Michael Keating / WVXU
Cincinnati voters on May 4 will be faced with a decision on Issue 3, a ballot initiative that would direct the city to spend at least $50 million a year on affordable housing.
But there is considerable disagreement about how much housing the region needs. In 2017, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation of Greater Cincinnati released a study suggesting urban areas in Hamilton County needed 25,000 more units of housing affordable to its lowest-income residents.
Recently, as debate about Issue 3 has intensified, some have questioned that number. Among those skeptics is Cincinnati City Council Member Steve Goodin. He touts other numbers suggesting Cincinnati s affordable housing gap is considerably smaller. Goodin also wants the city to consider ways to avoid concentrating new subsidized housing in neighborhoods that already have it in large amounts.
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Editorial: City charter never intended to be budgeting tool
Enquirer editorial board
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The cause is noble. Create more housing for low-income families and individuals. But Issue 3, which if passed would require the city to put $50 million into an affordable housing trust fund, is not the right way to go about it.
Affordable housing is a real problem for tens of thousands of city residents. A 2017 study by Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) estimated Cincinnati needs about 28,000 more affordable housing units for poor and working-class families. And the fact that more than 9,200 residents signed a petition to get Issue 3 on Tuesday s primary ballot shows how serious some are about solving the problem.