$200M in taxpayer funds for affordable housing left unused

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(The Center Square) – An Ohio program designed to make home ownership more affordable has been largely unused, prompting two state legislators to introduce bills to revive it.

The Single-Family Tax Credit Program and was created in 2024, designed to encourage public-private partnerships to build affordable single family or rehabilitate existing homes.

“Despite $50 million annually being appropriated for the program for four years starting in July of 2023, no funds have yet been utilized and only a handful of projects are in the pipeline,” State Reps. Andrea White, R-Kettering, and Tom Young, R-Washington Township, said in a news release.

That’s $200 million in taxpayer funds that have been left unused.

The two have introduced new legislation to modernize the program and hope it becomes more attractive to investors.

“House Bill 765 renovates an existing program so it can function in the real world housing market, attract more private investment and help more families find a place to call home,” the legislators said.

High interest rates, rising home values and limited inventory have made it difficult in recent years for many people to buy or rent homes, White and Young said.

The new legislation includes provisions to strengthen the Ohio Housing Financing Authority’s role in handling paperwork and enforcing affordability rules, the legislators said.

It also shortens from 10 to seven years the time that buyers with income of less than 30% of the sales price must stay in the home before selling.

“HB 765 keeps the original mission of increasing affordable homeownership intact, but restructures the program so it attracts more public-private investment in attainable single-family homes,” Young said.

The legislation is scheduled to be considered by the  House Development Committee in early June.

“What we wanted to happen with this program can happen, we just need to renovate the program so that it attracts investors and industry partners to move earth and help more Ohioans find their way to a home,” White said. 

The tax credits provided in the program offset the builders’ costs and allow them to sell the houses for more affordable prices, according to the program’s website. Buyers are required to live in the homes as their primary residences.

Each dwelling must include a minimum of two bedrooms and one and one-half baths, the website said.