By India Gardener / Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

Rising housing costs are creating significant challenges for Ohioans seeking affordable homes - especially those with the lowest incomes.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), to afford a two-bedroom home in Ohio without spending more than 30% of your income on rent, you will need an annual household income of $39,702.

Ohio's median household income was $67,520 in 2022, according to U.S. Census data. But even in a relatively affordable state, households whose incomes are at or below the poverty guideline-$15,225 for a single person under 65 or $29,678 for a family of four-face significant challenges in finding housing they can afford.

In Ohio, 67% of extremely low-income residents - those making just 30% of the area median income - are spending more than half of their income on rent, according to NLIHC.

"Over 700,000 renters are spending over half their income on rent, and, when you're spending that much of your income on rent, there's very little left over for the other necessities of life - food, transportation, education, healthcare, childcare - all of those things suffer," said Marcus Roth, communications/development director with the Coalition of Homelessness and Housing. This statewide coalition advocates for affordable housing.

The 2021 Ohio Housing Needs Assessment states there was a shortage of over 256,875 affordable rental units for extremely low-income (ELI) households across the state in 2018. This translated to a meager 44 available units for every 100 of these households.

Considering inflation, the median gross rent in Ohio increased by 9% from $733 to $797 per month from 2012 to 2018. The highest earners' incomes have outpaced this rise in rent since 2006, but those in the lowest 20 percent of income earners since 2008 have not. They are at heightened risk for housing cost burdens and instability.

"The main thing we need to do is increase the supply of affordable housing," Roth said. "We have a huge shortage of affordable housing. It's just grown worse and worse over the last 10 to 15 years."

The Ohio Housing Finance Agency's research highlights a significant decline in authorized new housing units - all housing units, not just affordable ones - for construction since 2000. In 2022, only 30,936 housing units were authorized, down from 49,745 in 2000.

"We have not had enough affordable housing for a very, very long time. But one of the novel things about what we're seeing is that that instability is creeping up the economic ladder," said Carlie Boos, executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio. "And it's not just minimum wage earners who are feeling the pinch. It's not just retirees who are feeling the pinch, but now it's folks who are working 40 hours a week in a very respectable profession."

Limited housing availability, combined with rising construction costs, has created a shortage of affordable housing options.

According to the Ohio Finance Housing Agency Fiscal Year

"We're in an atypical moment in history where we are just not building enough homes for all of the people who live here," said Boos. "We're getting more and more and more people, especially in Central Ohio, where we're going to grow by another million people in the coming years."

Boos discussed the housing crisis in Ohio and how it requires a multifaceted approach that includes increasing the supply of affordable housing, providing financial assistance to low-income renters, and regulating the rental market.

"There's a lot of different tools that we can start making work for us. One of the things that I think Central Ohio has really been aggressive on... well, it's housing bonds," Boos said. Housing bonds are issued by governments at the state and local levels to help raise money for new affordable housing projects.

"Last November, the city of Columbus put a ballot measure up for a vote that passed super-majority-style," Boos said. "With $200 million and new resources to support affordable housing and start to bring those rents and those home ownership costs down... We had a $50 million pilot before that was overwhelmingly successful. So we know that this is going to have a huge impact."

Exploring financing methods, such as public-private partnerships and social impact bonds, can further tap into private-sector investments for affordable housing development. These include the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME).

Roth said the most recent Ohio state budget created a state version of the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.

"It is about $100 million of additional state resources that will go toward the development and rehabilitation of affordable housing. So that is a great first step," Roth said. "It'll create 4,000 additional units of affordable housing."


This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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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.

With rising housing costs an ongoing issue, a new report shows how fast rents have increased in Maryland and nationwide.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition's "Out of Reach" report shows that, even when accounting for higher state- and county-level minimum wages, the average minimum-wage worker in the United States would have to work 95 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom rental home.

Diane Yentel, coalition president and CEO, noted renters with the lowest incomes have faced a long-standing trend of rents rising faster than wages.

"Between 2001 and 2021, rents increased about 18%," she explained, "while household income only increased by about 3%."

In Maryland, the report found the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment is more than $1,900 a month, which translates to a Housing Wage of nearly $37 an hour, the ninth-highest in the nation.

The coalition said affordable rental housing isn't likely to be built without public subsidies. The availability of affordable housing is constrained in part by the high development and operating cost of new rental housing, resulting in market forces that drive developers to target higher-end customers.

The report shows the median monthly rent for new multifamily units in the third quarter of last year was more than $1,800 a month, while just 2% of new units had rents less than $850 per month.

As supply constraints drive costs higher, Yentel predicted the nation's housing crisis will worsen.

"Increased rents are resulting in increased homelessness," she insisted. "The U.S. Government Accountability Office has found that a $100 increase in median monthly rent is associated with a 9% increase in homelessness in that community."

For its part, the federal government's ability to build new housing has been limited since 1999, when the Faircloth Amendment capped the number of public housing units that can be legally owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).




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Backers of President Joe Biden's rent cap proposal said it could benefit many New Yorkers.

The plan calls for capping rent increases at 5% in apartments owned by corporate landlords, or those landlords risk losing federal tax breaks. It comes as statewide rents are rapidly increasing. As of this month, New York City rents are 147% higher than the national average.

Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for the group Housing Justice For All, said capping rents could greatly benefit New Yorkers struggling with housing costs.

"Many New Yorkers are already benefiting from stronger protections than what Biden has called for," Weaver acknowledged. "But for places that haven't opted into rent stabilization, which is many, in upstate New York especially, this would be hugely important, since half the state rents an unregulated apartment and this is potentially a lifeline."

The rent cap plan will require approval from Congress. It includes the Department of Housing and Urban Development investing $325 million nationwide in "Choice Neighborhood" grants, to support building affordable homes across the country.

Syracuse received $50 million from the program to build 1,400 affordable units. It comes as 31,000 households in Onondaga County spend more than one-third of their income on housing.

Beyond Biden's plan, New York's own good cause eviction protections passed earlier this year can help tenants. Since becoming law in May, four cities have opted in to the program. Though some housing advocates were against making it optional, Weaver noted the protections it offers reverberate in cities taking advantage of it.

"Right now, tenants in New York State have the right to renew their lease unless their landlord has a good reason to deny a lease renewal," Weaver explained. "The statutory protection is to remain in their home. And there's a nix on rent increases if you're rent-stabilized; it depends on what your local rent board voted for."

She notes cities adopting good cause eviction protections are also protecting tenants from almost 9% rent increases. Rochester and some Hudson Valley cities are considering opting in to these protections.


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