Jan. 6, 2023
Amy Riegel, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, issued the following statement in response to Gov. DeWine signing HB 45 without vetoing several harmful housing related amendments:
“We are very disappointed that Gov. DeWine did not veto three amendments that could exacerbate housing instability in our state by blocking the use of eviction prevention funds, increasing property taxes on workforce housing, and limiting the use of tax credits to convert historical buildings to affordable housing.
We are working with the administration and legislative leaders to fix the 2021 expiration date on $161 million in Emergency Rental Assistance funds. If this restriction isn’t removed, Ohio will be sending this money back to the federal government.
The governor acknowledged concerns about the impact of the property tax and historic tax credit amendments. We will be carefully monitoring the outcome of these policy changes on Ohioans’ access to affordable housing.
We applaud the governor’s announcement that he plans to include a comprehensive proposal to increase affordable housing access in his upcoming budget bill. We appreciate Gov. DeWine’s commitment to make a new state Low Income Housing Tax Credit one of the administration’s top priorities.
Rents are increasing at an unprecedented rate, evictions have returned to pre-pandemic levels, and local agencies can’t find affordable rental units to move people out of homelessness. The state government has time to craft a state housing tax credit, but there is no time left for thousands of Ohioans who have an eviction notice on their front door.
Fortunately, Gov. DeWine can act right now to help struggling families by directly investing hundreds of millions of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to jumpstart the affordable housing development that he hopes to incentivize through a new tax credit program.”
