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.

The fifth annual Donnell Land events are set to return to the Miami Valley on Memorial Day weekend, Friday–Monday, May 23–26. Organized by comedian and local resident Donnell Rawlings, the four-day event blends comedy, community spirit, outdoor fun and — this year — support for comedians in need.

Proceeds from Rawlings’ shows at Dayton’s Funny Bone Comedy Club Friday and Saturday, May 23 and 24, will benefit Comedy Gives Back, a nonprofit that offers financial assistance, mental health support and substance-abuse recovery resources to working comedians facing personal hardship. This year, the nonprofit also established a relief fund for comedians affected by the Los Angeles wildfires in January.

“I’ve always been a supporter of comics that need help in dire times,” Rawlings told the News in a recent interview. “That was me, like, 25 years ago. I wish it was something that existed then.”

On Saturday, May 25, Donnell Land’s traditional celebrity kickball game returns; past games have included appearances from Angela Eye, Talib Kweli, Mo Amer and Heather B. This year will feature the fourth, fierce face-off between returning teams, the Streets and the Creeks, with Rawlings as a member of the latter.

“The Creeks are up 2–1; we’re kicking butts,” he said. “We let the Streets win last year because, you know, we felt bad for them.”

As Rawlings told the News not long after he moved to the village in 2022, he coined the phrase “from the streets to the creeks” after developing a love for kayaking and canoeing.

To that end, Saturday afternoon offers a quieter contrast: Donnell Land participants will choose between meditating with Tibetan singing bowls in a sound bath or hiking the woodlands around Yellow Springs. Rawlings said he’s become especially fond of the village’s proximity to nature now that he’s lived here a few years.

“With all the crazy things going on in the world, it’s nice to go into the woods and just watch birds,” Rawlings said, adding with a laugh: “I know this is gonna test my gangster, but I’m a birdwatcher.”

On Sunday, May 25, registered guests will enjoy the invite-only “Sunday Funday” with classic outdoor games, music and food; hopefuls can still register for a chance to receive an invitation and join in.

Donnell Land closes on Monday, May 26, with the beloved annual “River Run” kayak and canoe trip down the Mad River at Birch Bark Livery, followed by a BBQ. Rawlings will record his podcast, “The Donnell Rawlings Show,” live during the cookout.

Rawlings said Donnell Land was originally inspired by friend and fellow comedian Dave Chappelle’s “Summer Camp” community gatherings and stand-up shows during the pandemic. He said he was “pretty much self-appointed” to create activities for both adults and kids during the gatherings.

“Once I got hooked on the kayaking and canoeing, I was like, ‘You know what? I got it from here — hold my beer,’” he said.

Rawlings said he aims for the annual Donnell Land events to create a space for laughter and reconnection.

“Donnell Land bridges a gap between young and old to create memories for a lifetime,” he said, adding that locals and out-of-towners alike have repeatedly come back for the annual series of events, sometimes sporting jerseys from past seasons.

Musing on those who return to the annual events and the oft-repeated local legend that those who drink from the Yellow Spring are destined to return, Rawlings offered his own twist on the maxim.

“Once you get the drinks at the Gulch, you’re definitely gonna return,” he said.

For more information on Donnell Land, go to http://www.donnellland.com.

The day after students from The Antioch School took their final bows for their annual school play on April 26, the doors to the Clifton Opera House closed to the public. Those doors likely won’t open again until late 2026 — but when they do, the 132-year-old building will have undergone a significant makeover.

Renovations are now underway at the Clifton Opera House and the nearby 153-year-old Clifton Union Schoolhouse, both projects funded by the state’s One Time Strategic Community Investment Fund, or OTSCIF. The program was funded as part of House Bill 2, an infrastructure bill passed by both the Ohio House and Senate in February 2024 and later signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine in June 2024.

OTSCIF allocates $717.8 million from the state’s general revenue fund to a wide range of regional and local community projects. The Village of Clifton was awarded $1.9 million for the renovation of the opera house and $3.9 million for the schoolhouse.

For the Village of Clifton, being granted nearly $6 million to revive two of its most historic buildings is an unexpected — nearly miraculous — boon.

“We’re a village of 155 people, and we have an operating budget of $90,000,” Clifton Village Council President Anthony Satariano told the News last week. “We can’t even comprehend that kind of money — so when they said, ‘Here’s some to fix it up,’ we said, ‘Thank you!’”

Council member Paula Lazorski said the Village has applied for grant funding from other state programs, including the Ohio Humanities, to update the opera house in the past, but has been routinely turned down. For that reason, the OTSCIF award was something of a surprise; the Village of Clifton didn’t apply for the funds, but instead had the renovations projects recommended by Gov. Mike DeWine.

The Governor called Lazorski last year, explained the parameters of OTSCIF and expressed a desire to visit Clifton and tour both the opera house and schoolhouse.

“We had several visits from [Gov. DeWine’s] group — the architect and attorney from the State Department and Sen. Bob Hackett — they all came down en masse,” Lazorski said. “We really didn’t know whether we would get anything or not — but when [Gov. DeWine] said, ‘Write up a wish list,’ boy, I was on it.”

The Clifton Union Schoolhouse — which sits on the line between Clark and Greene counties, its square-footage divided between each — was built in 1872 and served Clifton students until 1962. In recent years, the building has housed a community auditorium and a private art studio.  Lazorski said that community volunteers have done their best to keep the schoolhouse in relative working order over the years, but the OTSCIF award will likely be something of a game-changer for the historic building, replacing windows, repairing damage and ensuring that the building is structurally sound.

“They said it will last another 100 years,” she said.

The Clifton Opera House is no stranger to volunteer efforts, either — volunteers, Lazorski said, are the lifeblood of the venue’s operations, and they perform a “labor of love” keeping doors open for its regular weekend bluegrass jam sessions and performances. As beloved as the opera house is to its volunteers, audiences and returning performers — including Yellow Springs musicians and young thespians at YS Schools — the building has many needs.

“The stage leans down; we have doors that don’t close; the basement — ‘the dungeon,’ as I call it — needs to be completely rehabbed,” Lazorski said.

Stage repairs, new plumbing and electric, updated ADA accessibility, an elevator to the auditorium’s balcony, a new stage lift, repairs to “the dungeon” and cosmetic updates inside and out are slated to be completed — though Lazorski said one frequent performer told her they would “miss that leaning stage.”

What performers and audiences won’t have to miss is the auditorium’s iconic hand-painted backdrop mural, painted by Sharon Benedict in 2011, which depicts Clifton through the seasons. The backdrop, Lazorski said, as well as the opera house’s lighting fixtures, will be preserved and remain in the auditorium.

The state’s projected date for finishing work at both buildings is December 2026; until then, Clifton Opera House will continue to hold its bluegrass jams and concerts just a block away at Clifton Presbyterian Church.

Council President Satariano said that, looking ahead, the Village of Clifton aims to capitalize on the improvements at both buildings with a goal of making them “self-sustaining.”

“The opera house is going to continue to have bigger and better shows, so that’ll help [it] pay for itself,” he said. “With the schoolhouse, we’re in idea mode — what can we put in there? Separate shops or rentals — something that pays toward the insurance and the utilities.”

At the same time, Clifton has long leased its former firehouse to Miami Township Fire-Rescue for storage; the Township and Clifton recently agreed to end the lease. Clifton will, for the time being, use the building as storage while renovations are underway, but Satariano said the Village hopes to use it in the future as a community meeting space and home for the Clifton Preservation Society.

All of these goals, he said, recognize House Bill 331, approved last year and enacted this April, which outlines new guidelines for dissolving Ohio villages. According to the new law, all Ohio villages will be evaluated every 10 years following the federal census to determine if they should be considered for dissolution.

“We feel we need to show we’re good stewards of our community and that these buildings will basically be funding themselves,” Satariano said.

Having moved to the village in 1962 when she was a toddler and living there off and on for much of her life, Lazorski said she’s seen Clifton through a number of ages and stages. Despite its size, Lazorski said, Clifton remains a vibrant place to live. During her interview with the News, she was taking a break from planning for the annual Clifton Gorge Music and Arts Festival, slated for Aug. 22 and 23 this year.

“Our festival is really, really growing,” she said. “But we also have the Clifton Mill lights, a Fourth of July potluck, a Halloween hot dog roast and hayrides. Clifton is a great community, and we’re excited that these historic buildings are being preserved.”

Elsewhere in Greene County, the OTSCIF program has awarded $12 million to Cedarville Opera House; $3.5 million for future development of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; $1 million for a future sensitive compartmented information facility in Fairborn near Wright-Patt; $1 million to Beavercreek’s Spring House Park; $500,000 for upgrades at the Wright State University Archives; $175,000 for an OhioMeansJobs accessibility project; and $150,000 for expansion and upgrades at Ohio Veterans’ Children’s Home in Xenia.

As innumerable downtown businesses and boutiques have come and gone over the years, one has remained at the corner of Xenia Avenue and Short Street since 1927: a small-town, independently owned hardware store.

Over those 98 years, the hardware store — first Deaton’s, then Downing’s and later Yellow Springs Hardware — has only changed hands four times, and all the while, it’s been the downtown outlet for bits and bobs, birdseed and bolts, chess matches and chit chat.

That era has come to an end.

Yellow Springs Hardware owner Dan Badger is closing up shop after nearly four years of running the business.

“I’m grateful we got to have this time together, to be connected to my community in this way,” Badger told the News in a recent interview. “This whole experience has been such a positive one for me and my family, but we just can’t afford to keep doing it.”

Though Badger and his wife, Sarah, publicly announced YS Hardware’s “soft closure” on social media last week, Badger said no hard date has been set for when business will cease altogether.

YS Hardware, located at 254 Xenia Ave., will remain open 1–5 p.m., Wednesday–Saturday, until inventory winnows down.

To expedite that process, the business is running a “grand closing sale,” offering 30% off on all hardware and household products with a price tag.

“A lot of things are intentionally being kept as open as possible,” Badger said. “We’re leaving time and flexibility to see if any long-shot ideas come to the surface.”

Citing uneven competition between nearby big box stores — such as Menards, Lowe’s and Home Depot — as well as mounting supply chain issues and shifting consumer behaviors, Badger said he’s had to take on a growing number of odd jobs and projects outside of YS Hardware to keep the store afloat in recent months.

“Generating the money to subsidize the store has become a full-time job,” Badger said.”My handyman work, automotive work, aircraft work, programming, huge projects, little projects — all this just to cover the gap between what the store earns and what it costs.”

After months of repeating that vicious cycle — spending more time outside of the store just to keep it open, and from that absence, watching the quality of the store decline — Badger said he and his wife were forced to make the hard decision to close.

While the future of the retail space is in flux, Badger said with certainty that the odds are stacked against any independently owned hardware store residing there.

“We’ve spent the last six or seven months meeting with people and groups in town, trying to figure out some way to keep a hardware store in this space, and none of those conversations have been particularly successful,” Badger said.

He continued: “We’re doing our best to keep this space as a place that will be useful and valuable to the community, but that’s a hard thing to do. Businesses here in town are not doing well right now, so how do you ask someone else to take that on?”

Badger declined to name the individuals and groups with whom he has been speaking about keeping the store’s doors open, but did specify the similar struggles of some other local businesses — such as Tom’s Market and YS Pharmacy — whose products and services cater more to village residents than visitors.

“Yellow Springs is not a rural community anymore,” Badger said. “We’re right down the street from bigger towns with bigger stores with bigger selections and lower prices. And when all those things are just 10 or 15 minutes away, villagers are forced to choose between paying more to keep local shops open, or saving money.”

Badger doesn’t necessarily blame people who shop at the big box retails for YS Hardware’s closure — by his own admission, he shops there occasionally as well. Nor did he begrudge visitors to the village for not spending more dollars at the hardware store, as he never geared his business model to those beyond the 2.5 square miles of Yellow Springs.

But Badger did encourage local residents with some more disposable income than others to consider patronizing businesses that some could not do without.

“There is a cohort of at least several hundred residents who don’t drive, don’t have good access to transportation or don’t have the ability to jump on Amazon to order what they need — these are the kinds of people who will be really affected negatively without the hardware store, without Tom’s, without the pharmacy,” Badger said.

For these grim possibilities, Badger said he and his wife are experiencing some feelings of sadness and frustration, but are trying not to dwell on those emotions. He said he was happy to play a small role in Yellow Springs’ hardware history.

“I’ve gotten to bike to work, to see my son go to school across the street. I’ve gotten to see so many people I love every single day,” Badger said. “Like so many people in town, I feel such an emotional connection to this space.”

Glenn Deaton was the first purveyor of hardware in that space — a building that was built around 1853, and is one of the oldest in Yellow Springs.

Deaton opened Deaton Hardware Co. on Jan. 24, 1927, and operated it until his tragic death in March 1949 when a drunk driver killed him as he ran across the street to open the store for a customer on a Saturday night. His son, Wilbur, then ran the store until selling it to the Downing family in 2000. They passed the torch to Gilah Pomeranz and Shep Anderson in 2017. Four years later, the Badgers took over.

Under the latest owners, the hardware store grew into more than just a retail space for tools, pipes and seeds — to help offset the costs of doing business, Yellow Springs Hardware hosted ticketed comedy shows, musical performances, craft workshops, aviation instruction, improv classes and more.

“The hardware store has always been a lot of different things to a lot of different people in the community,” Badger said. “I think that’s why so many of us felt a sense of ownership in it.”

On Thursday, May 1, President Trump issued an executive order demanding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting cease all federal funding to NPR and PBS, spurring uncertainty for public media across the country and even here in Yellow Springs.

That executive order, titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” could mean Yellow Springs-based NPR member station 91.3 WYSO loses $300,000 in expected funds for its upcoming fiscal year.

According to WYSO General Manager and village resident Luke Dennis, the CPB’s Community Service Grant accounts for nearly 10% of WYSO’s annual budget, which in 2025 was $2.9 million.

“Those unrestricted operating funds allow us to pay the salaries of our hardworking staff and to literally pay the electric bill for our 50,000-watt transmitter,” Dennis told the News last week. “It will be an enormous challenge to replace that $300,000, especially with almost no notice. We will have to lean even harder on our generous listeners, who already donate nearly $1.5 million to WYSO each year.”

President Trump’s executive order states that the CPB’s federal funding of NPR and PBS follows an “outdated and unnecessary” media model — one that is “corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence” and that runs counter to “fair, accurate, unbiased and nonpartisan news coverage.”

In the weeks since the signing of the order, the CPB has launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

NPR’s Senior Vice President of Communications Sarah Walls said in a statement released earlier this month that NPR will “vigorously defend [its] right to provide essential news, information and life-saving services to the American public.”

“The President’s order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America to produce and air programming that meets the needs of their communities,” Walls’ statement read.

Like Walls, Dennis sees President Trump’s actions as a blunt attack on the fourth estate at large, describing it as a form of censorship.

“I disagree with every piece of language in that executive order,” Dennis echoed. “You know, I wish we had a model where there was a fully subsidized public media in this country. I stand by our journalism — it’s as fair, transparent and middle-of-the-road as anything you’re going to find.”

Dennis said that without the anticipated $300,000 in the 2026 budget, the station may have to roll back some of its national programming, potentially taking NPR shows like “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “Fresh Air” or “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” off local airways. Cutting healthcare costs may be another avenue WYSO could make up lost funds, Dennis added.

“But no matter what, I will be damned if we’re going to do any staff reductions,” Dennis said.

“We have worked for so many years to get where we are — we finally have the newsroom we want, a music department that’s really cranking, a great Center for Community Voices,” he said. “There is just no fat anywhere in our [organizational] chart, so we’re looking to save money elsewhere.”

Currently, WYSO is staffed by 21 full-time employees, and according to Dennis, is still set to grow in both its operations and physical footprint. With or without those contested federal subsidies, WYSO is on track to move in October from its longtime home at Antioch College into the Union Schoolhouse.

Owned and under construction by Iron Table Holdings, LLC — local resident and comedian Dave Chappelle’s development company — the renovated Union Schoolhouse, built in 1872, will provide WYSO improved spaces for broadcasting, reporting, performance and hosting community events. 

Despite that glimmer of hope on the local front, Dennis said he remains fearful for the future of public media should it continue to be defunded. He specifically cited the CPB’s ability to broker agreements for music licensing that allow smaller-sized member stations to broadcast robust and eclectic playlists.

“The CPB represents the public media system to music rights organizations in negotiating blanket music licenses for noncommercial uses of music, and with a portion of the federal appropriation, the CBP pays those licensing fees for all eligible public media stations,” Dennis said. “If that service goes away, stations like WYSO will not be able to afford to play all the amazing music that we do.”

While WYSO can absorb some cuts to its budget, Dennis worries that may not be the case for smaller NPR member stations — especially those in more rural communities. Should they falter, the whole nationwide network of news-sharing between stations would suffer.

“Our ability to be in conversation with other NPR affiliates throughout the rest of the U.S. is imperiled by federal funding going away,” he said. “What will happen is a great hollowing out of the whole center of the country, where in some places, a federal subsidy could be as much as 50% of their operating budget.”

He continued: “So what that means is that if something significant happens in a small town in, say, Missouri or Oklahoma, NPR would have to parachute reporters in from larger cities who don’t know those communities as well.”

He gave the example of last fall when Springfield, Ohio, fell under the national limelight when stories were falsely peddled about Haitian immigrants eating the pets of area residents, fueling national xenophobia and racism.

“Had it been up to the national media to tell that story, it would have been incomplete,” Dennis said. “We filed national stories [with NPR], and because we were already here and always prioritize sharing the microphone with other people, the country was able to hear the voices of actual Haitian community members. We were able to build relationships locally.”

To support WYSO, PBS, the CPB and other public media outlets in the U.S., Dennis recommended going to http://www.protectmypublicmedia.org, a website that prompts individuals with up-to-date information on federal decisions, as well as contact information for legislators and petitions that advocate for public media support.

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