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Ohio's Republican senators praised the government's 10% stake in Intel.

And there's a huge shortage of affordable housing in Ohio.

Three lawmakers talk about possible solutions.

That's this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

When the US government announced it was taking a 10% stake in Intel, President Trump said it's a great deal for America and for the financially troubled computer chip maker, which is building a huge facility in central Ohio.

While free market conservatives and progressives said the deal with Intel violates basics of capitalism, Ohio's Republican U.S. senators are praising it.

The deal changes the federal Chips act grants, going to Intel into equity.

At a Columbus event promoting a private company building affordable housing without government funding.

US Senator Bernie Marino said that Intel deal is similar.

What's that different?

It's, it was a choice between giving Intel a hand out of $9 billion and the taxpayer.

By the way, you all of us get nothing in return versus taking an equity stake in which, at some point, once Intel gets back on its feet, we can sell those shares and taxpayers can get a return.

U.S.

Senator John Houston was heavily involved in Intel's decision to build its fabricating plants in central Ohio.

He said Intel, quote, jumped at this opportunity.

they've reassured me that the Ohio plans are still full, full steam ahead.

But they do need customers.

They've got to compete.

That doesn't change that.

The element of competition does not go away just because, the president took a stake in Intel.

They still have to innovate.

Intel said clawback and profit sharing provisions on the $2.2 billion in federal money that the company already received will be eliminated.

That money in the bipartisan Chips act was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in 2022.

Trump blasted the Chips act in his state of the Union address earlier this year, saying it's, quote, a horrible, horrible thing and, quote, and suggesting lawmakers roll it back.

Trump had also called on Intel's new CEO to resign because of ties to Chinese companies, but then praised him after the deal was announced.

back to affordable housing, Ohio's three largest cities were among the hottest real estate markets last year.

The Ohio Housing Finance Agency says the median home price in Ohio was $174,000 in 2022, higher than any year on record.

When adjusted for inflation, except for 2021, when the median home price was 2.6 times the median household income.

That means home ownership was out of reach for many people who want to buy houses, And the situation is even worse for people at the lowest end of the economic scale, the annual gap report from the coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio estimates a shortage of 264,083 rental units that are affordable and available to the 438,108 extremely low income households in Ohio.

Another Ohio report released this summer, shows the gap between what the average renter actually earns and what they need to earn has risen 148% since 2020.

Nearly 1.2 million jobs, or 21% of jobs in Ohio, don't pay enough to afford a basic two bedroom apartment.

Affordable housing and the related problem of high property taxes have been the subject of several bills and some budget provisions over the last few years.

Statehouse News Bureau senior reporter Joe Ingles talked to three state lawmakers about possible moves to create more affordable housing in Ohio.

First up, Republican Senator Michelle Reynolds, the chair of the Senate Housing Committee.

She also chaired a select committee on housing that held a dozen live streamed hearings around Ohio starting in August 2023 and released a report in April of last year.

was we created what's called a residential economic development district, a red, if you will.

That's the acronym.

And what that does is it looks at and it targets our political subdivisions that are right next to, our major economic sites.

So any site that is bringing about $700 million in investment to the state or creating 700 jobs, it creates a residential economic development district, a red zone right around that economic development site to build out infrastructure for, for that, local jurisdiction.

And what we're doing is we are inviting, those municipalities to apply for grant funds.

It's $25 million in grant funds, and we've identified about 62 of these sites.

That would be, all over the state of Ohio, not just in our urban areas, but also in our rural and suburban areas.

So about 62 sites which would develop, workforce housing, if you will, that are contiguous right next to a major economic development site.

So that's number one.

Number two, that does be affordable, though.

I mean, sometimes we hear affordable housing in the homes are $350,000.

So let me just bring you in on that.

So, you know, the the definition of affordable really is about what's affordable to the individual, right?

Because a lot of times when we talk about affordable housing, we think about low income or those people.

But truly we need affordable housing at every economic level, because if you only develop low income housing, then the people who are working class or, you know, have a higher economic, if they're higher economic individuals, they will then buy that up.

So you definitely need affordability at every single level.

So what we're talking about are jobs, working class, living for workforce housing that people can live next to the jobs that they are working.

So that's for one part of the economic picture, right?

Then we also did, a major, investment, $100 million in a rural, low, revolving loan fund.

And what we know is that obviously, Ohio is a very agricultural, rural community.

Right.

And our state, we have 70 out of 88 counties that are rural in Ohio.

And what we hear from them is that housing is a big problem for them as well, for a couple of different reasons, mainly because infrastructure, it just costs way too much to develop the infrastructure, and it will not pencil a project to be able to bring housing there.

So it's just not feasible.

And so this particular investment, it's a it's a revolving loan fund will allow in our rural corridors any area that has a population of 75,000 people or under any county will be able to qualify for these very, very low interest loans, to be able to build out the infrastructure to make a project there makes sense.

And then that way they can build 50 units, 100 units, whatever they need for their community in order for them to make it affordable.

So we also did that, which is a great shot in the arm to build more housing around areas that want it.

Now, this is all permissive.

We realize that some people live in the country because that's why they chose to live there, and they want to preserve land, and they don't want to see a lot of housing.

And we can respect that.

This is for communities that, to incentivize if you need it there.

We want to make sure that it will be feasible and affordable.

The other thing that we did was we strengthened the Welcome Home Ohio program.

As you know, that program, was, brought together a couple of general assemblies ago, which really increases home ownership.

And, that is something that we can not just our developer, our private developers, but also nonprofit developers can help build housing, work with our county land banks to be able to build, new starter homes.

And that is definitely an affordability factor for those that may just be entering the market for housing less than the $300,000.

And then also we, made sure that we strengthened our, our Ohio Housing Trust funds for those that quite aren't ready for home ownership yet, but they need support services to be able to pay rent, to be able to make sure that they don't lose, you know, the benefits that they have.

So we're looking at housing.

What we can do on every single level of the, the continuum, if you will, as it relates to housing.

So a lot of times people, have companies come in and they buy the lower priced housing in an area and then they jack up the rent, they use them as investments.

And, the people who need that housing can't afford to live there.

Are you doing anything about that?

I think I remember there was one piece of legislation you had that spoke to that, right?

Yeah.

So, there are a couple of proposals out there.

And what you're talking about is institutional investors who are out of town, investors that come in and buy up property as an investment in a community.

And there is some of that happening.

I wouldn't say that that is typically what all, you know, out of town investors do, but there are some that have taken advantage of communities, and that just shouldn't be happening here in Ohio.

And we have seen some legislation that has been proposed to try to stop that type of, transaction from going on and really coming into a community and, and really devastating a community.

I know that Senator Bill blessing has had, proposed legislation on that that has worked its way through, the system, but it has not, you know, we have we're not there yet.

But mainly what we're seeing is that people just really want some type of transparency.

Who owns these companies?

You know, there's a lot of LLCs, if you will.

And the investors will form an LLC and they'll buy up property.

The challenge is what happens when the property goes bad or it goes south.

Who do you call?

And because of the laws with LLCs and things like that, because they are a separate disregarded entity, there's not necessarily a person that you can point to.

So then you have your townships or your your city councils that are trying to bring someone to the table, hold them accountable for the nuisance that it's become in the community.

So there's a couple of different things going on there.

So what pieces of legislation are out there right now that you know, of, with your members of the Senate, your caucus that, has a possibility, you have a possibility of going forward.

So there's several of them.

There is a, right now I have a bill that looks at, eviction records, ceilings.

So for your, your, rental, market for individuals who are actually in a rental situation currently, current law is that in the event that you, have been an eviction has been filed against you, you go to court and you have, you know, your day in court if that is worked out, where you do not get evicted, it's still on your record.

And that is a barrier that, hurts an individual from being able to maybe get housing in the future.

It's already been worked out with the landlord, so we actually have a bill right now that says, hey, we need to make that, not on the record at first.

It needs to wait.

It needs to be pending, until such time that it's been adjudicated.

And in the event that it's a bona fide eviction, then it gets on the record.

But if it's not, then it doesn't get on the record.

So common sense, things like that.

I do know that there are other colleagues of mine who have similar bills, that may just actually, retro actively take it off of there.

But we're looking at things like that to eliminate barriers.

Also, we're looking at property taxes.

As you know, there's a huge, conversation right now around property taxes.

And how can we get people relief?

Because we do have, especially our seniors who have worked all their life, they own their home.

They may not have, you know, have a mortgage, but they're paying property taxes that are increasingly gone up 30 to 40%, and they stand to lose their home.

So there's several of those out there as well.

I also have a bill called the Promised Land Bill, and the Promised Land is a very unique bill that, actually includes the faith based and nonprofit community who may own property, may own vacant property, and they would like to use their property to develop some type of affordable housing for maybe a specific, population veterans, seniors, disabled reentry, what have you.

And, that this bill would allow them to be engrafted into the opportunity zones to be able to get the same type of incentive as an opportunity zone would, which would attract some outside investment, and they could work together, maybe do a land trust.

And then that way they could use their land to build some affordable housing, and some of that money would go back to support their mission.

So there's a lot of creative things that we can do.

I know that several of my colleagues care about this, but we want to do something that makes sense for Ohio.

We also want to be very respectful, because we know that housing is a local issue.

And so what we don't want to do is come in and be paternalistic and just say, you know, cities and counties, you will do this.

We want to incentivize them to be a part of the solution for their specific community, and give them the tools and resources to help solve their own problem.

On the Democratic side of the Senate Housing Committee is Senator Hershel Craig, who is the ranking member on that committee and was also part of that select committee that heard from people around the state about affordable housing.

around.

It is a very complicated issue, but one in which we fundamentally believe, with this housing crisis, that Ohio, this is a great state.

But we must begin to look at this issue critically.

And so we've been working with legislation, various legislations, to make sure, for example, expanding the homestead we believe will well assist, have families and children.

To expand that.

Now there's some age, restrictions, requirements, not restrictions, regarding that, but, also, what we're calling the circuit breaker.

Where we're looking at, this issue to make sure that we have create opportunities, around this issue of affordable housing.

Senator Reynolds and I spent, this, select committee for about six months traveling around the state of Ohio, focusing on not just urban areas, but suburban areas and certainly rural areas where we're we're talking with other elected officials, with advocates with lots of of of folks.

We heard hundreds of hours of testimony, as, families and and others were talking about this housing crisis around the state of Ohio.

So we've introduced a number of bills, and there has been some progress, as you know, in the budget, to, appropriate, real dollars regarding this area.

We still have much work to do regarding this issue.

So tell me about the bills that that you have introduced.

And, the, the in the Senate and, where they stand.

Well, there is, Senate Bill 30, and I won't be deeper into the weeds.

Okay.

But that's with with, Senator Antonio and and, Senator Blessing.

Senate bill 42.

With, with myself, and Senator Reynolds.

Can you tell me what these do?

Well, the Senate Bill 30 hosted large, hedge fund investors accountable and and prevents them from buying up neighborhoods.

By levying a monthly tax on high volume landlords.

Senate bill 42, Craig and Reynolds allow local governments to establish established residential stability zones.

Giving local governments the authority to create, local, solutions to providing property tax relief.

Senate Bill 83 is Craig's and Reynolds established the Housing Defense Fund to provide funds to, legal aid organizations that provide counsel to those who are possibly facing eviction.

Senate Bill 145 and this is critical with Craig and Reynolds, creates the Department of Housing and Development and makes a, program to welcome home Ohio tax credits.

Now, some of those bills, not all of them were, they were introduced and worked on.

And we had hearings and some were not did not move forward.

Let me just point to the what I think some work has happened.

And that happened in the budget.

The residential economic development grant, did did occur, and there was an appropriation of $25 million over the biennium.

This program, grant can be used to address housing, and other community needs.

Residential development.

A revolving loan program.

I think it was important for that.

This creates a loan program to fund improvements to infrastructure necessary to support construction of new single family residential dwellings in the rural areas of Ohio.

And then, of course, welcome home.

Ohio program contains a surveillance and Senate bill, 145 which makes it easier for housing organizations, to receive grants to acquire, renovate and or build new housing units to use available tax credits.

So you can see that has been some work and that is critical.

But there's much more work to be done.

For example, in the city of Columbus.

And I'll just mention that very quickly.

We know right now, there's a gap of well over 35,000 housing units in the state of Ohio.

There's been some studies to the just that there's over 300,000 gaps of of housing, of access to affordable housing.

And so we know that we have work to do in the in the city of Columbus, they're looking at in the next 15 years, adding another million people.

So you can just imagine that's just here in Franklin County in this in the city of Columbus, around the state of Ohio.

We know both in rural areas and, in other urban areas, we have very critical issues, that we in order to address this issue.

So in a perfect world, what do you want to do?

What what's out there that you want to do now that you haven't done?

And, what kind of legislation do you think could really help with this problem?

Well, I think of course, we've introduced some I think this the circuit breaker has has real opportunity.

What Senator blessing and I, here's the thing behind all of that.

Because we know for economic development and sustainability for our state is going to be vitally important.

We have these wonderful things like Intel and Google and all of these places.

They will, they have the opportunity to create thousands of jobs for residents.

So we've got to make sure that we have access to affordable housing.

And also on both of all of that and then workforce housing, making sure that that is affordable.

To make sure that when people come that that with these jobs, that they will have they have the ability to have homes, accessible homes, affordable homes, to stay here, and build our state.

And so, these are real issues.

This is not a cognitive, but cognitive experience.

We really have to be, with laser like focus, to be working on these issues.

Democrat.

Latina.

Humphrey is in the House.

She's introduced a bill that allows homeowners to defer property tax payments for a year.

She's running for the Ohio Senate next year to replace Craig, who is term limited.

general.

And again, I think that there are there opportunities for Democrats and Republicans alike to start advocating for housing, even outside of the state House.

One of the things I've done really well is work with developers, Walter Cooper Company companies.

Right now, we're working together to, essentially also connect the dots for them to build affordable housing in my district, low income housing in my district by connecting them with partners such as churches who own their land, have enough land to be able to build.

I've done that two times, and they're currently working through the processes to address those types of issues.

So we got to think outside the box, because if the legislature won't work right now for what the people need, we've got to find other ways to address the issues.

Are is the problem.

There just isn't the housing stock or it's the hack.

The taxes on the housing is too high, I think.

I think it is a plethora of things.

I think that property taxes are increasing, therefore pushing people out and not just our seniors, but literally everyone.

I think that there are also some zoning issues, if you will, that don't necessarily allow for, affordable housing to be developed in the way in which we would like.

And I think that that is that's an issue.

So I thought this I don't mean to interrupt, but tell me about those.

So, for instance, I know, okay.

For instance, there was another opportunity where I was working with a developer and we tried to, see if we could so see if they, that would be able to build housing when, affordable housing on the land and because of zoning and how things were written up, it didn't necessarily allow for it, however.

Which is weird because I don't necessarily understand, all the rules as it relates to zoning, but they were able to come back years later and say, well, rules changed.

And so now we can see if we can apply now.

But lots of times zoning is an issue in a way that just doesn't allow for developers to develop in certain areas because of how things are coded.

So it's a lot of lingo there that I don't necessarily understand.

But I do know that zoning can be, a barrier for developers.

Anything else lawmakers could be doing that they're not doing right now that that you think, low hanging fruit to deal with the problem.

You know, Joe, I know that this is going to sound very repetitive, but day one, we really could address.

And it's low hanging fruit.

We really could address the homestead exemption by reforming it all you're saying is we're going to increase the, the income requirement.

All we're saying is, okay, let's we've already indexed to inflation the exemption itself in the last budget, but it could be indexed a little bit more.

All we're saying is we want to allow for more seniors to qualify.

Right now you have to be making about 38 $39,000 a year as a senior, totally disabled person to qualify for the exemption.

Well, we know from lots of folks who retire are probably retiring at about, 40, $42,000 a year, if not a little bit more.

So who are I mean, we're helping people, but who are we really helping?

Do we really want to help people?

That's the question.

And so I think low hanging fruit is addressing that.

That can be done tomorrow.

And that is it for this week for my colleagues at the statehouse.

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Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from Medical Mutual, dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans, offering health insurance plans, as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at Med mutual.com.

The law offices of Porter, right, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at porterwright.com.

Porter Wright inspired Every day in Ohio Education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.