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In 1994, the Ohio Housing Coalition and the Ohio Coalition for the Homeless came together to create the COHHIO of today. The merger of the largely volunteer organizations with diverse but similar interests was not always smooth sailing at first, but it eventually propelled Ohio to a position as one of the first states in the U.S. with a powerfully combined front advocating for affordable housing to address homelessness.
Bill Faith, a young activist from Youngstown who was head of the state homeless coalition, became the natural choice to lead COHHIO when it was officially created on June 16, 1994, during a meeting at All Saints Lutheran Church in Columbus. But the roots of COHHIO were planted years before that in different parts of the state as activists began recognizing and responding to the growing problem of homelessness and a critical need for affordable housing.
Groups sprang up around the state seeking to fill the void. The Ohio Housing Coalition was formed in 1974, and the Race Street Tenant Organized Cooperative and Cincinnati Homeless Coalition were founded by Buddy Gray, also in the 1970s. The Cleveland Housing Network was formed in 1981 by community organizers, while in Columbus, activists rallied at City Council and then formed the Ohio Coalition for the Homeless with Rev. Gary Witte as the first chairman in 1984. And in Cincinnati, Barb Poppe and Jim Cain helped found Bethany House, initially a facility for homeless women seeking shelter that later expanded to provide service to other populations.
As activism continued to grow – and the need for housing swelled – advocates began circulating a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would generate state resources for housing. Ohio had a history of using state funds for a variety of public purposes, beginning with the sale of bonds in 1825 to build the canal system – but housing was not among them. Constitutional amendments allowing for bonds to fund highways, public buildings and public improvements were passed from 1953 to 1963. However, constitutional amendments for public housing were rejected by Ohio voters in 1977 and 1980, before a bond issue for low-income housing was eventually approved in 1982. Still, the bonds alone did not come close to meeting the on-going need for housing. More needed to be done.
Ohio housing advocates saw the critical need for an amendment to provide permanent, reliable funding. Activists and organizations united in 1990 to campaign for what became State Issue 1 on voters’ ballots – a landmark amendment to the Ohio Constitution aimed at making housing a “public purpose” to create an ongoing source of funding for housing where none existed before. The campaign was a serious undertaking, with Faith and other leaders from around the state leading the charge to win voter approval. On Nov. 6, 1990, Ohioans approved State Issue 1. It was a big win for housing and homeless advocates.
But the battle did not end there because advocates still had to work with state lawmakers to implement the Ohio Housing Trust Fund even though the concept had been approved by voters. There were roadblocks, but COHHIO managed to persuade the General Assembly to allocate General Revenue during the early years while working to identify a permanent source of money for the Housing Trust Fund. Three separate study committees convened by Gov. George Voinovich, Gov. Bob Taft, and the legislature itself produced the same recommendation: create a Housing Trust Fund Fee mirroring the existing county recorder fee. That proposal garnered consensus and was finally passed with strong bipartisan support in the 2003 state budget. At last, state lawmakers created a steady source of funding for housing, a major victory for COHHIO and other advocates who had fought for that outcome for years.
During the housing market bubble of the mid-2000s, COHHIO found itself at the center of a firestorm, leading the fight against deceptive mortgage lenders who were preying on low- and middle-income people trying to achieve the American Dream. Deceptively broker fees and interest rates accompanied by empty promises of debt consolidation and low monthly payments pushed thousands of Ohioans to the brink of foreclosure. COHHIO led the charge to enact state legislation in 2006 aimed at curbing predatory mortgage practices that contributed to the foreclosure crisis and the Great Recession. The Ohio Homebuyers’ Protection Act, which put mortgage lending under the Consumer Sales Practices Act, created duties for brokers, and established bright-line prohibitions for non-bank lenders, is one of the strongest anti-predatory mortgage lending measures in the U.S.
The next battle was already looming on the horizon. Payday lenders, who charged up to 391% Annual Percentage Rate on loans deceptively marketed to low-income Ohioans, were trapping many in a cycle of debt. As the lead organization in the Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending, a coalition of housing activists, clergy, labor and community groups, COHHIO fought vigorously for passage of House Bill 545 to cap payday lenders’ interest rates at 28% APR.
Right after the bill was signed, the powerful payday lender lobby, with deep pockets and millions to spend, immediately began a campaign to rescind the law. They mounted an expensive campaign for a statewide referendum ballot issue, challenging COHHIO to hold the line on payday excesses. In the end, COHHIO and allies, while badly outspent by the payday lending juggernaut, won the day in November 2008. The campaign to preserve newly enacted payday loan regulations won with 64% of the statewide vote.
In the following years, COHHIO advocated to preserve voting rights of low-income Ohioans, especially for people without a home address, and fought various efforts to erode tenants’ rights and undermine fair housing enforcement at the state level. Meanwhile, the organization worked to ensure that federal housing resources, like Low Income Housing Tax Credits and National Housing Trust Fund dollars, were targeted to the lowest income Ohioans most at risk of experiencing homelessness.
COHHIO has also worked tirelessly to preserve and expand the Ohio Housing Trust Fund. In 2015, the organization prevailed against a last-minute Senate amendment in the state biennial budget bill that would have dismantled the OHTF to create 88 separate county bureaucracies and forfeited millions of federal and private matching dollars flowing to local homelessness and affordable housing initiatives.
In 2018, COHHIO was instrumental in advocating for housing resources to reduce the state’s shamefully high rate of infant mortality. That effort helped launch the Healthy Beginnings at Home program to demonstrate that housing assistance could improve birth and overall health incomes for at-risk mothers and children. When the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, it presented an unprecedented challenge for people experiencing homelessness. COHHIO leaped into action guiding state and federal policy and securing resources to protect shelter residents and staff working on the frontlines of Ohio’s homelessness crisis. COHHIO quickly raised nearly $1.8 million to award 90 grants to help deconcentrate shelters, maintain operations, and obtain emergency supplies during the early months of the pandemic before federal relief funds reached local homeless services providers in Ohio. The coalition developed guidance and training to help providers implement safety protocols, staffing plans, isolation and quarantine protocols, establish and operate new non-congregate shelters, and prepare for vaccine distribution.
During the pandemic, COHHIO advocated for emergency state and federal funding for homeless prevention, rapid rehousing, and shelter operations. COHHIO also encouraged Ohio’s Congressional delegation to pass legislation authorizing federal Emergency Rental Assistance, which provided over $1 billion to Ohio to keep newly unemployed and at-risk tenants safely housed during the public health crisis.
In 2022, Bill Faith retired and passed the torch to the next generation. COHHIO’s Board of Directors named Amy Riegel to serve as the next Executive Director. Riegel had supported COHHIO’s state and federal advocacy for years while working as the Senior Director of Housing for CareSource, where she guided the Medicaid managed care organization to increase its investment in affordable housing. Riegel had also helped to launch and expand the Healthy Beginnings at Home program.
Under Riegel’s leadership, COHHIO advocated for the creation of the new $100 million Ohio Low Income Housing Tax Credit program to secure additional financing for the construction and preservation of affordable housing. Her advocacy also helped secure a $10 million increased allocation for the Ohio Housing Trust Fund, a $7 million appropriation for the Ohio Department of Health’s youth homelessness grant program, and $3.5 million for Healthy Beginnings at Home in the 2023 state budget bill.
Meanwhile, under Riegel’s leadership, COHHIO has reinvigorated its role as a grassroots coalition, working collaboratively with groups and individuals to solve housing insecurity by collectively identifying areas of greatest need and actively soliciting input from local members and stakeholders on policy priorities. In 2024, COHHIO held its first Advocacy Day at the Statehouse in many years, and launched a new initiative called COHHIO In Your Community, meeting with members and activists throughout the state to learn more about local issues and explore potential solutions.
COHHIO’s impact extends beyond the Buckeye State, according to Sheila Crowley, retired President and CEO of the national Low Income Housing Coalition. “COHHIO was a model very early on,” Crowley said, noting that she encouraged other states to follow the COHHIO example of joint advocacy for housing and homelessness.
Ohio represents one of just a handful of states in the U.S. where homeless advocates and housing advocates combined forces by overcoming a variety of cultural and strategic differences. To this day, COHHIO remains a powerful coalition with the vision and impact needed to affect meaningful change by expanding access to affordable housing to end homelessness in the state.
