Shownotes
We tackle a pressing issue that is impacting Central Ohio: the housing crisis. Joining us as our special guests are Michael Wilkos and Carlie Boos, who will shed light on the current state of affordable housing in the region and discuss potential solutions. We'll explore the allocation of funds for affordable housing, efforts to update zoning codes, and the impact of restrictive suburban communities.
Additionally, we delve into the interdependence of transportation and housing, the consequences of the eviction crisis caused by COVID-19, and the unique challenges and opportunities that Central Ohio faces in meeting housing demands.
Here are three key takeaways:
1️⃣ Affordability and Accessibility: The City of Columbus is taking bold steps to tackle the housing crisis. Through bond packages and updated zoning codes, they are creating more affordable housing options and ensuring accessibility for all residents, regardless of income level.
2️⃣ Collaborative Approach: It's not just Columbus that needs to address the housing crisis. As part of the greater metropolitan region, collaboration is key. By working together, different communities can contribute to and benefit from the creation of adequate housing options.
3️⃣ Intersection of Housing and Infrastructure: Housing and transportation are intertwined. The LinkUS project, aimed at improving bike lanes, sidewalk connectivity, and transit lines, recognizes the importance of housing and infrastructure working hand in hand to create thriving communities.
Carlie Boos, Executive Director, Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlieboos/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ahaco/
Michael Wilkos, Senior Vice President/Community Impact, United Way of Central Ohio
https://liveunitedcentralohio.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-wilkos-7b40655/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/united-way-of-central-ohio/
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Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.
Copyright 2024 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson
Transcripts
We are Looking Forward Our Way from Studio C in the 511 Studios in the Brewery District. That's just south of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Hi. This is Brett. Regardless of which part of the country you live in, housing issues continue to crowd our news, whether It's affordable housing that's not available or renters are looking to pay or mortgage rates that are soaring. The issues continue to grow and create greater stress to working individuals and families. Today, we have 2 local and well respected experts to discuss the critical housing situation in Central Ohio. We welcome Carlie Boos, Executive Director at Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, and Michael Wilkos, Senior Vice President, Community Impact United Way of Central Ohio. Thanks to both of you for being here.
Carlie Boos [:Thank you. It's a pleasure.
Michael Wilkos [:My pleasure as well.
Carol Ventresca [:Wonderful. We are so glad to see both of you. I heard a housing presentation that Carly and Michael provided To the Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging earlier this year, I knew we needed to include them in on a podcast, providing both information as well as the resources that are available in our community. But first, before we really get started into the topic, Let's hear more about Carly and Michael. And Carly, why don't you start our discussion? Tell us about yourself and your agency.
Carlie Boos [:Well, thank you for inviting me to be here. This is gonna be a really fun talk, I think, we are the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio. Our work is to make sure that Central Ohio has the tools and the data and the research and, importantly, the support that it needs to solve our housing challenges. So we look at that through a lot of different lens. We're focused on homelessness. We're focused on housing affordability for renters. We're We're focused on homeownership and making it available and accessible. What we are really looking at is having a healthy community where everybody is welcome and they all have a seat
Carol Ventresca [:at the table. Wonderful. Michael.
Michael Wilkos [:So at United Way of Central Ohio, we are celebrating our 1 100th anniversary this year. And since our founding, we have always been focused providing supports for, vulnerable people within our community. We are a member of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio and, support Carly and her work, 100%. But here at in Central Ohio, we fund ninety 2 nonprofits in Franklin County, and they are focused entirely in 2 buckets. One of those is basic needs, ensuring that people's basic needs are met. So Hunger, housing, homelessness, dealing with an emergency crisis, and the second would be, ensuring, students are on a pathway to academic So kindergarten readiness and high school, completion. Those 92 agencies, which by the way represent a Collective workforce of 13,000 people that are working every day to provide their supports. They are struggling in helping those families be stable in their housing. So we are critically invested in, the supports that are needed to keep people stable in their housing because if families can't be stable in their housing, then kids can't be Full in schools, and people can't participate in the economic prosperity of Central Ohio, and that is why this issue is very important to us. I've lived in this community for 35 years. I moved to Columbus to go to the Ohio State University to get degrees in urban geography and city and regional planning. And in that time, I have never seen a housing ecosystem that is more stressed than the one that we shared today.
Carol Ventresca [:You know, it for for so many, literally, decades, We have been focused on homelessness, but I think until the pandemic, people didn't realize the issues of The housing, affordability, and availability. And now it's really at the forefront. So thank you both for coming and talking with us today.
Brett Johnson [:Alright. Well, population growth in Central Ohio has exploded over the past, you know, 10 years. A 15.1% growth in Columbus outpaced other large cities that are comparable as that are in the conversations like we have in Portland, Houston, and Nashville. Each year, Franklin County gains 16,000 more people, and and we all look at it as a positive. We all wanna grow. We hate to see the, you know, the the other seas go down, but our metro continues to grow now. Michael, can you tell us about the individuals who moved here? You know, who are they? What part of Columbus is now their home? And what impact Did this have on those already living in that in those areas?
Michael Wilkos [: this into perspective. Since: Brett Johnson [:So
Michael Wilkos [:that's Half of our growth, 26% of our metropolitan growth is due to the in migration of international folks moving to Central Ohio. That is something that really was not part of our collective DNA until 19 nineties, and that has continued to pick up. We have a very diverse, continent of origin in which those people are coming from. Columbus is considered an emerging market when it comes To international arrivals. If you think of New York and Miami and Los Angeles, which have long been destinations for new Americans coming to the United States, What you see in those highly developed, cities is a, a continent of origin that is very diverse and almost equitably distributed. In an emerging market for new Americans, Columbus, Charlotte, Indianapolis, you tend to see international arrivals Coming from a particular continent of origin. So in the case of Charlotte, that's mostly driven by, Central and Latin America. In Central Ohio, we have this even distribution. People coming from Asia. They're coming from Central Latin America. They're coming from Europe. They're coming from all over the world. Why is that? Well, we have the Ohio State University, which is very much a global institution. We also have a large number of companies that really kind of operate on a global stage and even look at, organization like Honda, right, which is driving that growth. So let's go back. 50% of our growth is babies over deaths. 26% is due to the arrival of international, and then the smallest part of our growth, 24%, is the movement of American born Citizens moving from one part of the country to another, and they're choosing Columbus. But most of that growth of American born in migration is coming specifically from within Ohio. And the top destinations of American born in migration are, in order, Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, Detroit, Youngstown. Right? So we are pulling people from nearby cities Where those cities aren't doing as well economically. And what are the drivers of mobility patterns? People are seeking either economic opportunity or they're seeking education. And Columbus is a destination because we are creating jobs and we are an education center. And, oh, by the way, where does Central Ohio lose people do if we're pulling people from Cleveland, Akron, Detroit, Youngstown, our top destinations where we lose people to are Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, and Atlanta. So in many ways, Columbus is on this ladder for people up and out of Ohio. You tend to move to Columbus from a nearby city, and when you leave Columbus, you're leaving Ohio and you're leaving the Midwest. So why is Columbus growing at 15% Because we're growing through natural increase, we're growing through the in migration of international, and we are growing through domestic In in migration, and that's why our population is so significantly on that upward trajectory. And we are expected to continue to see Positive population growth in all 3 of those buckets.
Brett Johnson [:The Northeast Ohio would really like to have I71 under construction all the time to slow things down.
Michael Wilkos [:You know, what's Like, what's fascinating about that, Brett, is, the Columbus and Cleveland relationship is twice As strong as the Columbus to Cincinnati. Mhmm. Meaning that, when I rattled off that list of immigration from local, you'll notice that Cincinnati was not one of those places. So the number of people that moved to Columbus from, Cleveland, that Flow is twice as high as the flow from Cincinnati, and that's because the Cincinnati metropolitan economy is just has Consistently been doing better than Cleveland.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Yeah. And and then to me, comparing Columbus to Cincinnati's, it it they're 2 different cities. Mhmm. I mean and I don't mean Columbus and Cleveland are similar, but it's just it's it's a different city. They are.
Michael Wilkos [:All 3 of them are different. They are.
Brett Johnson [:But it's just you know, you go there and it's just It's it's a southern part of Ohio. You know? It it it's you have to know what you're doing driving in there in Cincinnati. It's just a different feel of a City.
Carol Ventresca [:But the the other thing too is that Cleveland is the northeast. You you have to go quite a ways to get to another large city. Yeah. Cincinnati is really Right up there with Lexington and Louisville, and they're they they have their own little sort of hub together much closer. I can remember in my 30 years at Ohio State way back when, the university was very concerned. The city of Columbus was very concerned with the brain drain. So I think at that point in time, education did a huge Move towards making sure there were reasons for the educated graduates to stay. Mhmm. And so They the university became very much a part of workforce development. So it's it's a it's a it's a closer tie.
Michael Wilkos [:Well, as I was, sitting here listening to Brad, I was reminded that one of the things that I hear people say from Cincinnati is One of the questions people always ask another person is, what high school did you go to? Right. Because so much of the conversations Cincinnati is where in the Cincinnati region are you from? Where in Columbus? Nobody ever asks what high school you went to because there's this assumption that you probably didn't grow up in Metro Columbus. Yeah. You're probably from
Brett Johnson [:somewhere where really good point. That's a good point. No.
Carol Ventresca [:As I was gonna say, as a native Columbus site, we all talk about high schools. Because then we're really looking at what neighborhood did you grow I went to Catholic school, So I grew up in a different neighborhood than where my school was located.
Michael Wilkos [:Brewery.
Carol Ventresca [:So our our, Kids that we grew up with were not just those that we went to school with. Mhmm. We were because we grew up with kids from the public schools in our neighborhood. So it's a different conversation.
Michael Wilkos [:I will often ask when I'm giving presentations about Columbus whether I'm in a room of, You know, corporation that's raising money for United Way or it's one of our funded partners where I'm speaking to maybe staff or their board or even a civic like a rotary or Kiwanis. Right? I will always ask by a show of hands, raise your hand if you grew up as a kid in Franklin or one of the adjacent counties. Normally, a third of the hands will
Carol Ventresca [:go up.
Michael Wilkos [:And then it'll say, how many of you grew up somewhere else in the state of Ohio outside Columbus Metro? There goes another 1 third of the hands. And then it's who grew up somewhere in the United States, outside Side of Ohio, and that's the remainder, or you're international. But no matter where I am, I usually never see more than one 3rd of the hands go up, which is you grew up here in Columbus.
Carol Ventresca [:And right now, I'm only 1 fourth.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly.
Michael Wilkos [:That's pretty typical.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Thanks. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:So, Carly, we know that socioeconomic status, such as education levels, income, greatly affect a family's ability to find housing. Give us a picture of the families who are at risk in Central Ohio. What factors are intensifying those housing issues? Sure.
Carlie Boos [:I would start though by saying that I think everybody who lives in Central Ohio is being affected by our housing shortage and the housing challenge that we're facing. It could be somebody who wakes up and struggles to pay rent or to pay mortgage. It could be somebody who has a friend or a family member that they love very much who is in that situation. Even if you are sitting at home listening to this and you feel secure, we are becoming very conscious of the fact that our job opportunities are going to be more limited. Our ability to prosper and find new opportunities can become more limited. Our ability to gain the kind of education and lifestyle for our children that we expect, All of those things are very interdependent with the amount and availability and affordability of our housing.
Michael Wilkos [:One of the things I think I even learned from you, Carly, was this, You know, people talk about affordable housing.
Carol Ventresca [:Mhmm.
Michael Wilkos [:And when you hear that word affordable housing, it conjures up A mental model for people that sometime is about housing that isn't well maintained or is gonna bring down my property values. But what I've heard you say, Carly, is it's no longer a conversation on affordable housing. It's really about housing affordability, And housing affordability is affecting every single person because home values and rents have consistently been, increasing at a faster rate than people's incomes every single year for a long time now, which is causing a housing vulnerability for people who, Just a few years ago, would have never thought they could, feel that financial pinch around their housing and having to make decisions about where to spend that money. And if you don't spend that money on your housing, you become unstable very quickly.
Carlie Boos [:Right.
Carol Ventresca [:And and on top of the just the cost of the house itself, Now with insurance, taxes going up, everything, it it's become they're all becoming much more vulnerable in in those issues.
Brett Johnson [:Is there a better phrase to use than affordable housing? Are we are we saying that wrong? No. I don't think so. Because I I I agree when you say it. We've Growing up with that affordable housing as in okay subsidized and beyond be less than a square 1,000 square feet. It's somewhere to live versus Being able to afford a home Mhmm. Is a different totally different conversation.
Carlie Boos [:I think they bleed together, though.
Brett Johnson [:Okay.
Carlie Boos [:So when we talk about affordable housing, it's It's important to define the terms. Right?
Brett Johnson [:But I
Carlie Boos [:think that well, I know for the Alliance, the way that we think about it, a home is affordable if it's no more than 30% of your income, whatever that is.
Brett Johnson [:Okay.
Carlie Boos [: or so: Michael Wilkos [:Yeah. Well, in the opening, Brett, when you talked about Central Ohio's growth, I failed to mention one additional perspective. And when you said Franklin County adds 16,000 additional residents every year. However, we've only been building housing for 10,500 people every year.
Brett Johnson [:So I've already seen some number like that, and I can remember. It was way out of proportion.
Michael Wilkos [:So what that means so think
Brett Johnson [:about this.
Michael Wilkos [: ant and abandoned housing. In: Carol Ventresca [:Michael, let me clarify something. When you're saying we lost 9,000 vacant units, I'm thinking a vacant unit is probably something pretty derelict, and nobody should be living in it anyway. Are you saying that they're gone or that Somebody's living in them.
Michael Wilkos [: . Right? And you could see in: Carol Ventresca [:Right. So Brett and I had great relationships with the folks in Whitehall and have for years been the rah rah part of talking to folks about this is a great place to live. It's a great neighborhood. They're improving the schools. Go in there, buy a house for literally nothing, and rehab it, and you've got a wonderful starter home. A lot of those types of neighborhoods were in Northland. I grew up in Linden, went to school in Northland. Lots of little tiny pockets of fast building that happened in Northland Right after the World War 2 Korean wartime, people were coming back needing those little tiny box houses. One of the things that I've noted, and it's more personal known family and friends, is that that Northland community had a very Much older population, and they hung on to those little houses. They lived there till they died. Is has that been an issue, or is it just that's just too small of a number to to think more about it? It it when you've got a neighborhood just like Whitehall did, older folks were either moved or passed. Northland really is the same thing is going on.
Carlie Boos [:Yeah. Well, we think about housing as a life cycle. Right? Mhmm.
Michael Wilkos [:You
Carlie Boos [:don't start off Wanting the same thing you're gonna want in midlife, and that's not gonna be the same thing you're gonna want as you get older and you have different mobility needs. We are seeing definitely consumer trends towards smaller Homes. You would think back to the nineties. It was country chic. It was giant homes on massive lots. Many many mansions. Yep. Yep. Mansions. We're not seeing younger people who want that. And I think part of that is they're looking to the Cape Cod's into these cute homes that are very sustainable, very affordable, and they're saying, you know what? I want I don't wanna spend all of my money on a mortgage payment that goes to massive square footage I never see, and I have to clean all weekend. I just want something small, and then I can use all that residual income to go on trips or to Right. You know, hang out with my kids and have a really enjoyable weekend. So you're definitely seeing these changes in what people want as far as their housing is. We're starting to tip into a discussion, though, of what the barriers are To getting us to housing sufficiency and why we are having so many challenges in meeting not just these affordability needs, but giving our residents the kind of housing that they want. And one of those big walls we gotta jump over is land use and zoning laws that were written in the 19 fifties For a population who doesn't look like us, who doesn't want the same thing as us, and it it's holding us back in a lot of ways. And that's not just The city of Columbus, it is throughout the region. It's throughout the country. Right?
Michael Wilkos [:You know, there is this preference We've created, over the since the end of World War 2, where the single family detached home is somehow this iconic Status symbol that we are all supposed to wanna desire and want. And we've created this mental model of what we think the quintessential Central American home should look like, but that's really for, a certain part of the population during a Certain period of time, right, there's such a, negative perception that has been created about renters. And in this community, 45% of Franklin County households are renters.
Carol Ventresca [:Wow. I didn't realize it was that high.
Michael Wilkos [: is a community that went from: Brett Johnson [:there's actually I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Bridge Park. Similar, but
Michael Wilkos [:well, here's what I'll say.
Brett Johnson [:Mister Hoang, I'm kidding.
Michael Wilkos [:And I I love Bridge Park. Right? But if you think about it this way, If you are young and single and you're, having just started a family, what's driving your housing and neighborhood choice lifestyle.
Brett Johnson [:Sure it is.
Michael Wilkos [:All of these what's called 5 over ones. Right? Five levels of stick built construction over a concrete podium that's on High Street in West Broad and Longstreet, that's lifestyle. What is Bridge Park? What is Kingsdale? That's convenience. Mhmm. So Arlington and Dublin are real and and Hilliard, right, which is now also looking at wanting to do a mixed use downtown. And, you know, Worthington is struggling with, what they wanna do with the redevelopment of the Methodist property in High Street. That's about convenience. How do we keep right. How does Dublin attract young single people who are looking for lifestyle? Well, Young single people don't wanna be in your Field Village or Tartan fields. They wanna walk out their door, and they wanna have restaurants and entertainment. Bars. Bars.
Brett Johnson [:Walk over this cool bridge over a river.
Michael Wilkos [:Right. They wanna go to the North Market, you know, Bridge Park. Mhmm. That is lifestyle, but it's also convenience. So those young single professionals that want lifestyle, they're attracted to Bridge Park, and those empty nesters that have that home in, Muirfield Also wanna bring in Bridge Park, and I give Dublin a lot of credit. Mhmm. And I give, Arlington a lot of credit. What Arlington is doing at Kingsdale, You've got, 7 story apartment building. You've got a senior building going up there. You've got a rec center all right in the parking lot of a giant eagle. It's a beautiful thing. And now what is Whitehall doing? Redeveloping all that property at Broad and Hamilton to give a different type of housing typology that is focused on lifestyle and convenience, which is now providing these housing bookends and moving away from this nostalgic emotional manipulation that we should all be living in 4 bedroom single family detached
Carlie Boos [:But, I mean, let me say too. It's not just single, wage earning, no children households. They might be gravitating towards more apartment buildings, but you look at the 2 hottest housing markets in the entire country. Right now, today, it is Gahanna. In the entire country, it is Gahanna. And what are they doing? They're investing in their downtown. They're investing in Creekside. They're putting multifamily density in there. They're putting shops. They're putting Entertainment venues. And what's happening to the single family homes? Value is going through the roof because everybody wants to be there. 2 years ago, it was Reynoldsburg Doing the exact same thing with old Reynoldsburg, putting in more apartments, putting in more housing, cultivating new small businesses. And what happened? The single family homes all around it got more and more popular.
Carol Ventresca [:This this sort of answers a question about the complex where I live. I'm in a condominium complex, stand alone, Units that are I I mean, mine is 2,000 square feet. It's not a small condo by any stretch. 2 car attached garage, just enough, of the flower beds to that I can deal with. Poor Mike. That
Brett Johnson [:was funny. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [: o. They they were built early: Michael Wilkos [:Yeah.
Carlie Boos [:And this gets us right back into that affordability piece. Right. Right now in Franklin County, Just Franklin County, we have 54,000 families who are paying more than half their income towards housing. Big part of that is we don't have enough housing to go around. Just supply and demand fundamentals. But that's 54,000 of our neighbors who are taking 1 out of every 2 paychecks and giving it to a mortgage company or to a landlord, and that leaves very, very little leftover for food or medication. We see a lot of seniors in this physician who began rationing their medication and cutting prescriptions in half just to get through to the end of the month. If you blow that out and you don't look at just Franklin County, but you look at our whole region, 83,000 households who are doing that every single month. That's that's a real tipping point that we need to look at. If you go further down the economic ladder and you're not just looking at kind of the region as a whole, but just households who are earning minimum wage. Right? Full time, 40 hour a week employees, but they're minimum wage earners. We only have 1 home for every 3 people who needs it in that range.
Carol Ventresca [:Mhmm.
Carlie Boos [:2 thirds of our need every month completely unmet.
Carol Ventresca [:I think they there was a a number that was thrown around there for a while that if you had a a minimum Wage earner, they literally would have to have two and
Carlie Boos [:a half jobs to pay for housing. And worse than that, if they wanna buy just the median home today, the average home that's up for sale, guess how many jobs they'd have to work? Six six full time jobs. They would have to create 3 new days of the week just so that they go to work 24 hours a day during those new Yes. Mhmm. It's completely unsustainable.
Michael Wilkos [: indicative of this trend. In: Carlie Boos [:And that's gonna be broader than just Franklin County too. If you look out closer to the Intel site, we're hearing really trouble things coming out Johnstown out of Grandview. Yeah. You go to the other end of the the region, and you're looking at Honda and Marysville. Mhmm. This is across the board. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [: numbers. And, we're still in: Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Well
Carlie Boos [:and this is a live issue. Right now, the number one topic that is being discussed at the statehouse is how to deal with property taxes.
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Carlie Boos [:So if it is something that you're feeling, this is a great time to Call your representative and just share your story. Very here's what I want.
Carol Ventresca [:Very good point. And,
Brett Johnson [:just Did they just passed to freeze, property taxes for older adults.
Carol Ventresca [:Right? Or in the past that the the topic just came up.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. That's right. Okay.
Carol Ventresca [:Yeah. Exactly. Hopefully, by the time this podcast is posted, We'll have more information on that, but it could help, those seniors at lower incomes. It's not a low low income, but it's a lower income That could could be saved money on taxes. So good. Mhmm.
Michael Wilkos [:Last year, there were 20,000 I can't believe I I had memorized these numbers. Last year, there were 20,897 evictions that were filed. That was a jump of 35%, But the number of what's called writs of restitution or when a red tag gets put on a door because an action has been, decided, That went up 15% or not as much as eviction filings. Lastly, we look at How many people were set out when someone from the sheriff's department showed up to put your belongings out on the street because you did not successfully navigate this housing situation. That was well, 1 would be 1 too many. Right? Because we don't wanna see anybody in that situation. There were just 744 out of 20,900 of filings. 744 of those resulted in a set out. That was the lowest ratio of set outs as a function of filings we've seen in this community. Why? Because there has been a significant amount of money to help people pay their rent because of stimulus dollars. When the Biden administration just did a recent, additional authorization of eviction protection money, Franklin County in Columbus received $120,000,000, which is more than the state of California received Because that was a performance based contract, and no other community in the country did a better job of getting those dollars in the hands Of people who needed them to avoid that eviction than us. The nonprofit community here really Rose to the occasion, and she's not gonna take credit for it. But I give a lot of credit to the woman sitting to my left, miss Carly Boos.
Carol Ventresca [:Oh, Carly.
Michael Wilkos [:Running the Affordable Housing Alliance, right, advocacy organization. I'm gonna turn it over to Carly to talk about what those dollars will continue to be used for And this gift. Right? I mean, literally, a gift that we have received in this community to really prevent a lot of people from losing their housing. But at the not too distant future, those dollars will be gone, and we will be back to a very difficult situation, but Carly led the creation of, Rentful. And I want you to talk about all the great successes we've had as a community to help people be stable in their housing.
Carlie Boos [:Well, I appreciate that shout out. I do reject all the credit, but I agree that Central Ohio is a national leader in this space. And you remember the context. When COVID hit, everybody lost their job. Everybody went work from home. Tipped employees had no tips. Hourly employees had no hours. It resulted in an immediate and significant eviction crisis. It was on our doorstep. There was no funding to be able to close that gap right at the beginning, so there was a whole litany of folks from not just in the state of Ohio, But throughout the country, he said we need something equivalent to the paycheck protection employee for employers. We need that for renters and for their landlords. Mean, importantly, this is about keeping properties safe and well maintained, and that cash flow is essential to that. We are beyond lucky to have Leadership in the state of Ohio. I think Sherrod Brown. I think, locally, Joyce Beatty. Both were very active during this time and making sure that these resources were able to get into the people, who needed it. We, here locally, it was a partnership between AHACCO, but more significantly, the United Way, the Seymour Institute, And the city of Columbus in Franklin County created a one stop shop. Information first. Education first. Here is what is going to happen in our community. Here's how you navigate through it. If you are one of those households that is in emergency need, here is how you access those funds. And that website is still alive. It is still very heavily trafficked. We're getting 20,000 visitors per month to that website.
Carol Ventresca [:Carly, give us the website. Absolutely.
Carlie Boos [: We're sitting here in fall of: Brett Johnson [:Yeah? Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Michael Wilkos [: body knows that, you know, in: Carlie Boos [:Mhmm.
Michael Wilkos [:And if we're gonna bring in, you know, Google and Intel and Honda And Hyperion, the hydrogen cell company, and a solar panel company in Pataskala, and nationwide children's at Wexner Medical Center and all these things that are creating just tens of thousands of jobs, we have to have housing that aligns with the economic development progress. So affordable housing or housing affordability, I wanna give you a couple specific examples of what we mean by affordable housing. A registered nurse who makes $75,000 a year and has 2 children as a single parent household, That person qualifies for an 80% area median income subsidized unit. A construction worker who is single and makes $50,000 a year would also qualify for an 80% AMI unit. A lot of people think this is, oh, you know, I don't really know, or I don't come in contact with, you know, people who are in need of truly very low, low income housing. Any one of us who has ever gone out to dinner just came into contact with someone who needs a 40% Area median income subsidized unit are what we consider to be very affordable because the average salary for a cook And a restaurant is $29,000 a year. And why I share those examples is because every one of us every day Comes into contact with someone who needs that, and I've heard people say the following. We entrust people to care for and raise our children. Think of childcare workers and how low that is. So it is odd to me intellectually and emotionally as I think, wow, I would trust you to care for and raise and educate my children, But I don't wanna create housing in my neighborhood for you to be a neighbor. Right. And we have, unfortunately and I've heard Robert Schottenstein, CEO of Mi Homes, Multiple times publicly say the following. He builds in 17 metropolitan markets across the country, And he said the suburban communities in Columbus are the most restrictive and exclusionary that he has seen across the United States. And one of the reasons why some of Columbus's suburban communities kinda get away with that is because the city of Columbus, which is 220 square miles, which is the exact same land area as the city of Chicago. The fact that the city of Columbus is in 3 counties. It is in 11 of the 16 school districts in Franklin County that Columbus has really taken the moral And the business responsibility to house the region's, low income workers and residents. And as a citizen of Columbus, I say That's not Columbus's responsibility. It's all of our responsibility to ensure that there is adequate housing In all of our communities so that if we want someone to cut our hair, to take care of our lawns, and to educate our children, But we should also want those people to live within our communities. And when you think about the housing ecosystem, what we've created in this country is this unfortunate situation And where you can't live in the neighborhood that you love during all of your different lifespans As a single individual, as a young married couple, as a young family, as an established family, or as an empty nester, You literally have to leave your neighborhood multiple times and aligned with Union County. United Way of Central Ohio has a, relationship now with United Way of Union County. If you look at Union County, very few people who Live in Union County, also work in Union County. And the kind of housing being built in Union County doesn't align with the population demographics. If you're a young single person, you've grown up in Union County, and now you're in your twenties, there's nowhere for you to live in Union County. And if you're a senior citizen And you have now wanna move away from that larger single family home. There's really no senior housing in Union County. So they're losing their young people, and they're losing their seniors Because they don't have that kind of housing. What I would like to see is a zoning code and a taxing infrastructure and an investment opportunity that says, We wanna create neighborhoods in all communities where people can stay in that community during those different life cycles, and that just doesn't exist, Presley.
Carlie Boos [:One of
Carol Ventresca [:the things that we haven't really we've we've sort of touched on, not really focused on here, people think of housing And then everybody run into their old clunker car and driving 20 miles to a job. Housing, transportation, and employment really need to be discussed together. Individuals have to ask themselves, how far can I afford to drive To a new job? I can remember when the whole Rickenbacker stuff changed over and all of those mega warehouses went down there, and We suffered because people couldn't get down there to to work, and there was no place to live down that way. Carly, how does that fit in?
Carlie Boos [:Yeah. Transportation and housing are absolutely interdependent. There's no way you can look at 1 without looking at the other. I think one of the things that has me so excited about this region is The Link US project, where we are looking at how our housing complements our workforce, complicates our transit infrastructure, it's something that's gonna be a huge part of the conversation. And I wanna underscore too that that isn't just something that workers are looking at, But that's something that employers are looking at too. If you go to Site Selection Magazine, it's the the trade association for big, big employers who want to bring big, big jobs to a place. And you go to that magazine and you type in housing. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of posts. Because the consultants that are helping these big businesses figure out where to go and create a headquarters, One of the first things they look at is quality of life, and a big part of that is the cost of housing for those employees that they're gonna bring. We did, about 2 years ago, a survey of employers. Folks who work in housing, they've got that competency, but really, they're big HR teams. They have lots of employees. And we said, how is today in Central Ohio? How is our housing shortage affecting you as an employer? 80% of them said that their employees come to work Less ready to work. They have lower productivity, and they have lower morale because what happens at home absolutely follows you in the door at the job. And that same group, half of them said that they are seeing increased employee turnover and higher hiring costs and higher retention costs Because the housing shortage is affecting their bottom line. And that's not at all surprising because if you get evicted on a Tuesday, very, very difficult to go into work on a Wednesday morning. Right. So we know this is essential, and you can tell. Michael and I love data. We're good numbers folks over here. We have only been creating 1 house For every two and a half jobs that we are creating in this community. To say that differently, for every 1,000 jobs we're bringing in, only 400 homes are being built. So unless you're expecting 3 full time employees under every single roof, we are going to continue to have affordability issues, and we're going to have quality issues Until we get serious about building, and that is entirely a question about public support and commitment, we know Central Ohio is better positioned than absolutely lead
Brett Johnson [:anybody in the
Carlie Boos [:world to get ahead of it. I think mayor Ginther. I think the Franklin County commissioners. I think so many of our suburban partners and leaders truly understand the opportunity that's at our doorstep. What they need is for us to come and say we got your back. We believe in this. We want this, and we support you as you are putting Central Ohio first. Wonderful. Good.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Well, yeah, we're gonna have you back, for sure because
Carol Ventresca [:Way too much to talk about.
Brett Johnson [:And that's why we had you come to the table because you're the experts on this. Know, we could have dug forever for these numbers, and these numbers, you guys call us very well in understanding where we're coming from. And I hopefully, the listener doesn't go, the hand's up. We've lost. We've lost. We can't. I think, like you mentioned, we're at we're at the we're at the doorstep that we can make a difference. It's never, never, never too late, but we have to do something. And and and let's leave the listener with some words of wisdom, if you would, as we do with all our guests. What do you want them to take away from this hour conversation we've had?
Michael Wilkos [: ances or SOI. In September of: Carol Ventresca [:Wow. Okay. Carly, Yeah. Wisdom.
Carlie Boos [:You can't beat that. I want I wanna finish out on the high note, and it's that we absolutely can't do this.
Carol Ventresca [:Mhmm.
Carlie Boos [:This isn't a crisis. This isn't a storm that hit the shore, and now we're just cleaning up the damage. That's not where we are. We are standing on a cliff, and it is a long way down. But we are going to decide whether we jump or whether we step back. And when Michael and I say things like, well, we need to build more housing to meet the growth that we are experiencing. We're not talking about something that we haven't done before. We're talking about going back to the 19 seventies and saying, remember what we did then? Let's try it again. Remember how we dealt with the population boom that came out of World War 2? We've got this in our blood.
Michael Wilkos [:Mhmm.
Carlie Boos [:We've just lost the practice. And it's absolutely entirely doable, and I am beyond confident That Central Ohio is gonna be the 1st, and we're gonna continue to be a leader on this. And other folks are gonna continue to turn to us because we know how to do it, and we know how to do it fairly.
Carol Ventresca [:Central Ohioans and and listeners, we we do have we've got the resources. We have the education. We have the motivation. It's just that the make the decision to support those in office and those in Agencies like Carly's and like Michael's to to know that we are behind you in your efforts. Thank you both so much. This has been phenomenal, and, yes, we would love to have you come back. But many thanks, you know, to you and to your organizations for all that you do. Listeners, thank you for joining us, and do not forget to check out our show notes. We're gonna have a 2 page list of resources For anyone who has information or or concerns about housing, anything that we've discussed today, you can find all that information on looking forward our way dot come, and we're looking forward to hearing your feedback on this and any of our podcast episodes.
