Firm sought to study Lorain County housing needs, strategies

As housing costs continue to rise across the state and nation, private and public organizations in Lorain County are working together to understand the issue and search for solutions. Lorain County Public Health and ONE Lorain County have teamed up to launch a study of the realities of the county's housing stock in hopes of informing how to move forward with housing policy and investment. Last week, Public Health and the economic nonprofit launched a request for proposals seeking firms to research Lorain County's housing market and the needs of both residents and business owners to find where there are gaps in what the county needs and how to meet those needs through public policy and private investment. "I think there's a lot of organizations looking at housing, but we don't have really good countywide data," said ONE Lorain County Director Lisa Hutson. "I think you can't solve a problem until you really understand the problem, right? So you're coming up with solutions that may not really get to the core of the problem." A formal study would provide that actionable data to local governments and developers or business owners interested in Lorain County, Hutson said. "Housing is very integral in economic development," she said. " As companies that are here grow or we look to attract new businesses, they need to know that they can attract the workforce that they need. Part of that is to be able to have affordable housing, and then once those workers are here, access to affordable housing reduces the stress on their workforce. (It) also reduces commute times — transportation is another piece of the study — and helps make the workforce more reliable." Erin Murphy, director of Population Health for LCPH, said that the decision to launch a housing study was driven by the 2025 Lorain County Community Health Assessment, the Lorain County Strategic Action Plan and by discussions with residents. While housing may at first seem outside the purview of Public Health, Murphy said that in addition to the agency's interest because of its work overseeing housing safety and sanitation codes, housing plays a key role in the overall health of residents. "Safe and stable and affordable housing is imperative to good health outcomes," Murphy said. "... It influences everything; from chronic disease to maternal and child health to just pure safety and injury prevention. Even when you're talking about maybe housing stock that currently exists, but needs updates or something that makes it a safer home or a safer place to live in." Murphy said that the interest in researching how housing and affordability impacted residents was further galvanized by what Public Health officials found when researching maternal and child health in Lorain County. As employees worked with pregnant women and young families to identify and address their needs, housing security was frequently a major concern and source of stress, she said. "Housing has routinely come up as probably the top request that we get in terms of, "I need help with housing, can't afford housing, I'm living in someone's basement, I'm living on a couch, I'm living in my car,'" Murphy said. "So that has actually been identified as a specific population in this RFP process, to think about what we are doing to kind of set these young families up for success in the county. Those real foundational pieces need to be put in place early to lead to those better health outcomes in the future." Hutson said that as the county tries to attract more people and especially young families, childcare and safety are among the top concerns for them. But, she said, Lorain County's current housing stock makes it harder for workers in those fields to live in the county. "In Ohio, the average childcare worker makes $27,960 a year," Hutson said. "If you use 30 percent of income as the housing (affordability) number, that means they can afford a maximum of $698 a month in rent, or to buy a house for $83,724. There's not a lot available in our market at those dollars." Financial institutions and government agencies generally recommend that consumers spend no more than 30 percent of their gross monthly income on housing. For police officers, Hutson said the average salary in Ohio is just over $74,000, making their affordability ranges $1860 in monthly rent or the purchase of a $223,000 home. "There are over 7,000 new homes planned in Lorain County within the next 12 months, and, not a lot would fall into that affordability yet," she said. "Childcare and safety are two of the most important things as we look at attracting employers, so housing is really important." According to the 2024 Ohio housing needs assessment from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, or OHFA, Ohio's home sales and home ownership rate have been on the decline in recent years. In 2022, Ohio's home ownership rate was 64 percent, putting Ohio below the national average for the first time on record. That same year, median housing cost was also the highest on record for any year other than 2021. The agency also found that from 2016 to 2021, Ohio saw a 38 percent decrease in vacant units available for both sale and rent. Meanwhile, median gross rent in Ohio increased by 10 percent from 2012 to 2021, and rent was higher in 2024 than in any year on record other than 2021. After a decade of decline, the median share of income spent on housing has become to climb again, reaching 31 percent in 2024. While the full scope of local data still needs to be gathered, Murphy said it was clear from her agency's work with residents that a lack of affordable housing was weighing heavily on many in Lorain County. "We are actually hearing directly from the people who are saying, this is something we need, this is something that's really hard for me to access," she said "It's a barrier. It's a barrier to accessing care, accessing employment, accessing good childcare — as Lisa already alluded to — And so we really need to make sure some of this foundational stuff is in place." Hutson said that the study would look into a variety of housing needs, but would also take into account the entire county and how needs and prior successes differed between communities. "I really hope that this study can help demonstrate that there are communities that maybe have not received the investment of other communities, but if we invest in housing, we can get companies to invest," Hutson said. "... When you have an initial investment into one of those communities you have a greater number of people benefiting from that investment, you lower the concentration of poverty and that encourages additional investment. So all of a sudden these neighborhoods that maybe have not been the beneficiaries of those investments, all of a sudden start to thrive." Because the study was aligned with needs already identified by the county and public health, and because of buy-in from private partners like ONE Lorain County, Murphy was confident that the findings of the study would be a critical part of the county's future planning. "Having this kind of public-private partnership in place gives me confidence that this isn't a plan that will sit on a shelf," she said. "I really firmly believe that with the interest and dedication that we've already seen (from) a variety of partners in the county, that when it comes to actually implementing the recommendations that end up getting identified in the study and going out and seeking investments and seeking funding to support those, I believe that will be that will be done. We are all really excited for that." Proposals to carry out the Lorain County housing study and action plan are due to Lorain County Public Health by Nov. 7. For more information about the process, visit oneloraincounty.com. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.