Pink Rose Society

Housing and Cost of Living in Ohio

Housing is where Ohio's cost-of-living squeeze is most concrete, and both candidates in the governor's race run on "affordability." The verifiable picture is a supply crisis the state has met with incentives on one hand and limits on local tenant power on the other.

The shortage, in numbers

Ohio is short roughly 264,000 rental homes affordable and available to its lowest-income renters — only about 40 affordable units per 100 such households, with 71% of them severely cost-burdened. Columbus is worse on this measure (about 25 per 100) than San Francisco or New York City. A worker needs roughly $22.51 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom.

Evictions and homelessness rising

  • Evictions climbed in the big metros: Franklin County saw 25,329 filings in 2024 (up 6%); in Hamilton County, about 1 in 10 renter households faced an eviction filing.
  • Homelessness rose to 12,196 Ohioans in the 2025 count — a 3% increase even as national homelessness fell about 3%, a telling divergence.

What the state has (and hasn't) done

  • Incentives: the 2023 budget created a state Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and the ownership program Welcome Home Ohio; the 2025 budget added supply-and-zoning tools ("we have functionally zoned out the starter home," one Republican sponsor said).
  • Limits on tenants: the Ohio General Assembly preempted local rent control in 2022 (HB 430). There is no statewide protection against source-of-income (housing-voucher) discrimination — only a patchwork of local bans in a handful of Northeast Ohio cities.

Why it matters in 2026

  • Governor. Amy Acton's "affordability" agenda leans on tax credits, drug costs, and utilities but is thin on housing-specific policy; Vivek Ramaswamy would eliminate the income tax and roll property taxes back to pre-pandemic levels — which critics say would blow a multibillion-dollar hole in the budget that funds schools and local services.
  • Legislature. The Ohio General Assembly decides whether Ohio adds tenant protections or keeps preempting them, and how much it funds affordable supply.

Sources