Southside Gateway plan looks to fill gap in affordable, available rentals

A plan to rehab existing public housing and bring mixed-income units to Lorain's south side hopes to help fill the area's housing gap. Raise Up, formerly Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority, and the city submitted its grant application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Choice Neighborhood program for up to $26 million to rehab 110 units at Southside Gardens and build 175 additional affordable and market-rate housing options in the city's 5th and 6th wards last week. Rise Up's Southside Gateway project is the end of a nearly three-year process and the fruits of another federal Choice Neighborhood grant to determine how best to reimagine the public housing complex near East 30th Street and Vine Avenue as part of the Southside Gateway project. The project's scope has changed since the city and housing authority first started planning. When the pair were awarded a $500,000 planning grant in late 2022, the potential implementation grant could have brought $40 million in federal funds to the city to rebuild Southside Gardens and the surrounding community. Since then, HUD has scaled back the offering to $26 million — meaning the proposal's scale has changed as well, Raise UP CEO Judith Carlin and Chief Operating Officer Gale Sayers Proby explained Friday. "The whole point of the planning grant was to create a living document that, even if we hadn't gotten a choice grant, it would serve as a plan for change in that neighborhood," Carlin said. "The plan was never meant to be set in stone, and we had to adapt to the reduced funding and still have the impact we need." The grant submission comes as a recent study highlights a national trend of inadequate housing for the country's poorest renters. The National Low Income Housing Coalition's 2026 Gap report highlights the shortage of affordable homes across the country, noting the lowest-income renters face the highest barriers to find adequate, affordable housing. Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio's Executive Director Amy Riegel said the dataset, showing nearly half of the state's 1.5 million renters are spending more than they can afford on rent, confirms what advocates hear all the time. "For people at the bottom of the pay scale, rent is gobbling up most of their paychecks," she said in a news release announcing the report. "But this report shows the rent Pac-Man is moving up the income ladder." Nationally, there is a shortage of 7.2 million affordable and available rental units for the country's 11 million extremely low-income renters, according to the report. Extremely low-income renters are those with incomes at or below the federal poverty level or 30 percent of the area's median income, whichever is higher. Ohio's extremely low-income households earn less than $33,000 per year for a family of four. Often, the report notes, those earning the least each year are low-wage workers, senior citizens or individuals with disabilities. Nearly half of Ohio's 1.58 million renters are paying more than they can afford, with the state facing a shortage of 266,000 affordable and available rental units, the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio stated when announcing the gap report. "Policymakers must focus on the most vulnerable — the hundreds of thousands of hard-working Ohioans living on the edge, where a sudden illness or car repair can lead to eviction and potential homelessness," Riegel said in a news release. In Lorain County, some 43 percent of renters are cost-burdened — meaning they spend more than about a third of their income on rent and utilities. For Lorain County's poorest renters, there is a deficit of about 5,800 affordable, available housing units, according to HUD's Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy data set. The additional 175 units proposed in Raise Up's plan, with not all of those set aside for solely low-income renters, may seem like a drop in the bucket for the area's housing needs. But the Southside Gateway Project is integral in tackling the city's ongoing housing crisis, Building, Housing and Planning Director Matt Kusznir said. A 2021 housing study conducted by Cleveland State University's Levin College of Public Affairs and Education showed there was a lack of not only available homes for sale, but rental opportunities and other housing options, he said. "Adding a couple hundred more units into an area of Lorain that hasn't seen investment in decades is going to be a great shot in the arm not only for that community, but the city overall," he said. Initially, Raise Up looked to build about 330 housing units, including replacing Southside Gardens' existing 110 units with new ones throughout the area. The proposal submitted to HUD March 9 would instead bring 285 mixed-income units to the neighborhood across four phases through a mix of rehabilitation and new construction. Phase 1 would see 62 new units split between mixed-income townhomes, duplexes and a multi-family apartment building built on the former Whittier Middle School site near East 32nd Street and Seneca Avenue. The abutting old Lowell Elementary site at East 32nd Street and Clinton Avenue will be set aside for up to 21 future owner-occupied, single-family homes built by Habitat for Humanity. The former Whittier Middle School housed students for more than 80 years until its demolition in 2012. Lowell Elementary opened in the mid 1960s and was demolished in 2015. Raise Up acquired the Oakwood Park-adjacent lot last year. Phases 2-4 will see some Southside Gardens units rehabbed, alongside additional buildouts of duplexes, townhomes and garden units. On the city's site, Kusznir said if they secure the implementation grant, there are plans to revamp the commercial corridors on East 28th Street and Pearl Avenue, and collaborate with Habitat for Humanity for targeted home rehabs in the area through a combination of Community Development Block Grant and HOME funds. Raise Up will be a partner in the new housing scattered throughout the project's area, Carlin said, a break in how public housing is normally owned and operated by a local housing authority. The new, income-based units — including those replacing the 110 currently at Southside Gardens — will have project-based vouchers that stay with the building, while the property is operated as a public-private partnership between Raise Up and a developer. Raise Up must replace the current number of affordable housing units at Southside Gardens one-for-one, Carlin said. Additional units built through the plan will be a mix of market-rate and affordable options. A 10,000-square-foot combination 40-unit, mixed-income senior housing building and early education center will be built on a parcel Raise Up owns. Sayers Proby noted under the old plan, there was no senior housing option included. The change is in part to meet a federal focus on maintaining independence for senior citizens, Carlin said. Bringing childcare to the neighborhood comes in response to lack of transportation, Sayers Proby said, and as a reflection of recent studies showing positive outcomes when co-locating childcare and senior citizens in the same building. Alongside the $26 million Raise Up and the city are hoping to receive from HUD, it has been able to leverage more than $111 million in private and charitable funding and in-kind services to inject into the south side, Sayers Proby said. Its partners include the Lorain County Joint Vocational School, El Centro, Lorain County Community College, Neighborhood Alliance, Habitat for Humanity, Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, Mercy Health, the Lorain Public Library System, P2R and United Way. It has already received $200,000 from the Nord Family Foundation through the Community Foundation of Lorain County to help cover transportation services for Southside Gardens residents to attend appointments, classes or go to work, and $200,000 from the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing to fund the build out of a community center at a park at East 30th Street and Vine Avenue previously completed as part of an "early action activity" ahead of its application for the full Choice Neighborhood implementation grant. The community center looks to bring supportive programming, services and expand fresh food access for residents. Raise Up hopes to hear whether it has been awarded the implementation grant in late summer or early fall. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.