Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessaril reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public Media.

Doni: Today, housing remains one of the most important issues on the minds of millions of Americans.

For many, the dream of owning or even renting a place of their own is in peril.

In Toledo, housing formerly rented for $600 a month can now cost twic that, often resulting in extreme housing insecurity.

And for Toledo's, who ear an average of $39,000 per year.

That's 30% less than the state average.

The issue is insurmountable.

So you might ask, what is th city of Toledo doing about this?

Well, Coleena Ali, the tenant landlord services manager for the city, is here to discuss just that.

I'm Don Miller.

Welcome... To The Point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

And you know that.

You may email me at doni_miller@wgte.org.

For this episode and other additional extras.

Go to wgte.org./to the point.

We are talking about an issue this morning that has nationwide attention and no less attention.

Here in Toledo, and that is the difficulty with affordable housing, the difficulty finding affordable housing.

We have an expert her from the city, Miss Coleena Ali, who is the landlord, the tenant landlord service manager for the city of Toledo.

Welcome.

Coleena: Thank you.

Doni: Welcome.

I was amazed when I started reading the scope of the problem.

The the actual work that that the city is doing, which I'm excited to ge everybody to hear this morning.

But is it correct that the gap or in order to fill the need for low mod housing in Toledo we need almost 10,000 new units?

Coleena: Easily, yes, if not more.

Doni: If not.

Coleena: More.

If not more.

Yeah, unfortunately.

Because think about this.

That's that was the point when they did a study and it was like 9800 something units and basically 10,000.

But as more units come off, as more units become vacant, as more units catch on fire.

That means as one less house or unit that's out there is available for somebody in that, you know, situation or in that social income bracket.

Doni So exactly how big is the issue?

Is it an urgent issue?

Is it something that we should just be paying attention to?

Coleena: It is an urgent issue, in my mind, of course, being in housing.

But think about this.

Housing is foundational to m is like the chief cornerstone.

We talk about social determinants of health and housing being a piece of it.

But when I view housing, the housing affects all the other components when we talk abou social determinants of health.

So without it, without clean, safe or affordable housing, it affects every aspect of our lives.

When we talk about having fo children a home to go home to, you know, they can sleep at night that's warm and also be able to do their homework or have a place where they ca go and and prepare their meals.

So housing is so fundamental.

It is.

It's something that is not an easy answer.

It's not a quick answer, unfortunately, but it is a very important issue.

Doni So let me tell you what I found when I was doing my research for this show.

And and tell me what you think about this.

A third of the city's households, nearly 40,000, are cos burdened, meaning that they pay more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

True?

Coleena: True if not more.

Doni: If not more.

Coleena: Yeah, that, the, the information fro that was from a few years ago.

And as we're starting to see not just in Toledo but just on a national level, you're finding more and more individuals and families that are cost burdened across various price points.

So it's not just LMI anymore.

Because housing has just gone up.

It's gone up across the nation.

In fact this isn't even a US situation.

You can look at, you know, other countries too, that are experiences, very same issues.

Doni: And people seem to want to blame it on the pandemic, but you think that's only part of it.

Coleena: It did affect it to to a large degree but it's so much more than that.

Here locally, when we look at it, as you already mentioned, there's, there's not enough housing as it is.

So the competition for housing is pretty fierce.

So while we always hear these studies where Toledo is affordable housing, so affordable housing, when you look at it from New York or Philly or, or California, but when you look at the population and the income level here, it's not that affordable.

So you have some fierce competition that's going on.

And then you also have units that are coming off line.

Doni: And in, it's just tailgating on what you just said.

The so just so you all know out there, the average income in Toledo is $39,000 a year, $39,000 a year.

That's 30% less than the state average and 40% less than the national average.

25% of Toledo ones live in poverty.

That's twice as high as both the state and the national levels.

So when you're looking at those kinds of numbers, you're looking at th housing stock that's available.

You're looking at the increase in the housing stock.

Someone said to me, $600 wa what you used to be able to get.

Now for a small, not so nice place you're paying almost twice that.

We've got people who are in crisis in terms of housing.

Coleena: Yes, absolutely.

To everything that you said.

And when you think about that, you said 39,000 is average.

Well, that's before taxes.

You know, if if they're if they're working, all those taxes come out.

So what does that mean in terms of, you know, actual spending power, how much do they bring home per check and how many check do they have to cobble together to even be able to pay their rent and maybe their utilities?

And we know groceries have also gone up.

So it just compounds each other, increase housing, increase food costs.

And that that burden is eve bigger than what it was before.

Doni: And and so this is something that's particularly close to my heart and that's that I wish that we would choose not to judge people who are having difficulty managing their lives because these kinds of situations can force people into shelters.

And as you said to me, when we were preparing for this discussion, shelters are not able anymore to handle the size of families that are going into them.

Coleena: Yeah, we're seeing some bigger from family sizes that are coming through to the shelters, and there has to be an adult, you know, there's so many persons per room, and if there are children, multiple children, and you need to have 2 or 3 rooms and it might only be a mom or might only be a dad, or it could even just be a grandparent.

And so it's like how do you spread those children amongst those different rooms?

And there's no adult there.

And so they kind of last on the list a little bit longer than we would want for them.

Doni: So and these are folks who are trying their best.

Yes, they're trying their best.

Coleena: And many of them may be working already.

Doni: That's right, that's right.

Coleena: And like you said, not judging them.

Right.

Because everyone is not necessarily that they did something bad.

They might be doing everything right, but just life, right situation, the economy, etc.. Doni: You all, though in the city are approaching this pretty aggressively.

I was really impressed with the things that you all are doing under your leadership, under the leadership of Director Russ Clemons.

Great, great things happening.

In terms of collaborating with other folks, in terms of planning with other folks, do you want to give me some highlights?

Coleena: Yeah, and I'm glad you brought out Director Clemons.

She is such a forward thinker when it comes to, creating housing an looking at a very strategically.

She wants to do as much a we can with what little we have.

And so primarily when it comes to housing, we are not a developer.

But we like to collaborate.

We like to help and try to figure out, how do we help a developer navigate through this?

And sometimes they may be providing different funding.

And our primary funding source is Cdbg, Community block Grant or home funds.

And in terms of doing this and lately because of the pandemic we had some little extra money with the rental assistance program had some money for development.

Then there's also home ARP that has some money for development too.

So right now we'r in a good position, so to speak.

Having more funds that we typically have.

So that's that part right there.

But we're also looking at it like, well, what keeps us from having more housing?

Come on on online.

And right no we're looking at, our policies, we're looking at zoning, we're looking at, different templates so that if a developer is interested in coming to lead on to build a house or to build a multifamily housing, they can here's pick one of these off the shelf, so to speak.

It's already been past zoning.

It's already gone through all the different stringent criteria.

So if this is what you want to do, you found your location.

Here's one of them.

We also look at it too.

Right no there is an accessibility study RFP for accessibility study out because we're partnering with the Ability Center, because people forget about individuals who need accessible housing.

And that has never been looked at.

And in this particular study, we're looking at two things.

Number one, how many accessible units are out there?

We don't know how many people need accessible housing.

We don't know.

But getting a good handle on that will allow us, as we're lookin at bringing different type of, products online, housing products online, that we may need to concentrate on that right now if you're doing a substantial a renovation or building multifamily over X number, you know, 5% or s has to have accessible housing.

But if it turns out there to study that the demand is so much greater, we may have to revisit that.

It may be 10%, maybe 15%.

I don't know what the actual number would be, but that gives us an opportunity to find out what is needed out there.

So, you know, those are some of the things.

And then we're also, collaborating with other developers to bring different units online.

Doni: I want to talk about that.

If you guys are doing some great and innovative work.

But we need to go away for just a minute.

We'll be right back.

You'll stay with me?

Yes.

All right.

We will be right back.

Please go nowhere.

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Doni: Welcome back!

Remember that you can connec with us on social media pages.

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Again for this episod and any other additional extras, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

We are talking to Miss Coleena Ali.

Miss Ali is the, tenant landlord service manager for the City of Toledo and an expert in the area of affordable housing and housing development.

I'm so glad to have you here.

This is a conversation that i happening all over the country.

And as you mentioned in our first segment all over the world right now, lots of reasons that housing is not availabl at the level that it used to be, but the city is really working hard to get ahead of this problem.

Do, great collaborating, efforts to make sure that we're maximizing, as you said, the resources that we have.

And I want to talk to you a little bit about that.

Collaborations.

How important in this process?

Coleena: Well, first of all, city is a developer.

So it really takes a. Doni: Collaboration that the city doesn't.

Coleena: We do not build, or is very rare that that woul happen, let's put it that way.

But there are a lot of developers out there that are interested.

Toledo, first of all, is a very soft market.

And while there's developers out there because of some of our zoning, because of, while we talk about how affordable is even though the residents here would disagree, can they make th is there a return on investment?

You know, and so for the city, we look at it, as I mentioned earlier, strategically, how can we increase the housing stock out there?

Who can we work with?

Who is looking for assistanc to work with the city on this?

And so we've worked with number of developers out there.

Doni: So are you basically, since you're not developers, do you solicit developers or do developers come to you on their own and say, let's partner.

Coleena: A little bit of both?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, there may be an RFP or something out there, particularly when we do different funding cycles, such as a home ARP, you know, we have in front of that yet, but we did put a RFP out there for individuals or entities that were interested in doing some type of, maybe new construction or significant rehab.

So that was something that was out there too.

So we get approached a lot.

Oftentimes because they have a gap in their financing and they're looking to be able to supplement it.

The type of work that we're doing is usually geared towards the LMI population, lo to moderate income population.

And because the affordability of it is i is affordable in a lot of ways.

But if it was a market rate, they would make their money quicker.

And developers want to make their money.

The owners want to make their money and usually to make the numbers match.

There's usually this gap that's going on in the city a lot of times helps fill that gap, and we're part of what they call a capital stack.

And so when they they're building, it's not just the city's money, it' not just the developer's money.

It's off.

Often, maybe a federal home loan on top of it.

There's like tech that might be on it.

And so they call it that stack to get to that number to make it happen.

And so they approach the city, hey, we have this wonderful idea.

We think it'll work.

We start looking at the numbers.

And when we start looking at the numbers from the time we start having this conversation to we, you know, possibly close, that can easily take, you know, two years or more to make all of that happen.

And that's before you even put any type of shovel in the ground.

So it's a long production period for any of that.

Doni: There's a possibility for costs to increase during that year.

Coleena: Yes.

Unfortunately, yes, it does happen.

Doni: So is that why you, the you, the community that we live in are at risk of losing this, the LMI stoc because developers want to get, more money for what they build, and they can do that once the subsidies go away.

Coleena: Yeah.

Right now is project that we could be potentially losing up to 22% of subsidized housing by 2031.

And when we talk about subsidized housing, in this case, we're not talking about public housing.

We're talking about those, privately owned multi family developments that have a contract directly with HUD.

And, you know, for instance, some people may know like Moody Man, or they may know like an Ashland Manor, covenant House.

Those are subsidized directly through HUD.

And they have a period a contract with I, you know, usually 30 years.

Those contracts are starting to they will be coming up for, you know, expiration.

And so it'll be up to the owner to decide whom do I want to enter into a new Hap contract, as I call it, or do I want to go market?

Right.

And depending what the market may look like in 2031, we could be losing a significant number.

Doni: No kidding.

Those, those developments then get made into market rate housing.

Coleena: They could potentially go.

Doni: Into market rate housing.

Yeah.

So Carlino what are people supposed to do?

Coleena: Well, I'll tell you what I start.

I do a lot of praying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did a lot of begging.

And as a community, though, we have to have a community answer to this.

We have to look at it.

First of all, I'm glad you're having this conversation because it needs to be had more and more.

And we need to decide as a community the housing is very important.

We can't do economic development development without housing.

So let's make sure that it is something that we focus on.

Ideally is having, others represent us in Washington so that we can bring more money in, you know, definitely to Northwest Ohio.

And then also as a local area, what can we do?

One of the things that's kind of on the back of our mind that we've been looking at as a housing trust fund, we don't talk about that a lot, but some.

Doni: Explain to folks.

Coleena: What that is.

And so some some cities and communities have what's called a housing trust fund, and it allows them to be creative with, it's a funding sourc and allows them to be creative.

Some communities focus that strictly on like new development.

Some of it is rehab.

You can even do rental assistance.

This would be a sourc of funding to deal with housing and depending on the communities how they fund, it could be a bond.

Potentially it could be a tax or it could be some additional fees.

As a house or some property is sold so that that mone is continually put into this pot so that you can use it a a resource for new development.

And what's great about that is that funding source, depending how you do, it would not necessaril have to be for LMI populations.

Most of the money that we get at the city, is is earmarked for that.

But there's also this population that's over 80% and my or 200% am I.

And it sounds like that's a lot of money, but at the end of the day, is it I mean, somebody who's making 70 or $80,000, you know, with a family of three, you think you can make it work.

But sometimes that's still kind.

Doni: Of hard to.

Yeah.

Coleena: But they don't they, they're beyond the LMI, you know, threshold.

So, Housing Trust Fund will allow you as a community to say how you want to use it.

So hopefully that's something that we can get to within the next few years.

It would take a lot to stand it up, but I think it's.

Doni Staying at.

Coleena: That too.

But depending how you, you know, the model that you use, it'll go on forever potentially.

Doni: I'm going to ask you this before, before we lose you today.

Well, there's, there's what's a climate city.

And Toledo has the potential to become a climate city.

Am I getting that right?

Coleena Yeah, that that's something that it's been talked about recently.

Toledo will be in i the next decade a climate city, because look around.

What's going on in California right now.

The fires.

I'm not going to argue whether or not, you know, is climate change or anything like that.

But we do know something is happening out there.

We do know there's an increase in hurricanes and in and, Florida, we do know that Asheville, North Carolina, you know, the thousands of miles from the hurricane where it originally hit.

But they had a significant impact.

And so there are places that, either insurers will not insure.

And we're seeing that, of course, already, and if they're not assuring, that means you're not rebuilding.

Doni: Right?

Coleena: So where are these people going to go?

And we talk about the winters in, in, in Toledo, Ohio.

And it's an extremely cold da to day, but it's not that bad.

We don't get a lot of tornadoes.

We don't get a lot of flooding.

We don't get a lot of any of those lot of anything.

Yeah.

And so there's a potential that we may see a bigger population come over the next decade.

If that happens then and we are not producing as much housing as we need, then that becomes another stress point.

That becomes another, you know, housing stressor, meaning we don't have enough high competition.

It'll go up.

Doni: Wow.

There are issues on so many fronts.

This is a huge, huge discussion.

One other thing.

So we for those folks who unfortunately find themselves, about to be homeless or needin some advice in that direction, there is a coordinated entry system.

Is there not a coordinated entry into the service system?

Coleena: Yes.

For homelessness, that is through 211.

That is it's a very intense program or intense system.

Let me put it that way.

Homelessness.

There's not even an easy answer for that.

And the unfortunate thing too, if you call to that, you may not get in the shelter because they're full, especially on a cold day such as this, whether it's a single you know, type of, that, shelter or if it's a family shelter many of them are full right now.

And call two one if that happens.

But the thing of it is we want to try to help people before.

Doni: They get there.

Coleena: Before they get there.

Yeah.

That, like connecting to resources.

So we say two and one because you need housing, but call 211 because they have other resources till you want to get to it sooner than later.

Doni: It's help.

If I'm, if I know I' walking into an issue, if I know that next month or two months down the road, I'm going to be in real trouble in terms of my rent.

Do I call 211?

Coleena: Yes.

Really?

Doni: Yes, really.

That's really good to know.

Coleena: Yeah.

Definitely call 211.

Is something els that we have done with the city, and this is in partnership with other entities with fair housing, legal aid, the Toledo Bar Association.

I don't want to miss anybody able even uti clinic for, And look, I'm havin one of those things right now.

Doni: It just happens all the time.

Coleena: Right?

For their law school clinic.

But we have what's called tenant Tuesday, and we'll have one in April.

But what this does is it allows now, this is just strictly for renters and not necessarily a homeowner, but maybe, you know, you're about to be evicted or you had an eviction and you want to sell or you have a question on your leas or you have a housing condition.

Issue two we haven't even talked about housing conditions.

This is an opportunity where they can come and have one on one opportunity to speak to an attorney.

And that's.

Doni: What I wanted to see.

Coleena: Is Tenant Tuesday.

Yeah, we started that back in October of 22 just as a pilot to see how it would work out.

Overwhelming success.

So we started doing it on a quarterly basis last yea and will continue again at 25.

But the need for free legal advice is so important because who do you ask?

Doni: So where do peopl find out about Tenant Tuesday?

Coleena: So it's always on the City of Toledo's website when we put it out there.

They do, you know, a lot of releases put it in the news and things of that nature.

So the next one, we'll have an April don't have the actual date yet.

As soon as that is available, we'll definitely put that out so that people can register and attend that.

Doni: Okay.

You have about 30s.

What thought would you leave people with that?

Coleena: In spite of everything that were saying that, there's still hope that there are people that are working on even beyond the city.

There are people that are very concerned with this.

And if we stick together as community, we look we address this as a community.

I think we'll have the answers that we need.

Doni: Right.

And the city has eyes on this city as thousands.

Thank you so much, Kalina, for joining us today.

You have got to come back.

This is a huge discussion an we've only skimmed the surface.

Coleena: Yes.

Doni: Thank you.

And thank you all for joining us today.

I really appreciate your time.

You could have been anywhere else and you chose to be with us.

That's a good thing.

We'll see you next time... on To the Point.

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