YS Home, Inc. Executive Director Emily Seibel testified before the Ohio Senate’s Government Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday, May 7. (Submitted photo)
Ohio budget bill targets housing affordable housing funds
- Published: May 24, 2025
As the News reported last week, the Ohio Senate is currently holding committee hearings on House Bill 96, the state’s budget for fiscal year 2026 — as written, the bill slashes public funding in a number of arenas.
Last week’s reporting focused on how the budget bill would affect the fiscal operation of local public schools if passed as written; this week, the News looks at how funding for affordable housing efforts — in particular, those of local nonprofit YS Home, Inc. — could be affected.
HB 96 includes a provision that would eliminate a requirement for counties to contribute 50% of county recorder fees to the state’s Ohio Housing Trust Fund — a central state funding source that supports affordable housing opportunities and services for low-income residents.
YS Home, Inc. Executive Director Emily Seibel was one of several people who testified before the Senate’s Government Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday, May 7, in order to petition for the provision’s removal from the budget bill.
“We’ve been steadily developing homes in our area for more than 25 years; the trust fund is one of the only governmental resources available for smaller rental projects,” Seibel said during the committee hearing. “The trust fund has provided about $2.5 million to make it possible to develop right-sized, non-tax-credit, affordable rental housing projects in our rural service area.”
The News spoke with Seibel following her testimony last week; she said that the Ohio Trust Fund has, thus far, provided significant funding for three Home, Inc. low-to-moderate rental home projects, accounting for $500,000 toward Forest Village Homes, $525,000 for Glen Cottages, and nearly $1.5 million for eight rentals in the first phase of The Cascades, which is currently under construction.
As the News has reported in past issues, The Cascades — which is being built between Herman and Marshall streets — will, when all of its planned phases are complete, encompass 22 rental units for seniors and 10 for-sale townhomes with no age restrictions.
Thus far, Home, Inc. has secured over half a million dollars in funding for the second phase of The Cascades from a number of donors, including the Federal Home Loan Bank, Wright-Patt Credit Union, the Finance Fund — funded through the Ohio Housing Trust Fund — and Centerpoint Energy Foundation.
However, Seibel said, Home, Inc. was aiming to apply for about $1.4 million — about 65% of the total development cost — for the second phase of The Cascades from the Ohio Housing Trust Fund this summer.
“If that funding source goes away, we would have to find additional resources for about $1.4 million, in addition to the funds we’ve already secured,” she said.
She added that, if the Ohio Housing Trust Fund is dismantled, Home, Inc. won’t give up on The Cascades.
“We’re all in — it’s our priority development project,” she said. “But it would be challenging.”
If the recorder fees provision is included in the final version of the budget bill, counties will keep their individual shares of recorder fees rather than divert them to the Ohio Housing Trust Fund. Seibel pointed out that smaller, rural counties — like Greene County — have routinely benefited from having access to the Ohio Housing Trust Fund’s pooled resources by receiving more in grants than they pay into the fund in recorder fees.
“Greene County, in a single year, would likely not get $1.5 million dollars [in local recorder fees] to give out, so the Trust Fund allows for larger, one-time investments,” she said. “It’s an equitable distribution of resources — and half of the money [from the Ohio Housing Trust Fund] has to go to rural areas. … The alternative funding source is tax credits — which, as we know, are very difficult to come by.”
The Ohio Housing Trust Fund’s uncertain fate comes amid threats to affordable housing funding at the national level. The USDA and its Rural Housing Service and Development programs are currently under federal scrutiny, with a plan to downsize and reorganize the department expected this month. The USDA offers grants and low-interest home loans to rural residents; Home, Inc. received about half of Ohio’s funding from USDA’s Housing Preservation Grants last year for locals to receive home repair funding, and have packaged low-interest USDA home loans in the village and a dozen counties within the state.
Earlier this month, President Trump released his 2026 discretionary budget request — known as the “skinny budget” — to outline the administration’s spending priorities for fiscal year 2026. The “skinny budget” request includes slashing about $26.72 billion from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s rental assistance programs — a budget cut of about 43%.
There have been some victories for affordable housing advocates, however; in late February, HUD sent a notice to national housing and equity nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners indicating the cancellation of almost $40 million in affordable housing grants. In April, Enterprise successfully lobbied HUD to reinstate the funding.
With that victory in mind, Seibel urged local residents to reach out to Ohio Sen. Kyle Koehler and ask him to work toward removing the provision that would defund the Ohio Housing Trust Fund from the budget.
“If there’s one thing that Yellow Springs is great at, it’s coming together to rally around an issue,” she said. “At the state level, one voice goes a long way, and people are already stepping up to participate.”
She added: “This is a great way to act for social justice and affordability and elevate the issue at a time when, frankly, affordable housing is under attack on many different fronts.”
The Ohio Senate is expected to put forward a draft budget the last week of May and vote by mid-June.
See Seibel’s page 4 letter to the editor in last week’s print edition of the News for more on the Ohio Housing Trust Fund.
*This reporter is married to a member of the YS Home, Inc. board and owns a home purchased through Home, Inc.
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