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Notice/Advertisement Title: Housing, Homelessness, and Building Committee Budget Hearing Minutes
Contact Name: Jessica Clinger
Contact Telephone Number: 614-645-6354
Contact Email Address: Jnclinger@columbus.gov
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Columbus City Council
Housing, Homelessness, and Building Committee Hearing Minutes
Hosted by Council President Hardin and Councilmember Tiara Ross
Wednesday, January 14, 2026 at 5:30pm
Call to order: 5:32pm
In attendance: Council President Shannon Hardin, Councilmember Tiara Ross, Councilmember Nancy Day-Achauer, Councilmember Nick Bankston, Director Scott Messer, Deputy Director Hannah Jones, Deputy Director Erin Prosser, Mercedes Wiley, Mark Carter, Shannon Isom, Carlie Boos, Ian Labitue, Shelley Whalen, Mindy Justis, Glen Tuomaala, Niel Jurist, and Graham Bowman.
- Council President Hardin welcome and introduction. Council President Hardin discussed the nature of the housing market in Columbus and housing instability including homelessness. Discussed Council actions to protect tenants, zoning reform and voters approved affordable bond package.
- Councilmember Ross - Introduction, need to have an honest, transparent and tough conversation about our housing market and crisis. Housing is the foundation of safety. I am concerned about resources for housing. Want to understand needs and capacity of Departments.
- Deputy Director Hannah Jones - Presentation on budget for the Department. Budget is divided between the housing stability division and housing division. Department aim to maintain and build new units of housing. Impact of capital dollars and federal dollars. Need staff to deploy funding. $22M operating fund budget that leverages more than $100M in other funds.
- Deputy Director Prosser - our overall approach is to address the whole spectrum of needs. Rent or mortgage payment. Families are experiencing less choice due to our housing crisis. There is housing scarcity. Limit ability to when families pay more than 30% of their income on housing. Less opportunities for housing. Families are increasingly at crisis of losing housing. Department help at all parts of the spectrum. We need to build more housing, in all neighborhoods. Need to build more housing units both rental and home ownership. Bond package brings more investments.
- Deputy Director Jones - Housing stability creation of the division will focus on residents facing displacement. Prevent instability and relocation. Resilience Housing Initiative helps tenants and comes after emergency rental assistance. Assist with access to counsel at eviction court for tenant facing eviction. Help to prevent homelessness. 2026 launch CORE team to reach unsheltered residents.
- Council President Hardin - How did you build this budget given constraints from the new federal government and uncertainty?
- DD Jones - Still uncertainty, moved some federal funded programs to general funds like tenant based rental assistance. ESG funding we still are able to follow terms of the grant. Working closely with CSB to spend those funds. Trying to understand the impact to our continuum. HOME-ARP was untouched and ERA winding down. Impossible to fill full federal funding gap.
- DD Prosser - Affordable bond package will help fill the gaps that may be displaced by HOME dollars. Some projects work well with HOME dollars. How do we take our bond dollars and leverage them.
- CP Hardin - In the Mayor’s budget some vacant positions were eliminated. How do we make sure we don’t see gaps?
- DD Jones - There is always a gap between need and capacity and given federal funding gaps it’s more true. We are working with Finance and Management to meet the needs we have.
- DD Prosser- Housing Division took time last year to improve our processes. Need to be efficient and use staff time well.
- CM Ross - How were you able to ?
- CP Hardin - We know homelessness is increasing and CSB request was not met. What is the need in the community that we will be facing if Council is unable to fill that gap?
- DD Jones - Need to continue to find alignment. Advocacy around winter warm centers was helpful to find funding. Try to close gap. RHI built in collaboration with COSHN and CSB, diversion tactic. Prevention and diversion are key. CSB shouldn’t have to own full system. RHI is run through the homeless hotline.
- CM Ross - I see cut in the home repair line item. Keeping people from being displaced from their home is key. Can we still support those families?
- DD Prosser - We know it’s key to preserve those housing units as naturally occurring affordable housing. We know it’s important and looking to use more bond dollars for that.
- CM Ross - Related to homeless outreach there have been numerous homeless outreach. Is there buy in from SIDs? How are we including other stakeholders?
- DD Jones - CSB does a great job convening stakeholders. Referral through 311 to go to homeless CORE team. Process for this.
- CM Ross - Mechanism for data sharing? Are we able to get there
- DD Jones - Will have agreement with CSB and data will be housed in HMIS. Stakeholders will have process to refer individuals. Data requirements to keep information?
- Director Messer - Changes over last couple years. Overview of Building and Zoning Services including permits. Last year we did 50K permits across the city, all plan reviews, over 100K inspections, robust compliance section, engineering section such as plans. Code enforcement was added to BZS from DOD, licensing and weights and measures added to BZS from public safety.
- BZS split between two budgets. Some in Development Services Fund from permitting fees. Most of the department is from the DSF. We have budgeted amount for Zone In. Contract with Habitat for Humaity and CCS. License and Weights and Measure budget cut back. Services will remain the same. Looking to make up shortfall with DSF. 24% cut from last year. Code enforcement vacancies were held and eliminated in next budget. General fund shift with code enforcement to DSF, 80% is now DSF. Registry fees now are coming into play now.
- CM Bankston - Can you talk about the types of uses for the Development Services fund?
- D Messer - Made up of all permit fees, code has restrictions on that fund. Must be used on activities related to private development.
- Messer - Trends for permitting went up at the end of the year. Maybe inflation, lack of predictability, and tariffs. Hope permitting goes up in 2026. Multifamily up in 2026. Zone in helped.
- CM Ross - Plan to fill vacant 6 code enforcement positions eliminated?
- Messer - Don’t know yet but looking at registry funds or increased permitting funding.
- CP Hardin - How is the fast track process going in terms of impact?
- Messer - Love to highlight, this is great work. Many departments have come together and streamlined affordable housing projects fast tracked. In 2025 we took average timeline for affordable housing projects and cut in half to 90 days. Project management teams, engineering and babysits those projects from start to finish, Meet with industry professionals every month and how to get these streamlined and moved along faster.
- Shannon Isom - CEO if the Community Shelter Board. CSB request to the City was $14.3M and city proposal was $5.7M. Need continues to grow and the population and gaps are growing. Need to align successful programming. $1.7M was added for warming centers. This brings our additional ask to $7.1M additionally. Construction of affordable housing has not kept pace. First time every emergency shelter bed is under one umbrella with CHOICES now under CSB. Mayor’s budget is for our core services including rapid rehousing and client services. Additional funds preserve today’s service levels and allows us to think about tomorrow.
- CP Hardin - Core services from the $5.7M from the Mayor’s budget. Then how does the additional $7.1M play into the system. Is it the additional funds to prevent homelessness.
Shannon Isom - No, that maintains a system that is overused from a capacity standpoint.
CP Hardin - What should be prioritized from CSB?
Shannon Isom - The extreme weather funding which is being prioritized by this administration. We need an infrastructure built out. Prioritized domestic violence. Prevention and diversion should be the first line.
- CM Ross - There is resistance by some to enter shelter. Is there an increase in folks on the land if there is more disinvestment?
- Shannon Isom - There is a correlation with folks can’t get into shelter and then wind up on the land. Prevention and diversion are key.
- CM Bankston - Council funding in the past helped to improve pay among shelter providers. Has it assisted in retention of staff?
- Shannon Isom - We raised our wages to $21 an hour.
- Carlie Boos - Executive Director, Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, as we grow, we need to protect our affordability for those who work and live here. Challenge of the data say that our housing needs have grown. 20% of all Franklin County tenants are housing burdened. Leading to increased instability. Need to earn over $27 an hour. 24,000 families received eviction filings. Homelessness has grown to record level. Overall we are preparing for 68% increase in unsheltered homelessness. The cities commitment is warranted. $5M Investment in RHI is really significant. Columbus Access to Counsel program protects access to justice and as a community we save $4 for every $1 spent. High impact opportunities for more inclusion such as homelessness system, resilience bridge and technical assistance for groups such as Yes in God’s backyard initiative.
- Ian Labitue from Affordable Housing Trust - Thankful for Putting Assets to Work, looking across the country for tools to solve housing crisis, YIGBY, and affordable housing prioritization. AHT exists to deploy $40M in loans to housing projects, protected and preserved housing. Worked with 12 developer partners. Adding to the pipeline.
- Public Testimony:
- Shelley Whalen - Community Mediation Services, CMS has helped tenants and landlords for over 30 year. We mediated nearly 2K disputes. We were able to facilitate agreements in 98%. We work on settlements to help tenants maintain housing or find new housing. We hold eviction prevention workshops to prevent evictions.
- Glen Tuomaala - Volunteer at 3rd Shift Warming Centers, deaths due to homelessness. 168 people died due to homelessness. We need drastic affordable housing. Vista Village is a good model. Everything is more expensive.
- CP Hardin - Closing remarks and thank you.
- CM Ross - Closing remarks and thank you.
- Adjourn at 7:45pm