COLUMBUS, Ohio — Over 500 households were forced to leave Colonial Village in Columbus after the city deemed the apartments unsafe.
Many former residents were able to find affordable housing with help from the Community Shelter Board. However, Board Chief Program Effectiveness Officer Steve Skovensky said finding affordable housing in Columbus is challenging and believes it is now a community crisis.
He said the shelter board is now looking for community leaders and landlords to step up and help solve this problem.
Close to 400 households have transitioned out of hotels that were paid for by the city. June 28 was the last day the city would pay the bills.
Now, those remaining residents have to pay the hotel bills themselves or find somewhere else to go.
"It is all hands on deck when it comes to what can we do to make this the safest, the most vibrant and affordable community for everybody," Skovensky said.
More than 140 households remain in hotels. However, anyone with pending housing and awaiting inspection or final approval from a landlord has an extended hotel stay using city funding. Other households without children were exited from hotels over the weekend.
"This is really unprecedented with the levels of homelessness that we can see in this community right now, but we're, we're always going to do what we can to support the most vulnerable within the extent of the resources that we have. But we want to work directly with everyone that we can and help keep that stability," Skovensky said.
He added that there are not enough affordable housing options for everyone and that the levels of homelessness they see in the community right now are unprecedented. The Community Shelter Board is working to support the most vulnerable within the extent of the resources they have, but they need help.
"We need the good work that can happen with the city's planning," Skovenski said. "We need the support of the county. We need landlords to step up and say, 'Yes, I want to be part of this effort.' We need landlords that would be interested in shared housing where their units can be divided up. That's a growing movement in the country."
He said they need a whole array of resources for families and households impacted by Colonial Village, and to mitigate the next disaster.
For landlords willing to help, the Community Shelter Board has a mitigation fund to help defray costs and an incentive program called Home for Good for new landlords providing new units to their system.