Columbus panel hears calls for more housing funding, shifts from shelter to upstream prevention

City and nonprofit housing leaders told the Funding Review Advisory Committee of the Columbus City Council at a committee briefing that Franklin County’s housing market has become significantly less affordable and that the local homelessness response must shift from shelter capacity toward housing creation and prevention.

Erin Prosser, deputy director of housing strategies at the City of Columbus Department of Development, said construction costs, higher interest rates and a shortage of new units have pushed rents and home prices well beyond income gains for many families. "Housing stability also impacts our workforce stability, our educational outcomes, and our upward economic mobility," Prosser said, summarizing the stakes for families and the local economy.

The presentations, delivered by Prosser, Shannon Isom, president and CEO of the Community Shelter Board (CSB), and Ian Labatou, president and CEO of the Affordable Housing Trust (AHT), combined data and funding proposals. Prosser described long-term trends — including a reported 61% rise in median rent and a 71% rise in home prices since 2010 alongside incomes that rose more slowly — and illustrated how higher hard costs and elevated borrowing rates make new affordable construction harder to finance. Using a 68‑unit example building from 2010, Prosser showed debt-service costs that rose from an estimated $628 per unit per month in 2010 to roughly $1,287 under 2024 cost and interest assumptions, driving higher rents.

Why it matters: presenters said that without continued or new public subsidy the market will not produce enough deeply affordable units for households earning at or below 30% of area median income (AMI). Prosser noted that city voters have twice authorized the sale of affordable-housing bonds and that the city has deployed capital grants to lower debt burdens on projects; she said the city has deployed roughly $141,500,000 in bond funds to support projects that produced 4,200 units across 39 developments, including 523 units serving households under 30% AMI.

CSB: move upstream, protect the most vulnerable

Shannon Isom said the Community Shelter Board — which serves as the region’s HUD-recognized unified funding agency (UFA) for homelessness dollars — spends most of its funds on housing, not shelter, and urged a rebalancing of resources toward prevention, diversion and housing. "We are a housing organization, and HUD expects us to have readiness in housing, not readiness in shelter," Isom said.

Isom described CSB’s funding structure and urged steadier public support to replace expiring one-time federal pandemic funds (CARES/ARPA) and emergency rental assistance (ERA) that have been sustaining operations and prevention work in recent years. She told the committee CSB and partners estimate the system needs roughly $51.3 million in total annual resources to be "right-sized," an increase CSB quantified as about $15.9 million above the current budget baseline; CSB said the total regional homelessness system leverages roughly $81 million annually (figures were cited by Isom with some variation during the presentation).

Isom also highlighted CSB-run pilots and programs that aim to reduce shelter demand, including no‑strings direct cash transfers and expanded diversion/prevention services (CSB reported initial pilots providing $1,500 per household and a goal of scaling to larger cohorts), warming-center outreach that engaged people who avoid congregate shelters, and efforts to convert underused hotels and motels into noncongregate housing. She warned that the loss of deeply affordable units (for example, units removed when redevelopments occur) and the decline of historically significant public developers and programs have created gaps that the current crisis-response system cannot close without additional housing investment.

Affordable Housing Trust: scale financing and recycle capital

Ian Labatou said the Affordable Housing Trust — an independent nonprofit CDFI that leverages city and county apportionments and other capital — has financed more than $520 million and 14,000 homes since 2001 and closed about $70 million in loans in 2024 that supported nearly 1,900 units. Labatou urged the committee to consider additional, recurring public investment and bond proceeds to allow AHT to ramp up financing. "Housing is infrastructure," Labatou said, arguing public dollars should be treated as long‑term capital that can be recycled to finance more projects.

Labatou described AHT’s existing tools, including structured revolving loan funds (a $100 million Housing Action Fund focused on Franklin County and a $61.5 million regional impact fund covering adjacent counties), and said that with an additional roughly $10 million per year in public investment AHT estimates it could support materially more units (AHT estimated support for more than 6,000 units over a multi-year period with sustained additional investment versus roughly 2,200 units under current funding projections). He said AHT is researching bond‑fund structures, shared fund management and thematic subfunds (transit‑oriented development, preservation, homeownership) to make public funding go further.

Questions from committee members and next steps

Committee members asked presenters about the end of pandemic-era funding, the fiscal impact of longer shelter stays, the role of land banks and infrastructure supports, and how prevention compares in cost to shelter. CSB and AHT both told the committee prevention and diversion are substantially less expensive than shelter and rehousing; CSB cited a historical figure for average community investment per shelter bed rising from about $9,970 in 2019 to roughly $24,700 in recent years after pandemic spending and longer lengths of stay. Presenters emphasized the need for a mix of strategies: capital grants to close developer financing gaps, operating support for prevention and housing navigators, preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing and policy coordination across city, county and state.

The committee did not take formal votes at the briefing. Members said they expected follow-up questions and additional information from presenters and staff before funding decisions.