Panelists at Eviction CMC Discuss GOPC Co-Researched Report Findings on Housing Affordability Challenge in Central Ohio

By GOPC Project Associate Alex Highley Recently, Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) staff attended the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s (CMC) session Highest Eviction Rate in Ohio, Consequences?  During the luncheon panelists explored the topics of affordable housing and the high rate of eviction in central Ohio, often referring to research in “The Columbus and Franklin County Affordable Housing Challenge: Needs, Resources, and Funding Models”, a report GOPC recently completed in collaboration with the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio (AHACO). Panelists for the session comprised of moderator Dan Sharpe of the Columbus Foundation, Brad DeHays of Connect Realty Mid-Ohio Contracting Services, Elfi Di Bella of the YWCA Columbus, and Stephanie Hightower of the Columbus Urban League.

The luncheon began with Sharpe explaining that Franklin County is the state leader in evictions while discussing some of the community development efforts to support families who are at risk of being evicted. To provide context to the housing situation, Sharpe noted that according to the AHACO report informed by GOPC’s research, a household needs to earn $15.98 an hour or $33,238 annually, at a full-time, year-round job in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent. With the rate of poverty population growth three times faster than the rate of overall population growth in Franklin County between 2009 and 2014, residents are finding housing costs increasingly burdensome.

According to the AHACO report, there is a glaring shortage of 54,000 affordable housing units in the region, which, as DeHays explains, is a direct contributor to the high rate of evictions in Franklin County. Often, the first step to an eviction is an unfortunate event such as illness or a flat tire, and then suddenly problems spiral out of control when bills rack up and families cannot pay their monthly rent. While Hightower was keen to stress that there are often a wide variety of reasons people are evicted, the root of the problem is that one in three families in Columbus live paycheck-to-paycheck, and therefore struggle to afford basic costs such as paying rent. 354 families are evicted in Central Ohio every week and to compound this problem, a portion of them may later end up homeless, often in part because of the stigma and barriers which a record of eviction brings to future housing opportunities.

In alignment with models analyzed by GOPC as part of the AHACO report, Hightower points to incentivizing developers to create units for low- to middle-income people as a potential tool for expanding affordable housing. Speakers at the session also suggested strengthening the Section 8 voucher program and simplifying the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, along with improving education for landlords and tenants. GOPC supports Hightower’s emphasis on the importance of building capacity of organizations currently working on affordable housing issues and minimizing duplication by coordinating efforts. With a large number of nonprofit, public, and private groups in Columbus working to expand affordable housing, it is important to maximize the work of leaders currently working in this policy arena and to ensure that future interventions are done collaboratively.

For more information, including GOPC’s exploration of affordable housing models from around the country, read the AHACO report: The Columbus and Franklin County Affordable Housing Challenge: Needs, Resources, and Funding Models

Ohio's FY2018-19 Main Operating Budget Moves to Next Stage; GOPC Offers Recommendations

By Jason Warner, GOPC Manager of Government Affairs

Recently, the Ohio House of Representatives approved a drastically different two-year state budget from the one proposed by Governor John Kasich in January. The House budget included roughly $632 million in reductions due to decreased state revenue collections, and so far for the fiscal year FY2016-17, receipts are $773.7 million, or 4.2 percent, below projections. This followed an announcement in April by state leaders that the budget would need to be revised downward by roughly $800 million for the next biennium (FY2018-19).

With passage of the House version, the budget now moves to the Ohio Senate, where additional reductions will be needed to meet the $800 million in cuts. The deadline to approve the budget is June 30, when the current state fiscal year (FY2017) ends. Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) continues to testify on several changes to be made in HB49, including the following provisions. 

GOPC-Supported Provisions:

- The budget bill provides $4.8 million in annual funding over the biennium for lead remediation and associated testing services for homes under lead hazard orders, ensuring that more properties are made safe for families. This will be done through the use of federal funding available to the state.  GOPC is pleased by the state’s commitment on this important issue and encourages the Legislature to ensure local lead abatement programs are empowered to utilize the funding.

GOPC-Opposed Provisions:

- A House amendment would mandate stickers be affixed to retail service station pumps displaying the rates of federal and state taxes applicable to gasoline and diesel fuel. The stickers would be produced and distributed by the Department of Agriculture at an unknown cost. All pumps would be required to have the stickers affixed within 14 months of the bills effective date and would need to be replaced if damaged or if the state or federal tax rates change. 

- The House reduced funding for public transportation by more than 11% per year for both FY2018 and 2019. This line item provides funding for the Public Transportation Grant Program and the Elderly and Disabled Fare Assistance Program. This line item has been reduced by more than 68% or $17,969,134, since FY2000. 

GOPC's Proposed Amendments to the Bill:

- GOPC proposes an amendment to make it easier for cities to clean up contaminated brownfield sites.  The proposal would modify Ohio law to make it clear that urban renewal projects can recover the costs of environmental remediation. In an urban renewal project, a municipality and a developer create a development agreement to mitigate a blighted area.  After development begins, the property owner makes service payments in lieu of taxes, based on the increased valuation of the property.  Service payments support bonds that have been issued to support redevelopment costs.

- The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has issued a directive that Ohio cannot continue applying state and local sales taxes on the premiums of Medicaid Managed Care Organizations. HB49 provides for a new service fee to be charged to make-up for lost state revenue, while only providing partial, temporary financial relief to counties and transit agencies. GOPC supports the inclusion of a provision in HB49 that will extend greater financial relief to counties and transit agencies. 

For more complete coverage of the Main Operating Budget, please visit here.

Infrastructure Week Highlights Urgent Need to Invest in our Declining Transportation and Water and Sewer Systems

By Jon Honeck, GOPC Senior Policy Fellow Infrastructure Week is May 15 – 19, 2017.  GOPC considers infrastructure, especially transportation and water infrastructure, to be vital components of Ohio’s economic revitalization agenda.  During Infrastructure Week, groups across the nation are holding events and doing everything they can to draw attention to the unacceptable condition of the nation’s infrastructure.  Overall, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gives U.S. infrastructure a grade of “D+”.  Although the term “infrastructure” usually brings to mind surface transportation – roads, bridges, and railways – the ASCE’s concerns extend to many forms of infrastructure that make a modern economy work, including drinking water and wastewater systems, air travel, ports, and the electrical transmission grid.   The ASCE estimates that underinvestment will cause the average family to lose $3,400 each year as a result of infrastructure deficiencies. 

As seen in the chart below, public sector spending on infrastructure declined from nearly 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the late 1950s to just above 2.5% today.  Although federal policy definitely shapes overall societal policy choices (e.g., the interstate highway system), the chart also makes it clear that states and local governments have been doing the heavy lifting when it comes to infrastructure spending, and probably will continue to do so in the future.  Federal outlays in recent years been about 0.6% of GDP, about one-fourth the state and local government total.

 Infrastructure Spending as a Percentage of U.S. GDP

Source: GOPC analysis of BEA and CBO data.

Across the country, states are doing what they can to take charge of their own destiny, including finding ways to pay for what they need to improve transportation.  Most states, and the federal government, rely on gasoline excise taxes to pay for surface transportation.  For many years, discussions about raising the gasoline tax were off the table at both the state and federal levels.  The federal gasoline tax has not been raised since 1993; Ohio’s has been the same since 2005.  This inaction meant that state transportation budgets have failed to keep pace with inflation, putting more pressure on their ability to perform basic maintenance.  As the economy has improved, however, state leaders have put together coalitions to support improved funding.  Since 2012, nearly half the states have adjusted their approaches to taxing gasoline.  Some of the most recent to move in this direction in 2017, including Indiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee, are generally considered to be fiscally conservative states.  These changes at the state level may build momentum for a reexamination of transportation funding at the federal level. 

The country’s focus on infrastructure is not only an opportunity to rebuild, but also to improve and rethink what we need to be successful in the 21^st Century, as GOPC outlined in a Cincinnati Enquirer op-ed.  Proceeds from the state gasoline tax in Ohio are constitutionally required to be spent on highways, and do not address the needs of Ohio’s residents for public transit or alternative modes of travel such as biking or walking.  Despite an increased transfer of federal funds to public transit in the Ohio Department of Transportation budget, Ohio’s overall state level of support for public transit is minimal compared to that of other states.  GOPC believes that future state transportation reform should include a dedicated revenue source for public transit that will help local transit authorities design the kind of flexible and affordable systems that Ohioans deserve. 

Driverless cars could be the attractive future but public transportation is the vital present

By Alex Highley, GOPC Project AssociateMany states across the country,including Ohio, have begun to embrace the idea that driverless cars will soon represent an exciting, safe, and more efficient alternative to human-controlled vehicles. Last year, Columbus was awarded the federal Smart Cities grant, which pledges millions of federal dollars to be invested in new technologies for driverless cars. While autonomous vehicles may eventually solve some of the transportation challenges Ohio faces once their usage is proven to be safe and effective, leaders in the state should focus their efforts today on expanding and strengthening public transit. Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) believes that Ohio must prioritize investment in the existing transportation system, where the technology already exists to safely and efficiently transport people to jobs, doctors, and grocery stores.

While autonomous vehicles may one day rule the road, it is imperative that Ohio develops transportation solutions for residents who seek a means of mobility in the short-term. Public transit is a proven form of transportation that if invested in properly, can produce a number of economic development benefits for residents and businesses within communities of all types. Ohio’s population is aging and many residents, especially those living in rural areas, do not have reliable access to a car to get to job opportunities, medical appointments, family, and the grocery store. Because Ohio’s land usage pattern is defined by sprawling communities, residential areas are often located far from job sites and thus qualified individuals are unable to fill positions at companies seeking their talents. Improving transit service through, for instance,regionalization, will ameliorate these difficulties by connecting workers with key destinations and allow them to participate in Ohio’s economy.

Cota on high st

However, there is a glaring shortage of good-working public transportation buses and vans in Ohio. As theOhio Department of Transportation Transit Needs Studynotes, 27 counties in Ohio do not even operate a public transit network, which means that many people rely on health and human service transportation functions to get to important destinations. Even within the transit agencies that do offer service, over a third of the 3,240 vehicles are beyond their useful life, yet they are still on the roads. As demand grows among all age groups, investment in the system is even more crucial. By 2025, the Transit Needs Study estimates that an additional $562 million in annual funding will be needed to meet the future demand for public transit statewide.

Given the general level ofuncertainty surrounding driverless cars, leaders at all level of government and business should concentrate efforts on existing transportation systems. At the moment,74 percent of Americans simply do not believe driverless cars will be safe to use. Until the public has demonstrated it trusts the new technology, it would be premature to pool resources into a system with so many lingering questions. Even if Ohioans do at some point accept autonomous vehicles as a viable alternative to driver-operated cars, it is unlikely that their costs, at least initially, will make them accessible to a wide cohort of citizens. Thus, the proliferation of the technology would likely do little to help residents who struggle to find a way to get to doctor’s appointments. By supporting a robust, modernized public transportation system, Ohio’s leaders can build a successful, fluid network of travel for workers and residents throughout the state.

For more resources on transportation policy affecting Ohio’s cities and regions, please visit GOPC’s Transportation Modernization webpage

Urban Institute President Calls on Ohio to Take the Lead in Broadening Access to Opportunity

By Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC Manager of Research and Policy Sarah Rosen Wartell, President of the Urban Institute, spoke about the connections between place and opportunity at the Starting from Home Conference in Columbus last week. Rosen Wartell discussed research illuminating the “geography of opportunity” – or the connection between where a child grows up and his or her long-term economic prospects – which was an animating theme for much of the conference. Neighborhoods can either serve as a “springboard” or “trap” for people living in poverty, and research has consistently found disparities within and between regions in providing access to opportunity.

Because some neighborhoods serve as better springboards than others, Rosen Wartell argued that moving to a different community needed to be a realistic choice for low-income people. She noted that there is some bipartisan consensus around this idea, with free market advocates championing the removal of regulatory barriers like exclusionary zoning. Because of that common ground, mobility programs could be an area of opportunity for federal policy moving forward. Rosen Wartell cautioned that long-term solutions to poverty are not only as simple as moving low-income people to high opportunity places. Strategies that bring higher-income people to low-income neighborhoods are equally important, because amenities and other services will follow new residents. Protections need to be put in place to make sure that existing residents are able to benefit from these new opportunities and can remain in neighborhoods that are changing.

The benefits of creating mixed-income neighborhoods are not limited to giving people living in poverty greater access to opportunity. Regions experience real costs from economic and racial segregation, including lost wages, lost productivity, higher crime rates, and drained public resources. Ohio’s largest metropolitan regions – Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati – are among the most segregated nationwide in terms of income and race. Contending with this challenge could help make these regions both more equitable and more competitive.

Rosen Wartell noted that the 2016 Presidential election shone a spotlight on Ohio, particularly the significant economic change it is experiencing and the resulting growth in regional inequality. She suggested that Ohio has the opportunity to use this spotlight to demonstrate to the rest of the country that access to opportunity does not have to be “a zero sum game.” Given changing federal priorities, states can be “laboratories of creativity” in trying new approaches to creating economic opportunity. Ohio, she believes, is in a position to take the lead in developing pathways to broadly shared prosperity. Greater Ohio Policy Center is committed to advancing these important goals in our state through research and policy advocacy.

Greater Ohio Policy Center Outlines Budget Priorities

By Jason Warner, GOPC Manager of Government Affairs As Greater Ohio continues its advocacy efforts at the Ohio Statehouse, we have recently updated our policy platform as it relates to House Bill 49, the state main operating budget for Fiscal Years 2018-2019.

The full position paper is available here.

To learn more about House Bill 49, including status updates, you can read our April legislative update. 

“The Future of the Great Lakes Region”: New Urban Institute Report Explores How Decline in Manufacturing Industry is Shaping the Industrial Midwest

By Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC Manager of Research and PolicyA new report from the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Instituteexamines economic and demographic changes over the past century in the Great Lakes region (Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) and projects trends into the middle of the twenty-first century.  The report finds that that region’s reliance on manufacturing has created unique challenges that set it on a different path than the rest of the country. Importantly, the challenges in the manufacturing sector have deepened dramatically in the last fifteen years. Although there were major shocks to the manufacturing sector in the 1970s, employment in the sector recovered and eventually grew to its highest level in 1999. At that point, the sector experienced an even greater shock from automation and foreign competition, causing it to shed 35 percent of jobs in the region from 2000 to 2010.

This dramatic loss in employment had a number of important ripple effects. Manufacturing jobs pay an average of $78,000, dramatically higher than average wages in the region. As a result of the loss of manufacturing employment, the Great Lakes states saw a decline in higher wage jobs while other regions experienced growth. Meanwhile, other regions saw net job growth of 17.5 percent from 2000 to 2015, while the Great Lakes states saw only 3.7 percent growth in that time period. Notably, low-wage jobs accounted for all of this job growth in the Great Lakes region.

Toledo-glassmaking

Glass-maker in Toledo, Ohio

Demographic trends appear to mirror recent economic decline. The Great Lakes region has continued to grow population slowly, but the authors estimate that the region will stop growing by 2030 as baby boomers age and out-migration continues. Between 50,000 and 105,000 people left the region every year between 2007 and 2014, but out-migration appeared to slow after the end of the Great Recession. The timing of this trend is particularly impactful because it happened just as the millennial generation came of age and began entering the workforce. As a result, the Great Lakes region lost younger workers as other regions saw growth in this cohort.

The region’s workforce is aging, particularly in the manufacturing sector: people ages 45 to 64 account for 46 percent of manufacturing employees, up from 36 percent in 2000. The number of people in the workforce is anticipated to remain flat as baby boomers retire and young people leave the region. The authors predict that this could result in a tight labor market in the 2020s, potentially pushing wages higher if the workforce has skills appropriate for available jobs.

Despite population loss – or perhaps because of it – the region is becoming more racially diverse. The non-Hispanic white population has declined back to 1990 levels, while the African-American population is 17 percent higher than in 1990. The Hispanic population has seen the greatest growth – surging from 800,000 in 1990 to 3.1 million in 2015. Correspondingly, the foreign-born population in the Great Lakes region has grown, but not to the same extent as other parts of the country. The authors argue that efforts to invest in communities of color and mitigate long-standing racial disparities are crucial to the long-term health of the region. People of color are the only growing population cohort in the region, and will make up an increasingly large portion of the local labor force.

While many of the findings of the report are quite sobering, the authors suggest that wise investments in human capital, civic capacity, and community revitalization can help reverse decline by encouraging young people to stay and by sharing prosperity more broadly among residents. Recommended investments include sustainable financial support for upgrading and maintaining water and energy infrastructure to bolster economic development. Critically, these investments cannot be focused only on the largest metropolitan areas in the region. The Great Lakes states’ deep challenges are present – sometimes to an even greater extent - in small cities and rural areas as well, and efforts to restore the region’s prosperity must be fully inclusive of these communities.

New paper explores the connection between economic growth and opportunity in smaller legacy cities

By Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC Manager of Research and Policy A new report examining the role that funders can play in promoting equitable economic growth in smaller legacy cities was recently released by a collaborative of four Federal Reserve Banks and members of the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. The report features case studies from four smaller legacy cities – Cedar Rapids, IA; Chattanooga, TN; Grand Rapids, MI; and Rochester, NY – that have shown some signs of economic revitalization since the Great Recession. The report’s authors travelled to each of these cities to get a better sense of whether there was an “arc of recovery” for revitalizing smaller legacy cities and to see what lessons could be learned from these comparatively strong communities.

Instead of identifying a single arc of recovery, the authors observed that there are truly two arcs of revitalization in smaller cities: an arc of growth and an arc of opportunity. The arc of growth reflects improved economic performance, with stabilized or growing populations, increased jobs, rising household incomes, new business starts, and other signs of economic growth. The arc of opportunity, however, traces how widely the benefits of economic growth are shared within the community. While each of the cities examined were moving steadily along the arc of growth, few of them appeared to have made significant progress in spreading opportunity among all members of the community, particularly low-income and minority residents.

In studying the arc of growth, the authors found important common features among the case study cities. Economic revitalization in each of the communities was kick-started by some kind of catalytic event that convinced local leaders they had to take action. Leaders from a variety of sectors, including the business community and philanthropy, stepped in to address significant challenges. Critically, these leaders – locally-focused funders in particular - could provide access to long-term, patient capital to fund revitalization efforts that did not align well with the time-horizons of public dollars or most private capital. These projects were largely successful in reshaping downtowns, but their benefits did not spill into neighborhoods across the city.

Local stakeholders reported that conversations about revitalization were beginning to acknowledge that economic growth alone may not be sufficient to improve outcomes for all residents. This mirrors the conversation in the academic literature, which is increasingly coalescing around the notion that inclusive growth is more sustainable and robust than growth that only benefits some people. The authors conclude that local funders have a unique role to play in helping to unite the two arcs, due to their access to patient capital for revitalization projects and their role as conveners of cross-sectoral partners. In particular, funders can promote accountability in connecting growth with prosperity by continually raising the “equity question.”  

The authors also identified promising strategies that funders in the four case study cities had begun to pursue to ensure broader access to the benefits of economic growth:

• Place-based interventions to address poverty: Funders are engaged in multi-generational, multi-pronged approaches to poverty reduction that are focused on a particular neighborhood or community.
• Policy changes to address poverty: Funders are advocating for policies that help marginalized communities access opportunity and ensure that economic development efforts help alleviate poverty.
• Focus on preserving affordable housing while revitalizing downtown: Funders are promoting investments in affordable and family-oriented housing near emerging employment centers.
• Focus on business retention and supply chain recruitment: Funders are encouraging communities to place emphasis on retaining existing businesses through workforce development and focus recruitment efforts on companies in the supply chain of existing industries.
• Develop new leaders: Funders are guiding communities to focus on ensuring the next two generations of civic leaders are cultivated and will work to connect the arcs of growth and prosperity.
• Make evidence-based decisions:  Funders use and publicize data on neighborhood and regional conditions.

This piece raises important issues around how to ensure that urban revitalization efforts are equitable and sustainable in smaller legacy cities and beyond. As more communities recover from the Great Recession, these questions will become increasingly important in ensuring long-term growth and prosperity. 

Urban Expert Richard Florida Warns of Deepening Crisis of Cities But Believes Mayors Can Help Reverse Course

By Alex Highley, GOPC Project AssociateLast week, University of Toronto professor and urban theorist Richard Florida delivered a series of lectures in Columbus. In front of a large crowd at Ohio State’s Mershon Auditorium, he spoke about his new book, The New Urban Crisis, which describes the worrying decline of the middle class in cities throughout America. After highlighting the major points of the book, Florida asked questions about solving the new urban crisis to Columbus Mayor Andy Ginther, Findlay Mayor Lydia Mihalik, and former Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams.

Florida argues that whereas the urban crises of past decades manifested in the outward movement of people and wealth from city centers into the suburbs, today’s urban crisis is marked by a growing wealth and opportunity gap throughout neighborhoods in cities, including Columbus. While the vestiges of the old urban crisis continue to live on, Florida sees a startling inequality both between various cities and even within cities. Today, a “winner-take-all urbanism” has emerged that sharpens the contrast between “winner” and “loser” cities. As young, talented, and educated, people seek to work together on innovative ideas, they cram themselves together in those areas of concentrated resources and wealth. Even within “winner” cities, suburban areas, along with some traditional urban areas, have experience marked decline and poverty while economic cleavages between neighborhoods have become more pronounced.

Check out Greater Ohio Policy Center’s (GOPC) new blog series on shrinking cities

To combat this modern crisis, Florida believes that mayors must be given the political and fiscal tools to develop local solutions, instead of following a one-size-fits-all federal urban policy, which Florida admits he previously championed. Devolving more responsibility to mayors recognizes the reality of deep social and political differences in America, which were conspicuous during the last presidential election, and allows mayors and community leaders to promote urban policies unique to their cities. In alignment with this idea, Williams believes that Youngstown should take the unconventional step of embracing its “shrinkage,” rather than expending energy on attempts to attract new residents. To do this, the city must develop policies that accept the nature of population decline while seeking to capitalize on the great ideas and creativity already flourishing in Youngstown.

Richard Florida lecture OSU

 Seated Left to Right: Williams, Mihalik, Ginther, and Florida

Ginther, Mihalik, and Florida expressed that improving and expanding local public transportation systems will help boost economic opportunity for struggling families. For residents in many neighborhoods in Columbus, a lack of reliable transportation imposes a barrier to employers and the potential employees seeking work. In Findlay, Mihalik notes that over half of the city’s workforce actually commutes from outside Hancock County; as a result, many people are pushing for bolstering public transportation.Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) supports efforts to connect Ohioans to job opportunities by improving public transportation networks throughout the state.

While many people are encumbered by today’s often divisive national politics, Florida sees less partisanship and more willingness among stakeholders to work together to achieve results at the local level. Florida notes that when he meets mayors, he usually has little idea or concern about whether they are Republican or Democrat, because party identity is less defining of the policies mayors pursue. Mihalik emphasizes the idea that mayors can elevate important public policy discussions, and should do more to promote civil dialogue among citizens. She also believes that leaders need to offer more potential solutions to problems, rather than simply criticizing what they think needs to be fixed. In sum, combining mayoral action with citizen input will help expand economic opportunity for more Ohioans.