of both sides of his mouth," says City Council member Joe Cimperman. "He is a paid assassin. He was sent here to assassinate community hopes and dreams."

But there's one problem with this city-wide vilification of Glenn Haley: He's right. The Cleveland YMCA must close some of its city branches to survive. "Everybody's asking for the impossible," says Haley, who was sent by the YMCA's national headquarters to study the Cleveland Y as a consultant before the local organization hired him full-time in April. "They want to keep everything as it was, as if it's magically going to change. We can't."

For much of the 20th century, all big-city Y's operated on a simple business model: The organization built branches, and each neighborhood was responsible for the financial health of its own Y. But beginning in the 1970s, Y's in other cities realized that the old model wasn't working. Inner-city branches, once supported by successful local businesses and a thriving middle class, found themselves surrounded by poor people and vacant buildings. So most big-city Y's started building new branches in the suburbs, then used the extra cash they generated to support programs in the cities.

"These days, inner-city Y's really suffer on their own, without strong support from the suburbs," says Thom Peters, a senior consultant for the YMCA's national headquarters in Chicago. For example, the Milwaukee Y built its suburban branches in the 1980s. Then, between 1993 and 2002, the organization built seven new inner-city branches. "The reason Milwaukee is doing well in the city is they have very strong suburban Y's," says Peters.

The YMCA of Detroit closed six inner-city branches over the last 30 years. Many of the remaining members moved to a re-vamped downtown Y. Freed from the cost of operating six old buildings, the Y was able to expand health, job-training, and child-care programs in the central city. "All of the Y's have been doing that around the country for about the last 20 to 25 years," says Dan Maier, executive vice president of the Detroit YMCA.

All of the Y's except Cleveland's. Until this month, the Cleveland YMCA had as many city branches as it did in 1950: seven. Before the new Geauga Y opened in February, the YMCA hadn't opened a new branch for 30 years. So the system went broke. By the early 1990s, the board had blown its entire savings just to keep the lights on. Now the YMCA is $14 million behind on maintenance projects. Buildings have deteriorated, and the weight rooms at the Lakewood and Ohio City branches reek as though large and sweaty animals have died in there. Membership and revenues have plummeted.

"They're in a financial crisis of their own doing," Cimperman says. "They've been completely irresponsible with their resources and with the public's resources for the last 25 years."

On that, Cimperman and Haley can agree. It's how Haley intends to correct those mistakes that has political and community leaders calling for his head.

For the Y to grow, first it must shrink. The only long-term source of new money is to build branches in the suburbs. But Haley can't build suburban branches when he's broke. So the only way to build suburban branches is to get rid of his deficit. And the only way to cut the deficit is to close old city branches that are losing money. "You'd better hope our new Geauga branch is as successful as all outdoors," Haley says. "Because it will help us get through this. And we'd better get another suburban branch. And another one. The more healthy suburban Y's we have, the more financially stable we'll be as an organization."