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Tag: Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio

  • Ohio housing advocates want lawmakers to nix budget language that alters affordable housing funding

    Ohio housing advocates want lawmakers to nix budget language that alters affordable housing funding

    Stock photo from Getty Images.

    By:  – Ohio Capital Journal

    Housing advocates are urging Ohio senators to remove an amendment from the state’s two-year operating budget that would significantly affect a source of funding for local homelessness and affordable housing programs.

    The Ohio House added language to their version of the budget that would change the Ohio Housing Trust Fund. The Ohio Senate is currently working on the budget and will send it back to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who must sign it into law by June 30.

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    “The Ohio Housing Trust Fund is the primary source of state funding for local homelessness, emergency home repair and affordable housing development,” the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio’s executive director Amy Riegel said during a press conference Thursday. “We see that making any type of change and overhauling it would be drastic and would make huge ripple impacts across the state.”

    The trust fund was created in 1991 and is administered by the Ohio Department of Development. It is funded by a portion of the fees collected by county recorders, with half of the fees staying with the county and the other half going back to the fund — which requires at least 50% of the funds be spent in non-urban areas.

    The House budget proposal would remove the requirement for county recorders to send the state Department of Development money to reallocate the funds, making it less effective across the state.

    “This would leave counties with only the funds that they are able to collect, which creates a drastic impact on communities where they might not be collecting as many revenues as other counties,” Riegel said. “Shifting to a county-by-county approach will negatively impact folks who are struggling to just keep her roof over their heads.”

    Robert Bender, CEO of the Provident Companies, is concerned counties could lose their leveraging ability and wouldn’t have the capacity to administer funds.

    “We have an easy solution: just don’t mess with it,” he said. “This is really elected officials who don’t have enough information trying to tinker with something to make it better when it’s going to make it worse.”

    The Housing Trust Fund provided emergency shelter for more than 27,000 Ohioans last year, Riegel said.

    “That’s just one year,” Riegel said. “Multiply that by the last 23 years, and you can see this has a huge impact across our state.”

    Housing advocates asked House lawmakers why the amendment was added, but Riegel said the rationale behind it remains unclear. Now, they are talking to Ohio senators about trying to remove the amendment.

    “We have heard from many of them that they do support removing the language … however, it is the decision of the entire body of how to move forward,” Riegel said.

    Habitat for Humanity of Ohio’s Executive Director Ryan Miller said they serve primarily populations of people who have paid off their homes, are living on fixed incomes and dealing with health issues.

    “They have no other option, and we must keep the current funding structure in place to let them live in dignity and peace,” he said.

    The trust fund is one of the most effective tools to reduce homelessness, said Becky Eddy, chief community development officer for the Integrated Services for Behavioral Health.

    “The current regional approach isn’t broken,” she said. “Shifting to a fractured county-by-county model would slow things down, drive the administrative costs and ultimately increase homelessness across the state.”

    Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.

    Megan Henry
    Megan Henry

    Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the past five years reporting in Ohio on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime. She previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.

    Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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  • “A great step forward,” Senate’s budget restores proposed affordable housing tax credit program

    “A great step forward,” Senate’s budget restores proposed affordable housing tax credit program

    Getty Image

    The amount of credits would be capped at $100 million, creating about 4,000 housing units during the program’s term.

    BY:  Ohio Capital Journal

    In a positive turn of events, the Senate’s version of the two-year operating budget restores a new affordable housing tax credit program that was originally nowhere to be seen in the Senate’s proposed budget.

    The program would attract developers to build low-income housing by making state tax credits accessible to projects receiving federal aid. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine proposed the program by putting it in his budget, but the Senate’s initial proposed budget cut the program altogether — causing an outcry from housing advocates, who called it an “all out assault … on rental housing.”

    But DeWine’s version of the affordable housing tax credit program was back in the budget the Senate passed last week.

    “With the state housing tax credit it would bring new dollars to the state of Ohio for the production of affordable workforce housing,” said Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio (COHHIO) executive director Amy Riegel. “This will help build new housing units into communities all across the state that will help drive that economic growth and offer communities new options for housing for their workforce.”

    The Senate went with what DeWine originally proposed: capping the amount of credits at $100 million, which would create about 4,000 housing units during the program’s term from July 2 to June 30, 2027, Riegel said.

    “Restoring the governor’s introduced program is a great step forward,” she said.

    However, the House’s budget proposal had upped the amount of credits to $500 million, which would have created 26,000 housing units, Riegel said.

    “That’s a significant difference,” she said. “We hope there may still be room to consider the House’s version of the state housing tax credit knowing just how much of a deficit we have right now in housing across the state and the economic development that is on the horizon.”

    Shortage of affordable housing

    There is a deficit of about 270,000 affordable and available rental units to the 448,000 extremely low-income households in Ohio — meaning there are only 40 affordable units for every 100 households, according to a March report from COHHIO and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).

    “In recent years we’ve seen the number of affordable rental units plummet, which means more families are experiencing longer bouts of homelessness,” Erica Mulryan, Director of the Ohio Balance of State Continuum of Care, said in a news release.

    Full-time workers in Ohio need to make at least $19.09 an hour to afford a 2-bedroom apartment in Ohio — a $2.04 increase from last year, according to a new joint report according from the NLIHC and COHHIO.

    “When so many jobs pay too little to afford a secure place to live, families are forced to make impossible decisions about whether to pay the rent, buy food, or forego medicine, transportation or education,” Riegel said in a release. “A precarious workforce means tired, stressed, unhealthy employees, higher absenteeism, and lower productivity.”

    Nixing the Ohio Housing Finance Agency

    The Senate’s version of the budget would transfer the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) to the newly created Governor’s Office of Housing Transformation starting in January.

    OHFA has a proposed budget of $16.8 million for fiscal year 2024 and $17.4 for fiscal year 2025 — a nearly 8% percent decrease for both years when compared to the House’s version of the budget.

    Under the Senate’s budget, all the current employees of OHFA would stay on staff, but the governor would be able to pick the director and appoint all new members.  The number of Tax Credit Authority members would increase from five to seven and the office would have to get the green light from the Tax Credit Authority before approving funding for multifamily rental housing.

    The budget would also nix their authority to create pilot programs to increase housing opportunities for “extremely low-income households, pregnant women, and new mothers,” according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission.

    Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio said it’s crucial OHFA remains independent.

    “This was a firewall erected nearly twenty years ago by Republican legislators to keep influence from developers, lobbyists, and other special interests shielded from the funding decisions our local communities rely upon,” AHACO said in a statement.

    “The Alliance respectfully requests that this monumental shift in state policy be given the full debate it deserves by removing it from the fast-moving budget and allowing hearings and expert opinions on the ramifications Ohio may suffer.”

    State Sen. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, implored his fellow Senators not to make these changes to OHFA during last week’s Senate session.

    “It’s the last thing we should be doing,” he said. “Frankly, we don’t need to eliminate OHFA, we need it on steroids to meet the needs of Ohioans.”

    He said transferring OHFA to the governor’s office will “add bureaucratic hurdles that will jeopardize Ohio’s economic growth.”

    “The Senate’s proposal will put housing that is affordable further out of reach for many Ohioans,” Smith said.

    DeWine must sign the budget by June 30.

    Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on Twitter.

    Megan Henry
    MEGAN HENRY

    Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the last five years reporting on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.

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  • Groups ramp up work on budget agenda for Ohio children

    Groups ramp up work on budget agenda for Ohio children

    by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman, Public News Service – OH

    Columbus, Ohio – More than a dozen groups are banding together to make sure Ohio does right by its children in the next state budget cycle.

    The Ohio Children’s Budget Coalition is ramping up efforts to maintain, protect and strengthen public resources that support children.

    The Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio is among the organizations involved.

    Gina Wilt, advocacy director for the housing group, said they’ll use their collective voice to outline policy priorities in the coming months.

    Gina Wilt is Advocacy Director for the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio

    “All of our issues intersect,” Wilt noted. “And sometimes we get into these silos, and we can’t afford to be in silos right now. There’s a potential $2 billion shortfall. The governor, he’s going to have a lot to look through, and we must be in sync.”

    Wilt said they hope to build on their success of the last budget cycle, when funding was increased for seven of 11 issues in the coalition’s agenda for children.

    Specifically, Wilt said the last budget improved support for evidence-based home visiting, for mitigating children’s lead exposure, and for wrap-around support in schools. 

    “Really being able to focus on families and children is a top priority,” Wilt explained. “That’s something that we think Gov. DeWine can get on board with. And he has shown that this is a top priority in work that he’s already done. We need to make sure that that’s continued.”

    Wilt added longstanding structural barriers and public-policy choices have created an uneven playing field for Ohio children. She noted the economic downturn has disproportionately affected children and families of color. 

    “We have seen huge gaps in our safety net for children and families of color,” Wilt contended. “That will definitely be a priority as we talk about all of these issues; child health, child care, education, justice issues related to our youth, housing and homelessness, and food security.”

    Gov. Mike DeWine is expected to release his budget recommendations for Fiscal Years 2022 to 2023 by mid-March, and the budget bill must be signed by June 30 to take effect July 1.