COLUMBUS, Ohio — On the 11th floor of the Franklin County Municipal Courthouse, you’ll find renters facing eviction for failure to pay rent.
On Monday, 10TV found Hope Armstrong, a breast cancer survivor struggling with diabetes who is the lone breadwinner in a home with her disabled husband and daughter.
Armstrong told us she earns $17 an hour, which is below the $20 an hour Ohioans need to earn to afford a two-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Association.
“It’s been really hard to pay the rent and get food in the house,” Armstrong said.
She came to the courthouse to find rental assistance. This is the second time this year she’s faced eviction.
Then there are people like Sara Lancaster of Columbus. She works to help find people rental assistance. She said she earns $20 an hour. She says trying to find a safe place to rent at that hourly rate is a struggle. She says it didn’t use to be that way.
“$20 an hour is not going to cut it. It’s not going to cut it with food, what do I not want to buy? I have bills, do we not get internet, you have to start downsizing some things. It’s really expensive. It’s expensive out here,” she says.
According to the NLIHC, in Ohio, the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,082. In order to afford that and utilities without paying more than 30% of income on housing, a household would need to earn $3,608 a month or $42,293. That equals out to about $20.81 an hour.
In Columbus, it's even higher. Residents need to make $25.04 an hour.
“Part of what causes housing prices to rise is the scarcity,” says Hanna Jones, the Deputy Director of Development for the City of Columbus.
The city is trying to address the problem in several ways.
It’s spending millions of dollars through a voter-passed bond measure that began distributing funds in 2019 to help offset construction costs.
“That resulted in 1,300 units of affordable housing. This last round was $200 million. That’s coming in at $50 million right now, and we’ve already committed $30 million of that first $50 million to 1,200 units,” says Jones.
The city’s zone in plan is also working to add additional housing.
The Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio (COHHIO) says policies at the state and federal levels need to change for more affordable housing to come online.
“Cities and local governments have a role to play by ensuring that tenants have strong legal protections to keep struggling families stably housed. The state has made some promising steps in recent years, but still needs to provide more resources to address Ohio’s affordable housing crisis. For example, expanding the Ohio Housing Trust Fund would help create and preserve more affordable rental units. At the federal level, we need Congress to approve robust funding for HUD’s budget, which includes a number of effective housing initiatives that have been woefully underfunded for decades,” said Marcus Roth, Communications/Development Director COHHIO.