By Jala Forest/Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

Rents have been rising fast over the last two years, creating hardship for Ohioans who are surviving on wages that aren't keeping up.

Between December 2019 and December 2021, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Ohio's five most populous counties increased between 15% and 18%, according to data from Zillow. But median household incomes in Ohio increased by just 6% between those years, according to census data.

"With the wages remaining stagnant in the state of Ohio and the rents increasing, we're going to find a lot of families and individuals who are faced with a housing crisis," said Kaci Philpot, supervising attorney with the Tenant Advocacy Project at the Legal Aid Society of Columbus. "Whether it be staying with family or living on the streets or in shelters because they don't have the income to qualify for any of these rental units."

For comparison, between December 2017 and December 2019, average rent increases in Ohio's five biggest counties ranged from 6% to 10% - about half as fast as the increase over the last two years.

And more than 440,000 renter households in Ohio have incomes that are at or below the poverty threshold, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Many of those households are already severely cost burdened, meaning they spend more than half of their income on rent.

"I'm not in a position to forecast what I think rent prices will look like five years from now," said Philpot. "I can say that they are increasing and there's no sign that that trend is going to stop."

Why are rents going up and who is it affecting?

When the demand for housing is high but supply is low, the price of housing rises, said Don Brunner, treasurer of the board at the Columbus Apartment Association.

"We need to produce roughly 340,000 new units a year across the country to keep up with demand. And we've only done that a couple of times in the last 10 years," Brunner said. "There's always been less new units than what the demand is, so there's been a deficit every year."

The Centers for Disease Control's COVID-19 eviction moratorium, which prevented landlords from evicting tenants for more than a year in 2020 and 2021, made it harder for landlords to make their own ends meet, he said.

"A lot of the smaller owners - which is where the real and natural occurring affordable housing comes through - were taking their units and selling them, because they weren't getting paid for rent," Brunner said.

Brunner and other sources said they don't have data about who rent increases are affecting most. But there are large disparities among renters across racial lines. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, 36% of households that rent in the U.S. make less than $30,000 a year. Nearly half of those renters are Black, 34% are Hispanic and 33% are white.

John Petit, a managing attorney at Community Legal Aid's Neighborhood Law Project in Akron, said Black mothers appear to be seeking more assistance from housing justice organizations than any other group.

Black single mothers are more likely to be evicted due to low incomes and children, according to a 2014 study from the MacArthur Foundation. Black women in high-poverty Black neighborhoods are also more likely to work than their male neighbors, but their wages are lower than those of men.

"It breaks my heart because it does feel like they're being targeted more," Petit said.

Tenant protections are limited; tenants' unions forming in response

Organizations like Community Legal Aid are working to support tenants as rents rise.

For example, some cities are expanding legal representation for tenants facing eviction cases. Cleveland and Toledo city councils created right-to-counsel ordinances, which provide attorneys to extremely low-income tenants. United Way found in the first six months of right to counsel in Cleveland, 93% of tenants who were provided with attorneys through the program avoided eviction.

In spring 2022, state representatives Tavia Galonski (D-Akron) and Paula Hicks-Hudson (D-Toledo) introduced House Bill 622 that would provide legal representation to some tenants facing eviction in Ohio. The bill is currently in committee.

Another movement aimed at helping tenants involves housing rights activists, socialist organizers and legal aid organizations who helped tenants form tenants' unions in Akron and Columbus to help renters take more control of their living conditions.

Tenants' unions make it easier for tenants to share their grievances and discuss ways to create better living situations for themselves, said Josiah Quarles, the director of organizing and advocacy with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.

"If people are isolated, it's much harder to even feel that community," Quarles said. "A lot of it is just tenants talking to each other, letting each other know that they're not alone, that they're struggling with the same thing."

The goal of a tenants' union is to advocate for renter-friendly policies and minimize rent increases, Quarles said.

"There's always a power difference between a landlord and a tenant - that's just kind of the nature of the beast," Quarles said. "But when people feel empowered by the others within that power dynamic, it can tip the scales back to a little closer to equal, which is where they should be."

This is a collaboration between Kent State, Ohio News Connection, Public News Service, funded in part by Media in the Public Interest and the George Gund Foundation.




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Black residents in Illinois are almost eight times more likely to be homeless than white people, with lack of livable wages and affordable housing among the primary drivers.

Researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago said homelessness is an issue of equity with Blacks disproportionately represented across the state. Rent burdens and economic hardship are both driving factors. In 2022, about 63% of Black renters spent more than 30% of their paycheck on housing.

Chama St. Louis, director of organizing and network expansion at the National Black Worker Center, experienced homelessness in the winter of 2011. Even though she was working full-time, she said she could not afford to pay for housing and basic needs for her and her family.

"I felt like I was doing everything right," St. Louis recounted. "You can do everything right and still end up in a place where you don't have a home, because the system is failing us."

One in four Black residents is living in poverty in Illinois and one in seven is in deep poverty. St. Louis argued the Trump administration's dismantling of DEI efforts will only further compound matters.

The state has increased investment in programs such as Home Illinois to address the significant rise in homelessness. St. Louis pointed out even though she registered her and her family as homeless, many programs required her to travel based on the availability at shelters on any given day.

"When we had no gas, then we were sleeping in Walmart parking lots," St. Louis explained. "And on days it was really cold, I would take the kids inside of Walmart and make pallets for them at the bottom of a cart and push them around Walmart for seven hours until the sun came up."

St. Louis added she is now dedicated to helping others who experience homelessness. Along with advocating for improved conditions and wages for Black workers, she stressed she tries to humanize the crisis.

"Outside of the real work that we have to do around policy and making sure that people from a systemic standpoint are being treated fairly, we still have to make sure that we are human beings who care about one another and want to see each other do well," St. Louis emphasized.

The state has earmarked $290 million for homeless services this year but advocates are asking for an additional $100 million for emergency housing, assistance and prevention programs.

The North Dakota Legislature is considering bolstering funding to help military veterans facing homelessness. Key voices say more details need to be sorted out. The state Senate this week unanimously approved a bill that, under its original intent, directed gaming tax proceeds from support organizations, such as pull tabs at an American Legion, to programs and funds for veterans with specific needs. Stable housing is among them.

Christopher Deery, veterans service director leads veterans services for Cass County, said during recent testimony that offices like his want to get a roof over the head of all past servicemembers. But challenges still get in the way, such as pandemic relief drying up.

"We have a lot of veterans with a lot of needs. We're slowly running out of options here, and we just need a little bit of help so we can get that number to zero," he explained.

The bill has cleared both legislative chambers without opposition. But a primary sponsor says because of changes during the voting process, there's still discussion about final language - namely what the funding levels should look like. That suggests additional votes this session. There was chatter during debate about opening the floodgates for support groups for other causes.

Through its Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, Community Action Partnership of North Dakota says it handled an additional 70 cases last year. Of those seeking help, all were either on the brink of homelessness, or already without a home.

Max Pontenila, program specialist veteran and program specialist for the group's Minot office, said as they cobble together resources, they're balancing the need of building trust with clients.

"As veterans, and this is true even on a personal level, raising your hand saying, 'Hey, I need help,' that is a hard experience," he said.

Advocates suggest that hard experience could become more common if the resources aren't there. Nationally, the number of veterans experiencing homelessness declined last year. But there was a 7% increase the previous year, marking the first such spike in a while.

By Angela Hart for KFF Health News.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the KFF Health News-Public News Service Collaboration

As flames engulfed a nearby canyon, dozens of residents in a sober-living home fled to an unoccupied building about 30 miles south. The evacuees, many of whom were previously homeless, watched helplessly as their home burned on live TV.

When they awoke on air mattresses the next morning, loss set in. Some feared uncertainty. Others were jolted back to lives they thought they’d left behind.

“I had nothing but the clothes on my back. It just brought back all of those feelings of being homeless and a drug addict,” said one resident, Sean Brown. “Kind of like I was back at square one.”

The large two-story Altadena house, known to staff and residents as Art House, was surrounded by fruit trees and rugged mountains. For many, it was a safe space that enabled them to achieve and maintain sobriety, rebuild relationships, and hold down jobs.

Brown, 35, was among nearly 50 people displaced in January after the massive Eaton Fire destroyed one property and damaged another operated by the nonprofit Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse. Supported by public dollars, the organization provides housing and behavioral health treatment to people struggling with addiction, many who had been living on the streets. Operators say both properties are uninhabitable and that they are searching for permanent housing for those displaced.

“Our residents are still in temporary lodging. Right now we’re looking for something on an interim basis, but we still need to identify long-term housing for them,” said Juan Navarro, CEO of the nonprofit. “And we need even more beds. We’re seeing even bigger demand for treatment and services after the fires.”

In the weeks since one of the nation’s costliest natural disasters, it’s become evident that the Los Angeles wildfires have not only displaced people who had dug themselves out of homelessness and gotten into housing, but also dealt a blow to the region’s homelessness response. That far-reaching system of care formed by government agencies and local nonprofits has been buoyed by billions of dollars from the city, county, and state in recent years to combat California’s homelessness epidemic.

Now, wildfires are adding pressure to a system already under tremendous strain in getting chronically homeless people indoors. Homeless service operators and street medicine providers have been putting pressure on state and local leaders to allocate more funding to house people on the streets, but they are running up against competing demands for wildfire recovery — and tighter budgets.

“Many of the people we work with have already lost everything and they’re trying to rebuild their lives, and now there’s a whole other group of people doing the same thing and competing for the same resources,” said Jennifer Hark Dietz a licensed clinical social worker and the CEO of PATH, which provides services and housing for homeless people.

In recent years, state and local leaders have leveraged unprecedented investments to open thousands of shelters and temporary and permanent units. That’s helped Los Angeles County and the state notch meaningful gains, even as more than 187,000 people remain homeless in California, including 75,000 people across Los Angeles County.

The 2024 homelessness tally showed a 45% increase in the number of people who in the past year moved off the streets into permanent housing, and the number who moved from tents into temporary housing rose 32%, according to Va Lecia Adams Kellum, CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which leads the countywide homelessness response system. That’s nearly 30,000 permanent housing placements across Los Angeles County.

And while homelessness rose 18% nationwide from 2023 to 2024, according to the most recent federal estimate, it increased only 3% in California. More strikingly, Los Angeles County reduced overall homelessness, albeit slightly.

The number of people living outside fell 5.1% in Los Angeles County, and in the city of Los Angeles, the number of unsheltered people dropped 10.4%.

That hard-fought progress is now in peril as the wildfires displaced tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. Affordable housing, already in short supply, is being further strained.

Formerly homeless people who have experienced addiction, domestic violence, or mental illness now worry they won’t be prioritized for placements, despite losing their homes and qualifying for state and local homelessness initiatives to get people indoors. Many homeless people who have long waited for housing will be forced to wait even longer, as more displaced people face homelessness and compete for costly housing.

Homeless Again

It’s unclear how many formerly homeless people are homeless again. Street medicine providers and other front-line workers say some are temporarily living in hotels, while others moved in with friends or family members.

There’s evidence that some have fallen back into homelessness.

“We’re already seeing some people have moved into their vehicles because they don’t have the money to pay for even temporary housing,” Adams Kellum said. “Before the fires, we were already seeing very vulnerable people unable to manage their rents, so this competition for housing puts people at even greater risk for homelessness.”

Adams Kellum said coordinating resources and services across a vast region has led to major progress but that more money is needed to help move people from short-term to permanent housing.

For now, residents of the burned-down Art House will be allowed to reside in an empty building in Santa Fe Springs that the nonprofit had planned to redevelop for residential treatment, Navarro said. He said the nonprofit is looking for more stable housing for those displaced but that rehousing them at Art House remains out of reach for now.

Residents grieve the loss of the Art House’s transformative setting, which they call an “empowerment campus.” Brown said that he has embraced that ethos, even as he has been displaced and remains traumatized by the wildfires. He is currently working two jobs and taking classes toward a bachelor’s degree.

Paul Rosales, a 24-year-old in recovery from meth, said Art House was a place of healing. “That’s where I found myself; it’s where I built my recovery. There was a beautiful orange tree, and the mountains were just a short walk away where you could meditate and watch the sunset.

“It was away from Skid Row. I knew I was safe,” Rosales said. “That’s all gone now.”

Residents say they’re grateful they aren’t on the streets, but anxiety grows by the day, especially for queer and transgender people who had formed a community there.

“It’s constant stress of not knowing if I’m going to be in a stable housing situation,” said Alexandria Castaneda, 29, who was addicted to meth but got sober after getting indoors.

Battle for Resources

Sarah Hoppmeyer, chief program officer for Union Station Homeless Services, which provides housing for people on the streets, said she worries about dwindling resources. She and other providers stressed the importance of not overlooking people currently stuck in homelessness, many of whom have been waiting years for housing.

“We don’t want the wildfires to de-prioritize people who were already experiencing homelessness,” she said.

Elected leaders have pledged to preserve the gains Los Angeles County has made in reducing homelessness by allocating existing resources and demanding more. Several voter-approved initiatives in Los Angeles are critical, they say, but so too is lobbying for state support.

“Without continued and expanded support and resources, we risk losing ground” in reducing the number of people living on the streets, said Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, chair of the county board.

Previous massive fires have led to increases in homelessness, including in 2018 in Sonoma County and in 2024 on Maui, whose homelessness rate soared the year after fires.

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Los Angeles County that burned in the wildfires, said she will continue pressing for additional homelessness funding as a member of the Senate budget committee. While Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration says the state has plowed an unprecedented $27 billion into local homelessness response and prevention initiatives, he didn’t include any new money for battling the homelessness crisis in his proposal this year.

“Unfortunately, this year we didn’t see additional money being placed into that fund,” Pérez said. “But we have to keep making these investments.”

Newsom said Monday the state should not continue to “fund failure.” He said he is open to negotiations with cities, counties, and state lawmakers so long as any new homelessness funding comes with greater accountability, meaning that local governments use the money to clear encampments, dismantle tents, and reduce unsheltered homelessness.

Newsom officials stressed that the state budget is tight — it’s narrowly balanced and under greater strain than in previous years, with threats from the Trump administration and the potential loss of critical federal funding for programs such as Medicaid. The governor said he is “hopeful that we can land on an agreement,” but he warned the state could claw back funding if local governments aren’t adequately addressing street homelessness.

“We have been too permissive as it relates to encampments and tents. We need them cleaned up,” Newsom said. “We’re providing unprecedented support. Now we need to see unprecedented results.”

Assembly member John Harabedian, another Los Angeles-area Democrat, said additional homelessness spending is critical for wildfire victims and to continue combating the crisis statewide.

“Those folks who were already homeless, who just got into some sort of housing stability but then lost it again — they’re going to need immediate attention,” he said. “Our system is failing people.”


Angela Hart wrote this story for KFF Health News.


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