COLUMBUS (WCMH) – Supporters of an upcoming bill say it could help keep the most vulnerable Ohioans from being forced out of their homes.
“Unfortunately we know these consequences are more dire for our most vulnerable neighbors,” said Carlie Boos, the executive director at the nonprofit.
“As a result, too many families are being priced out of the neighborhoods that they built and that they nurtured, adding fuel to this already smoldering housing crisis,” said Boos.
As property taxes increase with soaring property values, a state senator from Columbus plans to introduce legislation that would cap property tax increases at 5% per year statewide.
Carlie Boos, the executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, said fostering homeownership is a key to building wealth.
"Steep tax spikes hinder that," Boos said.
Those consequences affect seniors on fixed incomes and low-income residents in communities of color facing gentrification, she said.
"The time to tackle these challenges is absolutely right now," Boos said.
A housing fund created in 2019 to loan $100 million to create affordable housing in Franklin County has so far financed projects to construct or rehab more than 1,000 units.
Carlie Boos, the executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, said next steps need to be taken, such as more money for grants for housing and underwriting support for extremely low-income tenants.
Experts have been saying households should pay just 30% of their income on housing, Boos said.
"The damage has bene done by COVID-19," she said. "We can bake it in or stop it in its tracks and deal with it now."
It always seems like it’s two steps forward, one step back on the affordable housing front. [….]
Locally, the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio praised the “incremental progress,” although it said the past year was “a rollercoaster of good news and bad.”
The alliance cited several positive developments in the region:
Reynoldsburg modernizing its zoning code to encourage walkable, dense, mixed-use neighborhoods along commercial corridors.
Columbus’ $50 million investment in affordable housing.
Bexley bolstering housing rights with “source of income” legislation preventing discrimination against renters using public subsidies, a move since followed by Columbus, Westerville and most recently, Reynoldsburg. […]
We can debate who’s getting the money and whether we can afford it, but there’s no question more assistance is needed to get more people housing-secure.
Carlie Boos, the alliance’s executive director, called for setting aside 30% of the funding for housing.
“If we target this money to get the housing train back on its tracks and cure the damage caused by Covid, we can make our recovery swift and equitable,” the alliance said.
The roadblocks are many, however, including rising costs for land, lumber and labor that make affordable housing projects more difficult.
The alliance counted 22,000 units added in the region from 2017 to 2019 that rent for more than $1,250 a month, while the region lost 19,000 units at under $900 a month.
Let’s just remember all this as we celebrate the return to ‘normalcy.’
A developer wants to build a four-story apartment building on the site of a former Save-A-Lot store on East Main Street on the Near East Side.
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"What we really need to be cognizant of is opportunities for safe, stable affordable housing," Boos said.
When it comes to making an area livable, some requirements are non-negotiable. People want good jobs, good schools, safe streets, short commutes, leisure-time options and affordable housing. It’s that last item that is becoming more difficult to check off in central Ohio.
The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority plans to issue an additional 1,000 housing vouchers over the next year, while 24,000 remain on its wait list for federally subsidized housing.
"Columbus is not the place we were 20-30 years ago. We're not going to be the same 20-30 years from now," Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said. "We have to make sure the zoning code reflects that reality, reflects mixed-income neighborhoods."
Reynoldsburg could become the latest Ohio community to adopt a “source of income” law prohibiting housing discrimination based on how tenants pay their rent.
