Voters in Colorado and nine cities across the county approved housing affordability measures in November. The efforts sought to finance the construction of affordable housing, preserve existing rental properties and support renters.
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Columbus, Ohio, voters OK’d $200 million to go toward the building of more affordable rentals, efforts to house and assist the homeless and the preservation of existing affordable housing, as well as funds to make homeownership more affordable in the area.
“These bond issues are one way to address [affordable housing], but they’re also a political indication of the degree to which voters recognize there’s a problem that has to be solved,” said David Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference. “When we look at the broad range of proposals that have been approved, I think we also can see a signal that people get it. There’s a problem. And we’re going to have to pay to help fix it and it’s not going to fix itself now.”
Carlie Boos, executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, said that inflation has created an “immediate need” for the affordable housing bonds. People are overcrowding their apartments to cover rent and the length of stay in homeless shelters is getting longer as families have nowhere to go, Boos said.
“The way that inflation is pinching everybody’s budget is making construction and building for housing demand harder and harder to do. So there’s an immediate need,” she said.
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