CLEVELAND — Dennis Ashton, Street Outreach Coordinator with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, reports the calls for help from people who can no longer pay their rent has reached a peak.
Ashton told News 5 inflation, rising prices and the growing cost for rent in greater Cleveland are the primary reasons for an increase in the number of people falling into homelessness.
“I’m getting calls everyday, they can’t afford to pay the rent," Ashton said. “With the food prices going up, the gas and everything is going up, it’s hard to live. Even for a basic unit it would be like $800, $900 for an efficiency, now a one bedroom could run anywhere from $1,300.”
Chris Knestrick, Executive Director with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless pointed to a January 2023 report from national housing brokerage firm Redfin, indicating a 17.5% rent increase in Cleveland compared to the prior year. It's the second largest rent hike in the United States, second only to Raleigh, North Carolina.
Knestrick told News 5 the rent spike is such a big issue, his agency titledits most recent annual report "Rent is Rising and so are we." Knestrick said growing rent costs had the coalition assisting 330 homeless individuals with crisis intervention in 2022.
“As the prices are rising for so many of the people we work with and so many low income renters that it’s becoming more and more difficult to find any suitable housing," Knestrick said. “We see a lot of landlords that are increasing their pricing or there are properties changing hands and the new landlords are raising their rent.”
Michael Hahn, CEO of Cleveland's City Mission told News 5 the agencies Laura’s Home for homeless women and their children is filled to capacity, with a growing waiting list. Hahn reported the City Mission received 500 calls for help just last week, and believes peaking rent prices are the biggest reason for a spike in calls.
“It’s really almost six months we’ve seen our calls for service really skyrocketing," Hahn said. “Often 50% of their income goes toward housing and that’s just not affordable, you can’t maintain that level of payment."
Hahn believes more affordable housing must be created for a growing number of low income families.
"You then end up having to make choices, you have to make a choice between paying your rent, it might be putting gas in the car, it might be paying for food," Hahn said. “We need more housing, we need a higher inventory in Cleveland, particularly for families in the lower income.”
Tammy Mitchell, who is Laura’s Home Case Worker, who gives direct assistance to dozens of homeless woman and their children, believes significant investment at the federal, state and city level is needed to give local developers the incentives they need to build badly needed affordable housing inventory.
“So it's a shortage of units and landlords that are willing, we need more landlords who will accept EDEN or section 8," Mitchell said. “In my opinion what would make it better is people who care, developers that care and that’s their focus, to make housing and to make units so that this population can get safe and affordable housing.”
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