OCDCA would like to welcome our newest members: Oberlin CLT and The Switch Anti-Trafficking Network. Welcome!

For more information on membership benefits or joining, please contact Amanda Crawford at (614) 461-6392 ex. 209.

The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority agreed last month to pay $14.5 million for the properties scattered throughout Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati. While continuing to operate them as rentals, the agency said it intends to upgrade and eventually sell the homes to their primarily low-to-middle-income tenants. “We plan to sell them at as low a price as we can,” said Laura Brunner, the Port Authority’s chief executive officer. Read the story at the Wall Street Journal. Also, hear more about this in a recent episode of All Sides with Ann Fisher. Learn more about how investors bought a record share of homes in 2021.

Last fall, YS Home, Inc. Executive Director Emily Seibel took part in a fireside chat keynote discussion for the annual conference of Ohio CDC Association, or OCDCA, speaking with Jamar Doyle, of Greater Collinwood Development Corporation, and Evelyn Burnett, of ThirdSpace Action Lab. Burnett, the featured speaker, answered questions about the role of Community Development Corporations (CDCs), and similar organizations in creating space for people of color in areas that investment groups have revitalized and gentrified. With permission from Seibel, the News has curated an excerpt of the conversation for its readers.

Our Prosperity Now Scorecard is a data tool that combines robust data on key racial economic justice policies across wages and wealth, business ownership and employment, and housing and homeownership, broken down at the city, county, metro area, Congressional District, and tribal area levels. We invite you to take a look at the updated policy data featuring interactive maps of policy implementation. Use the Scorecard as a guide to see where policies have gained momentum around the nation and push for bolder changes in other states.

NCRC’s Racial Economic Equity team is looking for collaboration on developing a framework to assess an area’s potential to expand homeownership for people of color. The framework will serve as a tool to discuss critical solutions to addressing the drivers and barriers to closing the homeownership gap. [Fill out this form if you are interested in collaborating] 

Join the Ohio Land Bank Association for their 11th Annual Ohio Land Bank Conference—LandBank U. ‘22! The conference will be held in Cleveland, April 27-29. Land Bank U. ’22!

America’s economic system and culture has from its beginning valued some lives over others. We need to create a new normal that is unlike the old. The old normal wasn’t built for everyone. It was indefensible. America needs a new reality rooted in a Just Economy. Join the Fight.

The event will feature inspiring examples of revitalization and emerging best practices. The Summit will showcase interventions for creating sustainable and livable communities, like zoning reform, active infrastructure investments, and population attraction. And the Summit will highlight strategies to build trust, collaborate, and carry out multipart projects that produce equitable outcomes. Register now.

The 12th Annual #PCRGSummit will be an intentionally inclusive union that highlights the struggles and efforts to address issues of race inequity. The Summit offers cross-sectional and regional collaboration opportunities in community planning, land recycling, affordable housing, transit-oriented development, and neighborhood revitalization.

The 2022 Mini-Grant Program will focus on organizations helping communities to assess and address a range of community conditions to assist them in developing and implementing new approaches to community safety. Proposed projects should expand how organizations currently serve communities (through mediation, restorative justice practices, conflict coaching, conflict management training, or dialogue processes) by offering a new or enhanced process to help people, institutions, and the community as a whole on their path toward re-imaging community safety. Mini-Grants of $15,000 for two years will be awarded to up to five organizations across the country. Nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and public agencies are eligible to apply. Deadline is March 7, 2022.

Awards will generally range from $5,000,000 to $50,000,000. Entities receiving awards will then distribute relief payments to frontline farmworkers and meatpacking workers who incurred expenses preparing for, preventing exposure to, and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Deadline is March 10.

City of Shaker Heights is hiring a Neighborhood and Housing Specialist.

The Well CDC, Akron, is seeking an Construction Project Manager.

The Well CDC, Akron, is seeking a Workforce Manager.

The Well CDC, Akron, is seeking an Akron Food Works Kitchen Coordinator.

The Well CDC, Akron, is seeking a PT Akron Hope Coordinator.

Ohio CDC Association is seeking a Summer Communications Intern.

Ohio Recovery Housing is seeking a PT Certification Review Coordinator.

Madisonville CURC, Cincinnati, is hiring an Executive Director.

Cincinnati Development Fund is seeking a PT Office Assistant.

Working in Neighborhoods, Cincinnati, is seeking a Fund Development Director.

There is one AmeriCorps VISTA Leader position in our office which still needs to be filled. VISTA Leaders are essential to the function of the OCDCA VISTA program. Learn more.

View more employment opportunities on our website. OCDCA members and our funders with employment opportunities may send their notices for free posting to Lisa Much. There is a small fee for non-members to post jobs.

A little more than three years following the passage of bipartisan payday loan reform, the Ohio Fairness in Lending Act, Ohio consumers have widespread access to safer, more affordable small-dollar loans, according to a recent Ohio Department of Commerce report. 

The landmark legislation has resulted in millions of dollars back in the pockets of consumers each year while preserving access to credit, just as Ohio lawmakers and advocates for reform— of which I was one — intended.

In 2020, the first full year of data reporting after the new law, lenders extended $99.7 million in credit through a quarter million loans.

Prior to reform, Ohio had the worst payday loans in the nation, with interest rates of 600% as common practice. Now the state has some of the strongest consumer protections and lowest prices in the country. Ohio’s law is pointed to as a national model, and bipartisan lawmakers in Virginia and Hawaii have already followed Ohio’s lead.

According to the Ohio commerce report, the average loan made under Ohio’s short-term loan act is $403. Before reform, it cost over $600 in fees to borrow $400. After reform, the average loan costs $112.

The success of the law has been hailed by lawmakers, coalition leaders and members of the business community from across the state. It has effectively put an end to the payday lending debt trap.

Despite plenty of kicking and screaming from the payday lending industry, who said the sky would fall if these reforms were enacted, Ohio policymakers did the right thing and put in place rules that work for both borrowers and businesses.

The facts show that we succeeded in striking a balance between making credit safer while accommodating law-abiding lenders. Workers and families can keep hundreds of their hard-earned dollars in their pockets, instead of having that money siphoned out of their local community’s economy.

I want to thank Ohio Rep. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield, and retired Rep. Mike Ashford, who championed reform, as well as all of my fellow coalition members.

This reform effort would not have come about without all of their hard work and determination facing off against a very well-heeled payday lending industry intent on avoiding any semblance of common-sense regulation and oversight.

Ohioans can be proud of this bipartisan law that is working as intended and has become a model of how to provide safer and more affordable credit while protecting consumers from predatory lending practices. Read Nate Coffman's op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch.

Thank you members and partners who helped champion this reform!

A state study panel formed in response to Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman (R- Lima) concerns over tax treatment of low-income housing kicked off recently with plans for a handful of future hearings. The newly established Federally Subsidized Housing Study Committee met for introductions this recently, though House members were not present due to a concurrent session. The committee stems from a provision in the biennial budget inserted by the Senate President that would have required federally subsidized residential rental property to be valued for tax purposes based on its market rent without factoring in governmental actions such as rent subsidization. The amendment came in response to concerns over subsidized projects' property values – a matter that was the subject of an Ohio Supreme Court decision. The committee is required to "submit a report to the General Assembly no later than July 1, making recommendations about the valuation and valuation process of federally subsidized residential rental property," according to the Legislative Service Commission. Committee Chair Sen. Louis Blessing (R-Colerain Twp.) anticipates that the group will meet two to three times.

From NACEDA: The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the Federal Home Loan Banks’ Mission Implementation Act on February 16. The bill would double the FHLBanks’ investment in affordable housing through the Affordable Housing Program, raising the required set-aside from net income from 10% to 20%. The legislation would also create a new community economic development grant program to create jobs in low-income communities and increase FHLBanks’ ability to invest in small business loans, among other provisions.

The White House released a Guidebook to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to make it easier for underserved communities to navigate available funding and help launch local planning efforts. All programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are subject to the President’s Justice40 Initiative, which provides that 40% of the benefits of relevant climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, clean water, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities.

The “Supporting Underserved Communities” section of the guidebook (pages 456–458) highlights ten key programs, including the Affordable Connectivity Program which is currently accepting applications from households seeking assistance with internet bills and computer purchases. Reconnecting Communities — a new program to reconnect communities divided by highways and other transportation infrastructure by providing funding for planning, design, demolition, and reconstruction of street grids, parks, and more — will open in the second quarter of 2022.