Does Anyone In East Cleveland Care About The Missing Children?

Where are they?

Black and Missing is an organization devoted to finding people of color who go missing but never get the mammoth coverage of missing white women and girls.

The far right tabloid, The Daily Mail has reported on the missing children of East Cleveland, Ohio. The small city has over 50 children missing since 2014.

At least 43 children, including 24 girls and 19 boys, have vanished since late 2014 from this northeast Ohio city, a Dispatch investigation found. With a population of 13,792, approximately 3.1 kids per 1,000 residents have disappeared in 10 years from East Cleveland — a rate that far exceeds Ohio's largest cities of Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland.

East Cleveland has a population of 16,000 residents. It has a 90% Black majority population. It is one of the poorest communities in Cuyahoga County.

The 2011–2015 median household income for residents living in East Cleveland was $19,592. Along with that, 59% of household income is less than $25,000 annually. Only 19% of households in East Cleveland have annual incomes between $25,000 and $44,000. The 2011–2015 median individual income for residents of East Cleveland was $14,442, with 52% of individual incomes being under $15,000 a year. In addition, 31% of individual incomes in East Cleveland are between $15,000 and $34,000.

The silent stories of East Cleveland.

In 2018, East Cleveland was ranked as the 4th poorest city in America. Moreover, the city had a 41.8% poverty rate along with a $19,953 median household income.

Whether it’s repeat runaways, criminal offenders, or even sexual assault evidence kit tracking, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said data in the state isn’t always entered thoroughly.

“All of these things have localized reporting problems that again are a function of local conditions,” Yost said. “We do our best to encourage compliance and improve assistance to remove barriers, but at the end of the day, we have to rely on our local partners that we don’t control. I am fearful of all kinds of things that fall through the cracks that include missing children. I rely on the tenacity of a worried parent more than I do a harried bureaucrat whose job it is to put data into a computer.”

Cleveland is known for the stories of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Lillian Lee (formerly Michelle Knight). Berry and DeJesus run the Cleveland Family Center which is dedicated to finding missing children and adults in Northeastern Ohio.