CLEVELAND — About 20 current and former employees of Northeast Ohio Neighborhood Health Services — known as NEON — are filing lawsuits over unpaid wages.
About seven of those employees gathered outside the Justice Center Tuesday to speak about the issue alongside area leaders.
"It is important now more than ever – for the CEO and management at NEON to respect their workers and pay them what they're owed," Cleveland City Council member Tanmay Shah said.
Patricia Mitchell just retired two weeks ago after working as a social worker for NEON for 20 years.
"It's owed to me because I worked," Mitchell said. "You feel sad the legacy of NEON seems to be uncertain right now. Just uncertain. We're not sure what's going to happen with the future of NEON."
The community health provider primarily serves lower-income neighborhoods on Cleveland's East Side.
The unpaid wage lawsuits are the latest legal trouble for NEON. A lender is trying to foreclose on eight NEON health centers and its headquarters, saying NEON owes more than $9 million.
News 5 located other lawsuits over unpaid bills and debt, including one filed by Ohio's Attorney General, who has been investigating the nonprofit's operations.
News 5 made several attempts to hear from NEON's CEO, Willie Austin. Austin last spoke with News 5 on camera in 2023 as he was working to rebuild the Hough Center, which caught fire in 2021.
Watch that story here:
That building has not reopened. Austin declined to speak on or off camera for this story.
However, in an email provided as part of one of the new unpaid wage lawsuits, Austin wrote to employees earlier this month, citing the fire, the pandemic and a cyberattack in 2024 as reasons behind NEON's cash flow and revenue issues.
"During all the events mentioned, it was my decision to keep each of you employed when a decision could have been made to reduce staffing," Austin said in the email.
Despite the lawsuit, Mitchell said she still believes in the work being done at NEON and hopes the organization can survive.
"We're hoping the center will be saved because the community needs our health center," Mitchell said. "That's the end goal: That NEON will be saved and we'll get our paycheck that's owed to us."
