By Jala Forest/Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

Rents have been rising fast over the last two years, creating hardship for Ohioans who are surviving on wages that aren't keeping up.

Between December 2019 and December 2021, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Ohio's five most populous counties increased between 15% and 18%, according to data from Zillow. But median household incomes in Ohio increased by just 6% between those years, according to census data.

"With the wages remaining stagnant in the state of Ohio and the rents increasing, we're going to find a lot of families and individuals who are faced with a housing crisis," said Kaci Philpot, supervising attorney with the Tenant Advocacy Project at the Legal Aid Society of Columbus. "Whether it be staying with family or living on the streets or in shelters because they don't have the income to qualify for any of these rental units."

For comparison, between December 2017 and December 2019, average rent increases in Ohio's five biggest counties ranged from 6% to 10% - about half as fast as the increase over the last two years.

And more than 440,000 renter households in Ohio have incomes that are at or below the poverty threshold, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Many of those households are already severely cost burdened, meaning they spend more than half of their income on rent.

"I'm not in a position to forecast what I think rent prices will look like five years from now," said Philpot. "I can say that they are increasing and there's no sign that that trend is going to stop."

Why are rents going up and who is it affecting?

When the demand for housing is high but supply is low, the price of housing rises, said Don Brunner, treasurer of the board at the Columbus Apartment Association.

"We need to produce roughly 340,000 new units a year across the country to keep up with demand. And we've only done that a couple of times in the last 10 years," Brunner said. "There's always been less new units than what the demand is, so there's been a deficit every year."

The Centers for Disease Control's COVID-19 eviction moratorium, which prevented landlords from evicting tenants for more than a year in 2020 and 2021, made it harder for landlords to make their own ends meet, he said.

"A lot of the smaller owners - which is where the real and natural occurring affordable housing comes through - were taking their units and selling them, because they weren't getting paid for rent," Brunner said.

Brunner and other sources said they don't have data about who rent increases are affecting most. But there are large disparities among renters across racial lines. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, 36% of households that rent in the U.S. make less than $30,000 a year. Nearly half of those renters are Black, 34% are Hispanic and 33% are white.

John Petit, a managing attorney at Community Legal Aid's Neighborhood Law Project in Akron, said Black mothers appear to be seeking more assistance from housing justice organizations than any other group.

Black single mothers are more likely to be evicted due to low incomes and children, according to a 2014 study from the MacArthur Foundation. Black women in high-poverty Black neighborhoods are also more likely to work than their male neighbors, but their wages are lower than those of men.

"It breaks my heart because it does feel like they're being targeted more," Petit said.

Tenant protections are limited; tenants' unions forming in response

Organizations like Community Legal Aid are working to support tenants as rents rise.

For example, some cities are expanding legal representation for tenants facing eviction cases. Cleveland and Toledo city councils created right-to-counsel ordinances, which provide attorneys to extremely low-income tenants. United Way found in the first six months of right to counsel in Cleveland, 93% of tenants who were provided with attorneys through the program avoided eviction.

In spring 2022, state representatives Tavia Galonski (D-Akron) and Paula Hicks-Hudson (D-Toledo) introduced House Bill 622 that would provide legal representation to some tenants facing eviction in Ohio. The bill is currently in committee.

Another movement aimed at helping tenants involves housing rights activists, socialist organizers and legal aid organizations who helped tenants form tenants' unions in Akron and Columbus to help renters take more control of their living conditions.

Tenants' unions make it easier for tenants to share their grievances and discuss ways to create better living situations for themselves, said Josiah Quarles, the director of organizing and advocacy with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.

"If people are isolated, it's much harder to even feel that community," Quarles said. "A lot of it is just tenants talking to each other, letting each other know that they're not alone, that they're struggling with the same thing."

The goal of a tenants' union is to advocate for renter-friendly policies and minimize rent increases, Quarles said.

"There's always a power difference between a landlord and a tenant - that's just kind of the nature of the beast," Quarles said. "But when people feel empowered by the others within that power dynamic, it can tip the scales back to a little closer to equal, which is where they should be."

This is a collaboration between Kent State, Ohio News Connection, Public News Service, funded in part by Media in the Public Interest and the George Gund Foundation.




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A new design competition is looking to find better housing for Fargo's aging population.

Like many other states, North Dakota has a growing number of people increasingly burdened by their own homes. Oftentimes, they want to stay in their communities but their properties might be too large, too expensive to maintain or too unsafe to occupy.

Janelle Moos, associate state director of advocacy for AARP North Dakota, said there are not enough options for people looking to downsize.

"A lot of housing and zoning has really promoted single family homes or very large scale apartments," Moos explained. "We've kind of lost that middle ground to say, 'There are other types of housing that exist and can coexist and what people want, right?'"

AARP is asking interested architects, designers, builders and students to submit designs for those midlevel units, including a duplex, triplex or cluster subdivision. Moos pointed out the goal is to show off the viability of age-friendly homes and hopefully come away with some plans for future development.

More than 65% of North Dakota residents named housing as the state's biggest overall need in a survey last year.

The competition closes in early October and the winner is eligible for a cash prize. Moos noted people can then hire the designer, obtain a building permit and begin construction.

"The hope is that it's not just a conversation and it's not just a hypothetical," Moos emphasized. "We want to come away with several really viable, buildable, missing middle housing plans with universal divine design elements. So, by that I mean truly age-friendly."

Judges and advisers include government officials, design experts and architects from across the state. Nationwide, one group estimates a need for more than 800,000 senior housing units by 2030.

With rising housing costs an ongoing issue, a new report shows how fast rents have increased in Maryland and nationwide.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition's "Out of Reach" report shows that, even when accounting for higher state- and county-level minimum wages, the average minimum-wage worker in the United States would have to work 95 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom rental home.

Diane Yentel, coalition president and CEO, noted renters with the lowest incomes have faced a long-standing trend of rents rising faster than wages.

"Between 2001 and 2021, rents increased about 18%," she explained, "while household income only increased by about 3%."

In Maryland, the report found the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment is more than $1,900 a month, which translates to a Housing Wage of nearly $37 an hour, the ninth-highest in the nation.

The coalition said affordable rental housing isn't likely to be built without public subsidies. The availability of affordable housing is constrained in part by the high development and operating cost of new rental housing, resulting in market forces that drive developers to target higher-end customers.

The report shows the median monthly rent for new multifamily units in the third quarter of last year was more than $1,800 a month, while just 2% of new units had rents less than $850 per month.

As supply constraints drive costs higher, Yentel predicted the nation's housing crisis will worsen.

"Increased rents are resulting in increased homelessness," she insisted. "The U.S. Government Accountability Office has found that a $100 increase in median monthly rent is associated with a 9% increase in homelessness in that community."

For its part, the federal government's ability to build new housing has been limited since 1999, when the Faircloth Amendment capped the number of public housing units that can be legally owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).




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Backers of President Joe Biden's rent cap proposal said it could benefit many New Yorkers.

The plan calls for capping rent increases at 5% in apartments owned by corporate landlords, or those landlords risk losing federal tax breaks. It comes as statewide rents are rapidly increasing. As of this month, New York City rents are 147% higher than the national average.

Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for the group Housing Justice For All, said capping rents could greatly benefit New Yorkers struggling with housing costs.

"Many New Yorkers are already benefiting from stronger protections than what Biden has called for," Weaver acknowledged. "But for places that haven't opted into rent stabilization, which is many, in upstate New York especially, this would be hugely important, since half the state rents an unregulated apartment and this is potentially a lifeline."

The rent cap plan will require approval from Congress. It includes the Department of Housing and Urban Development investing $325 million nationwide in "Choice Neighborhood" grants, to support building affordable homes across the country.

Syracuse received $50 million from the program to build 1,400 affordable units. It comes as 31,000 households in Onondaga County spend more than one-third of their income on housing.

Beyond Biden's plan, New York's own good cause eviction protections passed earlier this year can help tenants. Since becoming law in May, four cities have opted in to the program. Though some housing advocates were against making it optional, Weaver noted the protections it offers reverberate in cities taking advantage of it.

"Right now, tenants in New York State have the right to renew their lease unless their landlord has a good reason to deny a lease renewal," Weaver explained. "The statutory protection is to remain in their home. And there's a nix on rent increases if you're rent-stabilized; it depends on what your local rent board voted for."

She notes cities adopting good cause eviction protections are also protecting tenants from almost 9% rent increases. Rochester and some Hudson Valley cities are considering opting in to these protections.


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