COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The gap between rent and wages continues to widen in Ohio, according to new research.

The annual Out of Reach report showed the fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Ohio is $865.

In order to afford that level of rent, as well as utilities, a household must earn at least $16.64 cents per hour. That's nearly $2 an hour more than the average renter earns per hour.

Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, noted it is more than what workers in six of the ten most common occupations in Ohio earn.

"Salespeople, cashiers, restaurant workers, hotel workers... those are also the jobs that were hit hardest by the pandemic, so their situation may be even worse," Faith emphasized. "There's many people struggling just to keep a roof over their head in these times."

Faith added the costs of rent are being driven higher by the increase in home prices. In April, home prices in Central Ohio were almost 17% higher year-over-year.

Faith explained the situation is likely worse, as the data was collected prior to COVID-19 and doesn't reflect the economic challenges spurred by the pandemic.

"A lot of people aren't getting full-time work, and they're not working all the time, so it doesn't really account for people in those situations," Faith asserted. "So the problems for many people are actually worse than appears in the report."

Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, pointed out the federal government has taken steps to ease the burden for renters, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction moratorium and $47 million in Emergency Rental Assistance to states.

"That emergency rental assistance has to be spent before the eviction moratorium expires," Yentel stressed. "Hopefully we'll have at least another extension, otherwise we're going to see a historic wave of evictions across the country."

The current moratorium ends July 31. Ohio has reportedly allocated more than $1.5 million to renters who are behind.

Reporting by Ohio News Connection in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.

A coalition of advocates is using a novel approach to address the housing shortage in Missoula, helping renters become owners.

Prices and availability continue to be a problem in Montana.

Neighborworks Montana and the North Missoula Community Development Corporation are expanding the co-op concept in Missoula, notorious for its housing shortage.

Neigborworks Montana Executive Director Kaia Peterson said co-ops are successful because they hire the property management company that works for them.

"So, these are existing apartment buildings, and what we're doing is instead of an individual investor owning that building, we're helping the residents form a cooperative," said Peterson. "So, the residents are creating a business together - in the business form of a cooperative - and that cooperative buys and owns and operates the building."

Co-op ownership eliminates the possibility of an investor buying the building and increasing rent if the property value increases. The group hopes to replicate the model across Montana.

North Missoula Community Development Corporation's Executive Director Brittany Palmer said the co-op model also keeps the property in local hands and allows residents to decide, collectively, how to best use the money people are paying to live there.

"Them hiring the property management company that works for them, rather than for a landlord," said Palmer. "It goes towards also things like maintenance which they get to decide when and what maintenance and repairs are made."

The corporation owns the land underneath the buildings, so even if the co-op dissolves in the future, the corporation still decides what happens with the property. They've produced a documentary about Missoula's first co-op called Wolf Avenue Collective.

The Utah Foundation polled municipal officials across the state to gain their insights into affordable housing. The report found many officials feel they face barriers when attempting to introduce more affordable housing into their communities - and they say those barriers often come from residents.

Shawn Teigen, president of the Utah Foundation, said anxieties people may have around affordable housing may not be accurate.

"When we think about affordable housing, we think about more density. And that comes along with perhaps more traffic. And that may not be reality, but that's what a lot of people are thinking about," Teigen said.

However, those anxieties can create restrictions for those who advocate for more diverse housing options. In the survey, 79% of respondents said municipal officials pursuing affordable housing over residents' concerns face political consequences. Teigen added some officials must choose between fighting for their beliefs in the need to make housing more affordable - and remaining in office to help their constituents with other matters.

The Foundation says its report was not designed to offer specific solutions, but to illuminate the issues Utah residents face today.

Drew Maggelet, director of housing for the Call to Action Foundation, one of the report's sponsors, said affordable housing is something everyone believes in. It's the placement, standards and implementation they may disagree on.

"There is not really a coherent or clear path forward as it concerns the best way to do this. There's a very large discrepancy between what people consider 'affordable.' There is a very large discrepancy about how to fix it," he explained.

The report polled officials in communities of at least 5,000 residents and examined populations across the state. One option being discussed is making changes to zoning policies for so-called "middle housing" - a strategy that includes allowing multifamily housing in established single-family neighborhoods.

A new design competition is looking to find better housing for Fargo's aging population.

Like many other states, North Dakota has a growing number of people increasingly burdened by their own homes. Oftentimes, they want to stay in their communities but their properties might be too large, too expensive to maintain or too unsafe to occupy.

Janelle Moos, associate state director of advocacy for AARP North Dakota, said there are not enough options for people looking to downsize.

"A lot of housing and zoning has really promoted single family homes or very large scale apartments," Moos explained. "We've kind of lost that middle ground to say, 'There are other types of housing that exist and can coexist and what people want, right?'"

AARP is asking interested architects, designers, builders and students to submit designs for those midlevel units, including a duplex, triplex or cluster subdivision. Moos pointed out the goal is to show off the viability of age-friendly homes and hopefully come away with some plans for future development.

More than 65% of North Dakota residents named housing as the state's biggest overall need in a survey last year.

The competition closes in early October and the winner is eligible for a cash prize. Moos noted people can then hire the designer, obtain a building permit and begin construction.

"The hope is that it's not just a conversation and it's not just a hypothetical," Moos emphasized. "We want to come away with several really viable, buildable, missing middle housing plans with universal divine design elements. So, by that I mean truly age-friendly."

Judges and advisers include government officials, design experts and architects from across the state. Nationwide, one group estimates a need for more than 800,000 senior housing units by 2030.