With an estimated 50,000 substandard homes in Cleveland, the foundation’s affiliated philanthropy, the Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation, organized a citizens’ action committee to tackle the challenge of providing decent, affordable housing for every Cleveland family. PATH (Plan of Action for Tomorrow’s Housing) produced an eponymous report detailing how production of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families could be stimulated by offering technical and financial assistance to neighborhood development groups and minority-owned contracting firms.

Even after receiving these services, the city’s embryonic affordable housing production system turned in a mediocre performance, attributed to lack of coordination and cooperation that would be overcome by subsequent foundation initiatives that built on this learning experience. PATH experienced greater success in helping the city leverage federal Housing and Urban Development monies to purchase or build high-rise apartments for the elderly and begin construction of new multifamily public housing projects, such as the King-Kennedy Estates in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood.

During the brief two-and-a-half-year tenure of PATH’s first executive director, Irving Kriegsfeld, 5,000 units were added to the holdings of the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA). Given the fact that CMHA had built only 7,000 units during its previous 35 years of operation, Kriegsfeld’s influence was particularly salutary.