Source: United States Senator for Ohio Sherrod Brown
DEFIANCE, OH – Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) visited the Defiance City Council Chambers to discuss housing needs with local government leaders and advocates. Communities around Ohio need bold infrastructure investments to reach their full economic potential, including investment in housing.
“Right now, housing is too expensive and too hard to find for too many Ohioans. Ohio towns like Defiance can’t reach their full potential and can’t attract new jobs and new residents if we don’t fix the issue of housing scarcity in our communities. We need to recognize that housing is infrastructure, and we must make a significant investment in building more homes people can afford, improving the housing we already have, and making it more affordable,” said Brown.
Brown supports significant investments in housing infrastructure like those in the American Jobs Plan, which would invest $2.3 trillion for infrastructure, including $213 billion for building, preserving, and retrofitting homes and for community development. The American Jobs Plan also includes additional proposed tax credits to support creating and preserving affordable housing and energy-efficiency investments.
Brown believes we must invest in the people and the communities that make this country work, and has called for investments like those in the American Jobs Plan to provide historic, much-needed investments in our nation’s infrastructure, affordable housing, school facilities, manufacturing and skills training, and more – all while creating good-paying American jobs.
Brown was joined by Guiseppe Blanchard of the Defiance Dream Center; Caren Bauer of the New Home Development; Susan Cheeseman, Director of Homeless Services for the Northwestern Ohio Community Action Commission; Rob Giesige, CEO of the Four County ADAMhs Board (Williams, Fulton, Defiance and Henry Counties); Jenny Hoeffel of the Maumee Valley Guidance Center; Brian Horst, of the Consortium of NW Ohio Housing Authority; Liz Keel of the Maumee Valley Planning Authority; Rita Kissner, the Former Mayor of Defiance, OH; Erika Willitzer, Executive Director of the Defiance County Economic Development; Niki Warncke, Defiance City Planner; Erika Willitzer, Executive Director of Defiance County Economic Development; and Abby Wolfrum – Executive Director of the Defiance County United Way.
“There’s a shortfall of houses in the U.S. and that’s no different than in Defiance County, Ohio. Coming up with a solution will mean expanding access to construction resources, creating incentives for new development, and recognizing the importance of housing infrastructure. This type of movement will require all levels of government participation. By having US Senator Sherrod Brown here in Defiance for a housing round table discussion, it not only sends the right message of collaboration, but it also says smaller – rural areas are just as critical to the overall health of our economy,” said Erika Willitzer, Executive Director, Defiance County Economic Development.
“In the past five years, our area has experienced a 136% increase in those seeking homeless assistance and a 190% increase in the length of time it takes to secure permanent housing. To illustrate, last week an apartment was listed locally on social media and within 48 hours the landlord had 90 inquiries about it. We are seeing more clients in need of housing and that housing simply isn’t there. But there is not only limited housing for the homeless. There is limited housing for everyone,” said Susan Cheeseman, Director of Homeless Services, Northwestern Ohio Community Action Commission.
“Maumee Valley Planning Organization is committed to improving housing for low and moderate income citizens through the local communities’ awarded Community Housing Impact & Preservation (CHIP) funds and through collaboration with other funding agencies. There is also an identified need for new market rate housing in our region and finding a way to meet the housing needs is challenging,” said Liz Keel, Housing Coordinator, Maumee Valley Planning Organization.
The American Jobs Plan contains several critical investments – including housing – that would benefit Ohioans and their communities. The proposal would:
Build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million homes and commercial buildings, modernize our nation’s schools and child care facilities, and upgrade veterans’ hospitals and federal buildings, by:
- Building, rehabilitating, and retrofitting affordable, accessible, energy efficient, and resilient housing, commercial buildings, schools, and child care facilities all over the country, while also vastly improving our nation’s federal facilities, especially those that serve veterans
Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers, the majority of whom are women of color, by:
- Making substantial investments in the infrastructure of our care economy by investing in our caregiving economy workers
- Ensuring home and community-based care options for older adults and individuals with disabilities
Fix highways, rebuild bridges, and upgrade ports, airports and transit systems, by:
- Modernizing 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main-streets
- Repairing the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, providing critical linkages to communities
- Dedicating funds to support ambitious projects that have tangible benefits to the regional or national economy
- Replacing thousands of buses and rail cars, repairing hundreds of stations, upgrading airports, and expanding transit and rail into new communities
- Creating good manufacturing jobs by producing electric buses to replace 50,000 outdated public transit buses, and at least 20% of the nation’s school bus fleet
Deliver clean drinking water, a renewed electric grid, and high-speed broadband to all Americans, by:
- Eliminating lead pipes and service lines in our drinking water systems, improving the health of our country’s children and communities of color
- Putting hundreds of thousands of people to work laying thousands of miles of transmission lines and capping hundreds of thousands of orphan oil and gas wells and abandoned mines
- Bringing affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every American, including the more than 35 percent of rural Americans who lack access to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds
Revitalize manufacturing, secure U.S. supply chains, invest in R&D, and train Americans for the jobs of the future, by:
- Ensuring that the best, diverse minds in America are put to work creating the innovations of the future while creating hundreds of thousands of quality jobs today
- Using strong “Buy America” requirements to ensure American workers build and make things in every part of the U.S., and they’re trained for well-paying, middle-class jobs
- Expanding the manufacture of clean energy technology and electric vehicles to create jobs and fight climate change
Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers, by:
- Ensuring that American taxpayers’ dollars benefit working families and their communities, and not multinational corporations or foreign governments
- Requiring that goods and materials are made in America and shipped on U.S.-flag, U.S.-crewed vessels
- Ensuring that Americans who have endured systemic discrimination and exclusion for generations finally have a fair shot at obtaining good paying jobs and being part of a union
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