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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New York's 2025 budget takes proactive steps to address rural housing.

In the budget, $10 million was allocated for improvements to rural housing built by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Section 515 program. Rural housing organizations asked for $25 million but are grateful the state is taking action.

Mike Borges, executive director of the Rural Housing Coalition of New York, said another bill the Legislature should pass makes the Mobile and Manufactured Home Replacement Program permanent.

"Basically what that does is provide grants to low- to moderate-income people to replace their mobile homes that are dilapidated and unsafe," Borges explained.

He would also like to see administration fees increase for nonprofits taking part in the Access to Home Program, which provides accessibility modification for low- to moderate-income residents. Reports showed it got requests totaling $12 million but only got enough funding for $1 million in improvements. The Senate is poised to pass both bills, leaving the Assembly as the final hurdle.

However, the budget was not perfect for rural housing. Borges said one shortcoming of the 2025 budget were cuts to the RESTORE program, which provides emergency repairs for low-to-moderate-income seniors. He said New York should take action now to continue improving rural housing preservation and development.

"We need a comprehensive housing initiative that looks at the obstacles to building and renovating, repairing housing in rural communities," Borges contended. "The three main obstacles to that are local capacity, infrastructure and targeted programs for rural housing."

He added rural areas do not often have the same resources and capacity as urban communities. Because rural housing is in short supply because of the aging housing stock, there have been stark population declines from rural New York communities.

Orange County's Supreme Court reversed a decision letting the city of Newburgh implement state tenant protections.

The city declared a housing emergency in 2023 when a study showed a vacancy rate less than 4%. The lawsuit overturning the protections found that the study was flawed, leading the court to invalidate it.

Daniel Atonna, political coordinator for the group For the Many, said this leaves tenants in a precarious position.

"This rips away protections for tenants in over 730 apartments in the city of Newburgh," he said, "at a time when tenants all across the Hudson Valley, all across New York, are facing difficult conditions as landlords are trying to evict them and raise their rent."

The petitioner's attorney said if unchecked, the city's actions would have made drastic changes to the rental market without legal basis.

This ruling also keeps Newburgh from setting up a rent guidelines board to decide whether rent-stabilized tenants' rents should stay the same, increase or decrease. Atonna said he hopes the city redoes the survey and implements these protections.

Atonna thinks Newburgh should opt into the newly passed Good Cause Eviction protections. This could better protect tenants, although some housing advocates feel these protections are ineffective. He said many residents support having tenant protections.

"Because it's meant stabilization for the community, right? It means a strong community where their neighbors aren't getting uprooted and evicted every couple of years," he said. "So, this was something that was going to be good for everyone."

A 2021 survey found 77% of Newburgh residents would leave the city because of high rents. It also found that people spend more than 30% of their income on rent.


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The Supreme Court case Grants Pass v. Gloria Johnson could upend homeless populations in Connecticut and nationwide.

The case centers around whether municipalities can fine or ticket people for sleeping outside when there is no shelter available. Connecticut had an eight-year decline in homelessness, but the last two Point-in-Time snapshots indicated it is rising again.

Sarah Fox, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, said ticketing and fining homeless people only harms them.

"It in fact prolongs their experience of homelessness," Fox asserted. "Once someone is engaged with the criminal legal system, it impacts and affects every other part of their life and their world."

She argued the state needs to work proactively to reduce homelessness, such as tackling the affordable-housing crisis. Connecticut has a shortage of more than 98,000 affordable rental homes. Fox suggested an interagency council on homelessness can ensure homeless people have better access to services and emphasized more funding will create a more effective system for sheltering homeless people.

Homelessness has risen 6% nationally since 2017.

Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said affordable housing and services are key to ending homelessness. She stressed along with state- and local-level work, federal investments can help squelch rising homelessness.

"Investments by Congress in housing affordability, that means rental assistance for everybody who is eligible for rental assistance," Oliva stressed. "Right now, only one out of every four households that's eligible for federal rental assistance can get it because of funding challenges."

Based on the Supreme Court's ruling, she feels ordinances criminalizing homelessness could increase. Even so, Oliva added all three levels of government should be aware of actual solutions to curb homelessness.


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