Strike while the market is hot
City should step up land-bank sales
It’s great news that Columbus has nearly 40 percent fewer vacant and distressed properties than it did five years ago. At the same time, the city’s land-bank inventory — the abandoned properties it has acquired — is bigger than ever, with more than 1,800.
With the real-estate market heating up, city officials should redouble efforts to speed up the process of getting land-bank properties into the hands of willing redevelopers. The agency has been criticized for holding onto properties too long, allowing them to deteriorate further and sometimes even to detract from nearby homes in which someone already has invested.
The land bank plans to focus in the future on the most-blighted neighborhoods, including the Hilltop and North and South Linden, and buy fewer properties in trendier areas such as Olde Towne East, Merion Village and parts of Franklinton. Given the interest private developers already have in those areas, that’s appropriate. The city shouldn’t be competing with private dollars for properties that have market value.
For those properties it already owns in more-desirable areas, city officials should consider driving a harder bargain. Every dollar earned from selling a land-bank property can be used to buy more abandoned properties and demolish dilapidated homes that drag down property values and are a public nuisance.
To help babies, a home for mom
Cutting the shamefully high percentage of Ohio babies who die before their first birthdays is proving difficult. We hope a focus on helping to secure stable housing for vulnerable mothers-to-be will help move the needle.
A number of groups working to curb infant mortality in Ohio have added housing help to the list of other supports, which include prenatal medical care and education on safe sleep habits for babies. It makes sense; a woman who’s uncertain of the roof over her head is a lot less able to focus on all the other things that could keep her and her baby healthy.
The newest initiative combines efforts of the Community Shelter Board and Moms2B, Ohio State’s outreach program for pregnant women in high-poverty neighborhoods. With a $200,000 grant from Columbus City Council, the Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and Anthem Foundation, the effort hopes to link 20 families with safe stable housing for the long term.
Families will get financial assistance with their rent for 12 to 18 months, along with help finding jobs and addressing other problems.
In January, the CelebrateOne coalition, which grew out of the city’s Infant Mortality Task Force in 2014, announced it will help 50 pregnant women in extremely low-income areas find and pay for stable housing. Its grant of about $991,000 is from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
CelebrateOne also received $3.3 million from the state earlier this month. That will go to expand some local programs, including more than doubling a nurse-visitation program that provides care during pregnancy and baby’s first year.
Tax-funded Medicaid pays for half of all Ohio births, so helping poor women have healthier babies, along with being the right thing to do, is smart public policy.