The final school board meeting of the year, held Thursday, Dec. 11, began festively with a performance from the YS High School choir, who sang “White Christmas,” “Chain of Fools” and “Bright Morning Star” under the direction of Lorrie Sparrow-Knapp.

It was a fitting send-off for longtime Mills Lawn music teacher JoFrannye Reichert, whose retirement this month after 21 years with the school district was marked during the meeting. A Yellow Springs graduate, Reichert served the district as a substitute teacher and paraprofessional before being hired as the full-time music teacher for Mills Lawn in 2007.

Assistant Superintendent Megan Winston said during the meeting that Reichert had spent “years making sure the students of Mills Lawn didn’t just learn notes and sounds or just memorize lines for a play.”

“Her students have explored cultures, history, stories from around the world,” Winston said. “One of my favorites is her ability to use a cross-curricular approach to help students see that music can connect to everything.”

Reichert’s time in the district has included years of bringing Mills Lawn students, and their performances, out of the classroom and into the community with “flash mob” choir performances, such as 2014’s “Cuban Shuffle” in front of the Little Art to raise money for the theater. She has also organized, directed, choreographed and sometimes adapted scripts for the well-loved tri-annual all-school musicals, including 2012’s “The Albert Brown Show,” 2015’s “Seussical: The Musical” and 2018’s “Lion King KIDS.”

The latter production was partially reprised in late October this year, when Reichert directed the Mills Lawn choir in a unique abridged performance of the work in a crosswalk near the school, combining the musical numbers with a “flash mob” sensibility. Winston noted that Reichert’s flash mobs have been a personal favorite of hers, as they “surprise us in special ways — and sometimes even surprise the drivers at intersections.”

“While we will miss having her at Mills Lawn each day, we know that her impact will continue for years,” Winston said.

Accepting a plaque from the district, Reichert, citing her maiden name, noted that her retirement will mark the end of “62 years of Robinsons as students, staff or faculty” in the district.

“Though I’m starting a new chapter, I’ve loved every moment I’ve been a music teacher, and every other role I’ve had in Yellow Springs schools,” Reichert said. “I’m very proud and very humbled that you let me play music with your babies every day; I loved it.”

Board passes last resolution

The evening also marked the last meeting for outgoing school board members Dorothée Bouquet, Judith Hempfling and Amy Magnus, whose four-year terms end this year. The school board members were thanked by Winston, Superintendent Terri Holden and Treasurer Jacob McGrath for their years of service.

The board’s final act in its current configuration was to pass a “Resolution Denouncing Harmful Immigration Policies and Affirming Support for All Students.”

The resolution, modeled on a similar one recently passed by Toledo Public School District, cites the decision in the 1982 Supreme Court case Plyler v Doe, which the resolution notes “guarantees that every child has the right to an education, regardless of immigration status.”

The resolution states that the board “condemns immigration policies that harm our students and families”; that all district sites will “remain supportive and secure environments for students and their families to seek help, assistance and information if faced with fear and anxiety about immigration enforcement efforts”; that “student privacy will be protected”; that the district will “help to identify community resources that are available to support families”; and that “staff will be trained to safeguard the rights of all students and appropriately handle enforcement activities.”

For the village’s Haitian neighbors about 15 minutes to the north, in Springfield, Jan. 1 marks not only the start of a new year, but the annual celebration of Haiti’s independence from French rule in 1804.

In 2026, though, a pall threatens to linger over what is typically a celebration of unity within community, as many of these neighbors remain unsure of what their futures will look like within the next few months.

A large number of Springfield’s about 15,000 Haitian residents, as estimated by the Springfield News-Sun, have come to the U.S. via Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, an immigration designation that allows people from countries experiencing political unrest to emigrate to the U.S.

TPS for Haitians is set to be revoked on Feb. 3, 2026.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration elected not to extend TPS for Haitian immigrants, and attempted to revoke the designation early in September, before being blocked by a federal court.

In the meantime, Springfield’s Haitian Support Center, or HSC — which marked its two-year anniversary last week — has mobilized to meet needs for Haitian residents, including partnering with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, or ABLE, to offer legal counsel on seeking asylum; HSC also helps provide access to food and money for housing as ongoing employment becomes unstable.

Needs are already outpacing resources, HSC representatives told the News last week, and those needs are expected to increase as uncertainty builds around what the next months will hold. As HSC co-founder and executive director Viles Dorsainvil said, some Haitian residents were already laid off earlier this year after the Trump administration terminated the humanitarian parole program that provided work permits for thousands who entered the U.S. under that program. After Feb. 3, Haitian residents with TPS are expected to lose their jobs, too.

“And I know that beyond February, we will have more applications coming in,” Dorsainvil said. “But the funds we have for rents have been drained.”

To that end, HSC has established an Emergency Fund, which HSC Board Chair Brian Stevens called an “attempt to, as much as possible, be prepared for what’s coming” when TPS ends.

“Because we know that the clock is ticking,” he said.

He added that HSC raised about $15,000 on Dec. 2, Giving Tuesday, toward the Emergency Fund’s $50,000 goal.

For Yellow Springs Village Council member Carmen Brown, who also spoke with the News last week, the growing urgency has prompted her to want to amplify HSC’s emergency fundraising effort locally; she spoke briefly on the issue at Council’s Dec. 15 meeting, and told the News last week she plans to continue to stoke awareness of the needs of the village’s Haitian neighbors.

“It’s a very unstable, frightening time for a lot of people,” Brown said. “What can we do to leverage that with some monetary support?”

Dorsainvil said that, beyond food and housing needs, some Haitian residents who have applied for asylum still have their applications moving through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which will likely leave them waiting before they are eligible to apply for, and receive, a work permit. Others are still searching for immigration attorneys to help them apply for asylum, and he said that HSC is already seeing some legal appointments with ABLE scheduled beyond February.

On top of that, Dorsainvil added, is the immediate fear of deportation.

“And with that risk, there will be so many families that will be separated from kids or loved ones,” he said.

Part of HSC’s work is long-term community-building within Springfield; Dorsainvil pointed to the organization’s youth club, which aims to build connections for young Haitian residents whose families may not have a strong social network. Some teenagers, he said, can spend months cycling between school, church and home, with little else in their world. HSC’s youth club, he said, tries to widen that world through mental health support, personal development training, collaborative activities and exposure to the wider community.

“We do painting, we read with them,” Dorsainvil said. “We tap into different types of subjects that can help them understand themselves, but also develop their potential.”

Rose-Thamar Joseph, HSC’s co-founder and operations director, said that, because of the organization’s focus on community-building, it has needs outside of the material — mostly in terms of human resources.

“We are still looking for capacity building so we can better serve the community,” she said, adding that HSC is looking for professional training and connections to other organizations.

“And we need space to do more projects,” she said, noting that HSC’s own building is still under renovation, and that the youth club’s burgeoning soccer team needs a regulation-size field on which to play and coaches to aid the young players.

Brown said she hopes Yellow Springs residents will reach out to HSC to make personal connections and offer some of their own resources — monetary, human or both.

“People need to have a point of relation,” she said. “It’s one thing when it’s on a list, on a fundraising site; it’s another when you realize these are children, these are families.”

One thing those Haitian families share, Dorsainvil said, is an understanding that returning to their home country is not a matter of choice. Despite what federal leaders have claimed in order to end TPS status for Haitians, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have both reported within the last year that gang violence remains rampant in the country and that state institutions are largely absent; their conclusions have been that, overall, conditions have continued to deteriorate in Haiti.

In focus groups held by HSC, Dorsainvil said, many Springfield Haitian residents expressed a desire to go back to Haiti if conditions improved.

“It’s not because they are not willing to go back home, but the fear is that they are going back to the same situation that pushed them to leave the country,” he said, adding that the ongoing violence and instability in Haiti are linked to the flow of firearms into the country.

“And the influx of guns mostly comes from the U.S.,” he said.

His assessment is reflected in reporting from Al Jazeera in March last year, in which experts said that, while there is no precise count of weapons in Haiti, most firearms and ammunition trafficked into the country originate in the United States. A 2023 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report cited estimates of up to 500,000 legal and illegal weapons in Haiti, and Al Jazeera reported that more than 80% of weapons seized on their way to Haiti and traced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives between 2020 and 2022 were made in or imported to the U.S.

So, Dorsainvil said, many Haitian immigrants want to go home, but can’t trust that home is safe while the forces that fuel instability in Haiti remain in place.

At the same time, he said, Haitian residents in Springfield are aiming not to let fear eclipse their daily lives, even as they remain unable to project more than a month down the road what life will look like.

“Haitian people are resilient,” he said.

And he noted that HSC aims to continue offering help with material needs — rent, food, legal help, tuition for college students — as well as the chance to gather, celebrate, play and learn together amid a political climate that continually denies their humanity.

“We don’t want Haitians, because of this immigration issue, to lose sight of being human,” he said. “They are entitled to live as everybody else.”

To donate to HSC’s Emergency Fund, go to http://www.bit.ly/HSCEmergencyFund. For more information on HSC, or to connect with the organization, go to http://www.haitiansupportcenter.org.

The Yellow Springs Kwanzaa Planning Committee has announced plans for the 2025 celebration, which will take place Saturday, Dec. 27, at the Foundry Theater.

The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with a Kwanzaa Vendors Mart, followed at 7 p.m. by the annual Kwanzaa program. Hosted by Basim Blunt, the program will include readings by young people of the seven Kwanzaa principles, the presentation of the Nguzo Saba award to a Yellow Springs resident and performances by local artists, followed by a potluck meal.

Kwanzaa was developed by activist/educator Maulana Karenga, Ph.D., in the 1960s to introduce and reinforce seven basic values of African culture that contribute to building and reinforcing family, community and culture among African American people as well as Africans throughout the world.

The seven Kwanzaa principles, or Nguzo Saba, are associated with each day of the holiday, which begins Dec. 26 and ends Jan. 1: umoja — unity; kujichagulia — self-determination; ujima — collective work and responsibility; ujamaa — cooperative economics; nia — purpose; kuumba — creativity; and imani — faith.

Donations to support the program may be made by going online at the365projectys.org and clicking the “Kwanzaa” button. For more information, send an email to the365projectys@gmail.com.

When federal SNAP benefits stalled this fall, Yellow Springs’ safety nets snapped taut in an effort to catch as many affected folks as possible. Among those nets, and often helping bind them together, are the YS Police Department’s Community Outreach Specialists Florence Randolph and Danny Steck.

Responding locally to a nationwide crisis is part of the work for Randolph and Steck — but as they said in a recent interview, most days, their job involves responding to individual needs and the kinds of emergencies that don’t necessarily make the news.

Randolph, who has been in the job since April 2018, said the kinds of work she and Steck do overlaps with what a social worker might provide.

“We have a variety of needs that people bring to us,” she said. “People come to us with needs for food, utility payments, things like, ‘My car broke down, I broke my glasses’ — everything, anything. So we have a list of places we refer them to for resources.”

Contact information for all those and more resources can be found in the bevy of free pamphlets lining a wall in the lobby of the Bryan Center.

Police departments around the country have been inching toward similar models for years, collaborating with social workers or embedding social work positions within their departments, but news coverage and published research have illuminated an uptick in such efforts in recent years.

According to a 2022 study from the Brennan Center for Justice, incorporating social workers and other community outreach positions has become part of police reform, particularly in large cities, following the 2020 murder of George Floyd and public outcry over police violence. A 2023 study published in the Journal of Forensic Social Work notes that though there isn’t a unified model or approach to integrating social services into a police department, most involve creating pathways to resources to mental health, substance use and housing services.

In Yellow Springs, Randolph said, the department modeled its early program on a Boston precinct that employed a team of psychiatrists, nurses and social workers. Local resources don’t allow for the same approach within the YSPD itself, so the community outreach specialists collaborate with other organizations, including TCN Behavioral Health, the Mental Health Recovery Board, Miami Valley Community Action Partnership, United Way, the Senior Center, the YS Community Foundation, the schools, the John Bryan Youth Center, the YS Food Pantry, the Beloved Community Project and the “Who’s Hungry?” soup kitchen.

“We kind of are the go-between liaisons,” Randolph said.

Steck added: “We’re essentially working as connectors.”

A lifelong villager and 2017 YS High School graduate who joined the department this spring, Steck has several years of related nonprofit work behind her, having worked for Dayton’s National Conference for Community and Justice, or NCCJ, in suicide and bullying prevention in middle and high schools in Montgomery County. She said her work included leading the Mobile Opportunity Center initiative, in which she and others drove into neighborhoods in Dayton to provide support similar to what she and Randolph provide for the Yellow Springs community.

“We parked at the homeless shelter and worked one-on-one with clients to meet the needs they had,” Steck said.

When the Village of Yellow Springs opened up a second community outreach specialist position this year, Steck said she jumped at the chance to work in her own hometown.

“I thought, ‘How great would it be to do what I’m passionate about in my home?’” she said.

She pointed to her love and knowledge of the local community, as well as her own experience with need growing up, as fueling fires for the work she said she now feels privileged to do in the village.

“We struggled, but it didn’t always feel like we struggled — like, when the zoo trip came up every year and my mom couldn’t afford it, there was always somebody who paid to let me go on the trip,” she said. “The way that community comes together here, the ways that my family received help and the connections, that made me want to be part of that system that is helpful to people who live here.”

Randolph and Steck said there’s no such thing as an “average day” on the job, as they respond to needs wherever they might arise. The weekly exception is Tuesday, when they serve as victim advocates. On those days, they support victims and witnesses, act as liaisons with prosecutors and help lead folks through the court process and their rights. They also make referrals, keep victims updated on court dates, assist with impact statements and help secure protection orders when needed.

“We help that person navigate the court system and advocate on their behalf to the prosecutor and the judge in the court,” Steck said.

Every other day is a little of everything: phone calls, walk-ins, referrals from officers, sometimes assisting officers on calls. Steck explained: “If there’s a mental health crisis, or if there’s a death or something like that … Florence or I could, if the resident wants us to, respond to those calls and just provide emotional support and resources.”

The two often provide Tom’s Market food vouchers, Greene CATS bus tokens to get someone to Xenia or Fairborn or coordinate with the Wellness Center to provide shower access to those who need it. The most recent Village Manager’s report, presented at the Dec. 1 meeting of Village Council, noted that, from Nov. 13 to 24, Randolph and Steck provided five bus tokens, 43 food vouchers and three gas cards to folks, and provided assistance with housing to seven people, rental assistance to three people, utility assistance to 23 people and mental health assistance to 30 people.

Steck and Randolph’s work isn’t limited to those who live within the village — “We handle all the services for people who live, work and visit Yellow Springs,” Randolph said — and sometimes the work means helping someone rebuild trust with a family member or neighbor.

“You’ve got to get to know the person,” Randolph said. “You’ve got to ask a lot of questions.”

Many of the resources to which Steck and Randolph refer their clients — particularly in the arena of mental health — rely on state and federal funding. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice eliminated nearly $90 million in grants that would have supported mental health and substance-use programs and police health collaborations nationwide. In an op-ed for The Columbus Dispatch, Newtown Police Chief Thomas Synan Jr. urged federal officials to reinstate the funding, writing: “Police officers cannot do it alone. This is a model that works. … When communities have only law enforcement tools but lack essential services, people fall through the cracks.”

Randolph said funding losses, whether or not they’re directly tied to the DOJ cuts, have had local effects, particularly as funding for TCN Behavioral Health was “cut steeply” in recent months. In late July, TCN announced that funding cuts would mean the end of a number of Greene County crisis services, including its 24-hour crisis line and crisis intervention team outreach and follow-up.

“So now, the walk-in services that we used to be able to refer out to, we can’t,” she said.

But Steck said community support remains steadfast in the village, which she observes in the everyday generosity of folks who drop off coats, food, bikes — whatever someone needs.

“That’s something that not all communities have,” she said.

And Randolph said she continues to find joy in helping people meet goals, whatever their size.

“A goal might be just to be able to pay rent and utilities for one month without having to get any help — that’s a success,” she said. “It’s challenging, but it’s very rewarding.”

She added: “I’m built for this job, and my heart is in this.”

To reach the community outreach specialists, call the YS Police Department’s nonemergency line at 937-767-7206, or visit the YSPD at the John Bryan Community Center.

Right around the turn of the new year, the Yellow Springs Development Corporation is expected to close on the purchase of two downtown buildings: 252 and 254 Xenia Ave.

Once a purchase agreement is finalized in the coming weeks, YSDC will buy the two adjoining properties for $630,000 — money loaned to the quasi-governmental nonprofit and certified community improvement corporation from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.

The three-story building at 252 Xenia Ave. previously housed Yellow Springs Hardware on its ground floor until the business closed earlier this year; on the second floor are four apartment units; and the third story is uninhabited storage space. Next door, in the building at 254 Xenia Ave., is the Yellow Springs Toy Company, and above, two more apartments.

These properties went up for sale earlier this year following the 2024 death of previous owner and local property magnate Bob Baldwin.

As previously reported, YSDC members say they want to acquire the mixed-use buildings ahead of any out-of-town developer, whose intentions for the properties may have been incongruent with local values and development goals for Yellow Springs’ downtown business corridor.

“Local control is really what we want,” YSDC member-at-large Lisa Abel told the News last month, emphasizing that YSDC’s primary aim is to preserve the two historic buildings for years to come.

While a month has passed since YSDC’s public announcement of its intentions to buy the two buildings, only the path toward acquisition has emerged; what happens after remains unclear.

Abel told the News earlier this week in another interview that two possibilities are ahead of YSDC should the sale go through: stay involved as an owner, or consider reselling the properties to a buyer of their choosing.

“At this point, we don’t know,” Abel said. “We’re going to explore both options. It comes down to how we can finance the properties if we elect to keep them, versus playing the role of ‘middle man’ and selling it. There are no definite plans for either option yet.”

These were the possibilities Abel and her YSDC colleagues — other local leaders and elected officials — discussed at the group’s most recent public meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 2.

First: due diligence

From the meeting room in the Miami Township Fire-Rescue station, Abel told her fellow YSDC members that, in order to successfully close on the purchase of the properties, the group must first complete the “due diligence” phase — mainly, conducting site surveys and property evaluations.

Abel explained that this 60-day phase began last month on Nov. 10, when the properties went under contract.

As of press time, YSDC has completed a structural engineering assessment of the properties, and still underway are asbestos testing and potential abatement, as well as inspections on the buildings’ plumbing, electrical and fire safety systems. Abel added that the county health department might also inspect the properties soon.

Conducting many of the buildings’ physical assessments and helping YSDC envision future site plans is Dayton-based architecture firm Earl Reeder Associates, Inc.

According to the firm’s online portfolio, Earl Reeder Associates works on residential and commercial spaces, and specializes in historical renovations. That portfolio includes the restoration of the Dayton Masonic Center, the Moraine Country Club and other historic buildings around Dayton. Of local relevance, Earl Reeder was tapped in 2019 to rehab portions of the historic Antioch Hall.

That focus on historical redevelopment could prove useful, should YSDC acquire the downtown properties.

According to county records, the three-story brick building at 252 Xenia Ave. was built around 1853, and is one of the oldest buildings in Yellow Springs. The adjoining structure at 254 was built sometime in the following decades; a Yellow Springs insurance map from July 1895 depicts both buildings in their current locations.

Past News reporting on the corner building notes that it once housed a college bookstore, an art studio, the area’s first library and, at one point, a hotel — one that may have had some connection with the abolitionist and liberation movements in the 19th century.

Both buildings have fallen into disrepair since then: A property appraisal that the Baldwin family had contracted earlier this summer notes that both 252 and 254 Xenia Ave. “have not been maintained” over the years.

“The interior surfaces are very dated and worn,” the appraisal, conducted by the Dunham Company, reads. “The exterior needs paint, tuck-point repair [on cracks in walls and foundations], at a minimum. The HVAC systems are archaic.”

The appraisal also states that the third story of the corner building is unlivable in its current condition.

At a town hall meeting last month — which drew around 100 villagers to the Bryan Center to hear YSDC’s preliminary plans for the structures — some attendees mused about the potentially high or prohibited costs of making those needed repairs.

“The question is for the audience,” mused local resident Dave Chappelle at the town hall, “If they say we have to tear it down or spend more money, what’s more valuable to you?”

Others there for the public gathering suggested the buildings were too important to ever demolish.

YSDC secretary and Antioch College history professor Kevin McGruder spoke to the buildings’ possible historical significance; he said that YSDC may have future inroads for state or federal funds for historical preservation.

For now, though, the full extent of the buildings’ needed repairs and how exactly they’ll be addressed remain to be seen. While the due diligence may offer YSDC and the community some answers, Abel said, untold “unknowns” about the viability of the buildings remain ahead.

“We’re not a deep pocket developer,” Abel said. “We’re doing this because the buildings are important to the community — they’re worth saving.”

Next: a property manager

In addition to completing the 60-day due diligence phase, YSDC must also hire a property manager ahead of the anticipated sale closure later this month or in early January.

Abel told her fellow board members at last week’s meeting that the job of property manager — a position for which, Abel said, there are currently several candidates recommended to YSDC from the realtors involved in the sale — will be to oversee the terms and conditions of occupancy for the buildings’ existing tenants.

Presently, there are seven tenants: six residents split among the upstairs apartments, and the Yellow Springs Toy Company on the ground floor of 254 Xenia Ave.

By the end of the year, however, YS Toy Company is expected to close after eight years of business, according to a recent online announcement from owner Jamie Sharp.

In a social media post, Sharp cited the broader economy, changing consumer habits, tariffs, the anticipated sale of her building and dropping sales all as reasons for her decision to close up shop. Reached for further comment last week, Sharp declined, stating a need to focus on wrapping up operations during these holiday weeks.

Above Sharp’s store are two residential apartments — both approximately 500 square feet outfitted with their own kitchens and bathrooms. Above the former hardware store are four considerably smaller living units — each ranging from 195 to 295 square feet, with a shared bathroom and kitchen. The six apartments garner $375 to $660 each in rent per month, according to the Baldwins’ summer appraisal. 

Potentially becoming a landlord of all these units would be new territory for the nonprofit, Abel told the News.

“Our mission is economic development, not housing,” Abel said. “But here we are. We have a steep learning curve ahead of us.”

The fate of the six tenants took up a sizable portion of YSDC’s round-table discussion last Tuesday, and some members expressed greater trepidation than others.

“How did this become our elephant in the room?” asked YSDC treasurer Marilan Moir, who represents Miami Township on the board. 

“How is that we’re now responsible for the wellbeing of a situation that, really, I believe is that of [Bob Baldwin’s] heirs and children,” Moir said. “We’re not only purchasing this building and going to incredible lengths for funding — a big risk — and now, we’re being asked to care for these years-long relationships between Bob and his tenants.”

New YSDC member Christine Monroe-Beard — representing the Chamber of Commerce — recommended that the new property manager abide by the existing lease agreements.

“We also have to follow basic landlord-tenant rights,” Monroe-Beard said. “We acquired this building with humans in it, and now we’re landlords — we’re responsible to uphold tenant rights per the Ohio code.”

Aside from the day-to-day oversight of the tenants’ well-being, the future property manager may one day encounter a difficult crossroad — where will the tenants go if the buildings require significant renovations and reconstruction?

“If all this goes forward, there’s going to be construction, and these folks may have to move for some time,” YSDC member and school board representative Rebecca Potter said.

Moir stated that, as someone who herself had been forced to move out of rentals unexpectedly and suddenly, she’s sympathetic for the tenants of 252 and 254 Xenia Ave., but contended that their living situation may be beyond the scope of YSDC’s endeavors.

“So, do we pay for their housing to get them out for six to eight months? Are we taking on the responsibility to house these folks at that time? I don’t think we have to,” Moir said.

All those present for last Tuesday’s meeting agreed that, at this point, those possibilities and questions will have to remain unanswered. 

“Just give us some time,” Abel told the News in her follow-up interview.

“The best case scenario [for the current tenants] is that some alternative housing gets identified that’s suitable for their means and accessibility,” she said. “But right now, I just don’t know. We’re going to continue meeting with the community and continue hosting town halls.”

‘What would Bob do?’

Whatever happens in the months and years ahead, one tenant of 254 Xenia Ave. said he just hopes he and his neighbors get taken care of.

“My concern is not only for me, but for the other tenants up there,” Tom Sain, a six-year resident of 254 Xenia Ave., said earlier this week. “I don’t want to see people removed before they’re capable of figuring out something new. I love all my neighbors. I’m good friends with all of them.”

Sain said that he got his apartment above the toy store in mid-2019, during a moment of duress. A former Antiochian and a longtime village resident, Sain said his previous living situation was unexpectedly taken away from him.

In a chance encounter, he met Bob Baldwin — also an Antiochian — and the two immediately hit it off. Not long after, Sain moved into his new downtown digs, paying an affordable rent that Baldwin would occasionally discount when Sain performed odd jobs and tasks around the property.

“I miss the man all the time,” Sain said. “He prorated my rent. He prorated my deposit. He gave me work. Bob was just such an optimist, and I think he saw the same trait in me.”

Sain admitted that he’d prefer not to spend the rest of his days in that downtown apartment — noting that the “Frankenstein” electric and gas systems that connect the living quarters can sometimes be irksome — but for now, at this point in his life, it’s an ideal home for Sain.

“I certainly can’t speak for the other folks, but if I was told I had to leave, I’d need about six months to a year’s notice,” he said. “I think that’d be ample time to get my affairs in order and find a new place to live.”

With his characteristic optimism, Sain said he looks forward to working more closely with YSDC in the coming weeks and months, should the group purchase his and the other building from the Baldwin family.

“I hope they work with everyone who lives here with their best interests in mind,” Sain said. “I think that’s what Bob would want. I think that’d hold true to his legacy.”

He added: “And maybe I can help. I know construction.”

The next Yellow Springs Development Corporation regular, public meeting will be Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, at 4:30 p.m., in the Miami Township fire station’s meeting room. The group typically meets the first Tuesday of every month.

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