The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Study provides fresh look at housing
A new study offers a portrait of the people of Lorain and the houses they live in.
“City of Lorain Comprehensive Housing Assessment and Needs Analysis” was prepared by three authors at Cleveland State University’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs.
Authors Kirby Date, Charlie Post and Rachel Riemenschneider compiled 133 pages with tables, photos, maps, statistics on property values and resident incomes and ages.
Various appendices run another 71 pages.
“Really, it was to get a comprehensive look at our housing needs throughout the city,” said Max Upton, director of the city Department of Building, Housing and Planning.
In recent years, the Western Reserve Land Conservancy assigned letter grades to houses for good, fair or poor condition.
The new study builds on that.
“The second piece of that is assessing supply and demand and gaps so that we can reposition Lorain neighborhoods for reinvestment and reinvestment,” Upton said.
The study authors cautioned that circumstances could change because no one yet knows the longterm economic effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
But, it could become another resource for neighborhood-level city planning.
“I think it quantifies a lot of the things that we, and the residents of this city, probably knew already, but I would say it equally brought to light things that we did not know,” said Drew Crawford, city planning and zoning administrator.
Lorain City Council took the study under advisement April 5, but has not discussed it in depth yet.
“It’s very, very comprehensive, and I think it’s going to be a good tool and good data for us to use moving forward to help with our housing and commercial development in the future,” said Councilman-at-Large Mitch Fallis.
Fallis thanked the Building, Housing and Planning Department and Upton for the work.
Good news
The report lists its findings, recommendations and conclusions and is not all bad news.
For example, Lorain has seen investment in the last 20 years, especially downtown.
The city’s housing is affordable and current residents are a solid market.
Lorain could use more housing options for low-income, high-income and senior residents.
Housing rehabilitation is critical and programs to manage vacancies, foreclosures and evictions are doable, but urgent, the report said.
The appendices offer suggested programs the city could use to help residents improve their properties
In the neighborhoods
The study divides Lorain by its eight City Council wards and neighborhoods within them.
The authors found the downtown neighborhood of Ward 2 demographically has the lowest median household income, at $25,860, and the highest percent of households under the poverty level.
It has the highest percent of households on public assistance, an estimated 61.5 percent rental occupancy and the most houses — 156 — in need of demolition among the parts of the city.
The study estimated Lorain’s Hispanic-Latinx population has grown from 20 percent in 2000 to 29 percent in 2019.
They are concentrated in South Lorain, made up of Wards 5 and 6.
“The Hispanic community in Wards 5 and 6 is a significant draw for members of that Community,” the study said. “As they gain savings and move into higher income groups, some would like to find housing that they can now afford, while remaining in the neighborhood.
“Others move to other parts of the City, while remaining in Lorain.”
Diversity
Lorain’s non white population is concentrated in certain neighborhoods, but overall, Lorain has more racial and ethnic diversity than state and federal averages, the report said.
“The diversity of the city continues to be a tremendous asset, and I think that perhaps the people who live here and work here, we kind of forget this or just don’t think about it on a daily basis,” Crawford said. “But the ethnic-cultural diversity of the city and diversity in other ways, is a tremendous asset and it really is unlike, I think, a lot of places in the region.
“Cleveland is diverse by de facto, but I think a city the size of Lorain, is incredibly diverse, and that makes it incredibly unique.”
Cheap vs. affordable
“One of the most important things we can take from this is, housing affordability, particularly with respect to rentals,” Upton said.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development sets a threshold at 30 percent to measure affordability.
If a tenant is paying 30 percent of their income, or more, for rent, it makes it tougher to afford groceries, utilities, medical bills or shoes for the youngsters, Upton said.
Measuring the median rent and median household income of renters, the rents in Lorain are not affordable, he said.
“So, while we have a lot of renters, our rents are such that they are not affordable at the 30 percent test that HUD deems as affordable,” Upton said.
That was shocking because it appears Lorain has a lot of cheap housing, he said.
“Cheap and affordable are two different things, right?” Upton said.
Strategic growth
Crawford explained several other findings and implications in the study.
Lorain needs a major focus on rehabilitations, with a minimum of 500 to 700 housing units upgraded a year to maintain decent housing stock, he said.
Crawford added he would guess that is on the higher end, but the report does not have data to compare Lorain to other legacy cities across northern Ohio.
The city has a need for affordable housing for low- to middle-income seniors.
There are projections for the city to add residents in coming years, but also for homes to become vacant.
Projections show growth to be expected mostly in Ward 8 on the city’s west side. The city planners want Lorain to continue to grow, but be strategic so it happens all over the city, Crawford said.