Ohio House mulls immigration housing bill

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Housing and immigration are the topics of the latest bill Ohio lawmakers are moving forward. 

Legislators have been working on House Bill 547 for less than six months now and will likely pass at least one chamber before 2025.

The bill would prohibit the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHGA) from awarding state low-income housing tax credits to a project unless the project owner takes certain measures to limit the people living there to those legally present in the United States.  

On Tuesday, in the Ohio House Economic and Workforce Development Committee, the bill was amended, a move committee chairperson Brian Lorenz (R-Powell) said helped bring in support.

“When we bring something up, we want to make sure that it's ironclad and that it's going to get the most possible votes, obviously,” he said. “And [it] doesn't disenfranchise people, as much as we can.”    

The amendment:  

• Allows an owner of a state low-income tax credit project to receive notice and a 90-day, potentially 180-day, cure period for noncompliance before credit can be revoked.  

• Allows a project owner to claim credit that has been revoked for units brought back into compliance with the bill. 

Lorenz described the amendments as “adding guardrails to help support the landlords.”

“I think it was really important to kind of come back to the table and hammer some of those amendments out,” Lorenz said.    

HB 547 was ultimately favorably reported out of the Ohio House Economic and Workforce Committee 8-4, along party lines, with all Democrats voting against it.  

Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said her caucus has a few worries. 

“The biggest concerns that I have about it is it's creating more barriers for getting these both existing projects and projects that are in the pipeline,” she said. 

Russo said she thinks ahead to the implications of this bill and said none of it gets at the “real issue,” about the housing shortage the state is facing. 

“I think this particular piece of legislation, because it creates more red tape and more barriers for OHFA to approve these projects, is detrimental to all of the projects,” she said. “And is not addressing our housing issue and in fact could make it worse for everyone.” 

Lorenz said while he agrees there is a housing crisis in the state, he thinks this is good legislation and does not see it in the same capacity that Russo does. 

“When we're dealing out credits and incentives and using public tax dollars to try and improve quality and whatnot, we've got to be real careful how we're doling those out,” he said. 

“Putting aside the citizenship issue and that debate, the reality is this is creating a lot of barriers for all projects and slowing those down, and so that is a huge concern to both me and many of my members, and I suspect we'll have a lot of ‘no’ votes [on the House floor],” Russo said.  

Ohio Speaker of the House Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) said, while not this week, the bill will “probably come to the floor.” 

“It should be a pretty straightforward bill,” Stephens said.    

Republican Senate leadership has not discussed this specific bill yet. If they do want to pass it, there are ways to get it through without the full hearing process to send it to the governor before the end of the year. 

There are only a handful of sessions left in 2024; whatever does not pass will have to start from scratch next year.