“I think it will happen,” said Amy Riegel, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, who serves on the subcommittee that is researching housing trust funds. “I think right now we’re working on the questions of, What types of projects will the trust fund fund and how big will we aim for the trust fund to be?”
Ellen Sizer, a city of Dayton planner, recently told the Dayton Plan Board that a subcommittee has been meeting that is researching housing trust funds.
She said the subcommittee was an offshoot of the Dayton Housing Policy, which the city commission approved last year.
Members of the subcommittee include representatives from the business community, nonprofit organizations, CityWide and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, according to information shared with the Plan Board.
The group is expected to research housing trust fund models and the ways they are bankrolled.
The group hopes to identify banks and other financial partners and may draft a proposal, white paper or model to create a new fund for the city and Montgomery County.
Tony Kroeger, Dayton’s planning manager, said the housing fund is only a concept at this time.
Housing trust funds like the Ohio Housing Trust Fund offer grants, loans, loan guarantees and loan subsidies for projects and activities that create or expand affordable housing opportunities and supportive housing services.
Ohio Housing Trust Fund dollars can be used for housing development, emergency home repairs, accessibility upgrades and services related to housing and homelessness. Trust money money also can be used for predevelopment costs, rental assistance, housing counseling, rehabilitation and new construction.
Columbus has the $100 million Housing Action Fund, which offers loans at below-market rates to housing developers whose projects meet affordability requirements. The fund also is supposed to help finance workforce housing projects.
Riegel, with the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, said housing trust fund dollars often come from public and private sources, such as local governments, banks, insurance companies and corporations.
Trust funds often award loans that have lower costs than what is available in the private market, she said.
Riegel said she thinks a housing trust fund would be another good tool to attract new housing investment. She said hopefully the subcommittee will come up with a solid plan next year for a new fund that can be shared with potential investors.
Riegel said the Dayton region needs more housing, especially considering that a significant number of new jobs are headed this way because of investments by companies like Joby Aviation.
Joby, which makes electric “air taxis,” expects to employ about 2,000 people locally when its manufacturing operations are fully in place.
“We’ve attracted a lot of businesses into the community, and those businesses’ employees have to sleep somewhere at night,” Riegel said. “Making sure that we’re able to deliver on the housing part of those promises is incredibly important.”
About the Author
