Local

Sherrod Brown hosts roundtable on housing

By Justin Dennis
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, left, meets with with Ian Beniston, executive director of Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, right, and Mike Durkin, Youngstown's code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent, center, prior to a roundtable on affordable housing Monday morning at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. (Justin Dennis | Mahoning Matters)
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, left, meets with with Ian Beniston, executive director of Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, right, and Mike Durkin, Youngstown's code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent, center, prior to a roundtable on affordable housing Monday morning at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. (Justin Dennis | Mahoning Matters)

YOUNGSTOWN — Just last week, a woman was crying in the city’s code enforcement office.

She’d put $9,000 down on a home and had been making payments on the home’s land-installment contract for a year and a half. But after one missed payment, the owners were kicking her out, said Mike Durkin, the city’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent.

“She didn’t see the fine print,” Durkin said.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Cleveland, D-Ohio, invited Durkin and other local housing experts and advocates to a roundtable discussion on the obstacles to affordable housing Monday at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County along Wick Avenue.

“We have an affordable housing crisis in Ohio and all over the country,” Brown said in a release. “We need a housing system that works for everyone, whether they’re renting or want to buy a home, no matter who they are, no matter what kind of work they do, or where they live.

“That’s why I’m asking Ohioans to share their stories with me as we work to turn those conversations into policy ideas that help Ohio workers and Ohio families.”

Many of the predatory landowners known to city and county officials don’t operate in the state — or even in the country.

Durkin has seen landowners from Portugal, Belize, Singapore and elsewhere. He said one Australian company bought 10 homes along Ford Avenue within a six-month span — all for about $60,000.

Ian Beniston, executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, said the companies’ common practice is to scoop up low-value properties — for maybe a few thousand dollars — then leave repairs up to the residents who’ve signed land contracts, often for many times that amount.

“Housing is one of the most important determinants in the lives of all Ohioans and requires we all work together to create locally sensitive housing policy that will create safe and quality housing for all residents of our state,” Beniston said.

To submit your story on affordable housing or housing discrimination, or offer ideas on how to change federal housing policy, visit Brown’s dedicated web portal here.

This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 1:54 PM with the headline "Sherrod Brown hosts roundtable on housing."