Testimony of Kevin J. Nowak, President & CEO, CHN Housing Partners
Senate Select Committee on Housing
Jan. 11, 2024
Good morning.
My name is Kevin Nowak. I’m the president and CEO of CHN Housing Partners.
Before I say more about CHN, I want to thank Chairwoman Reynolds and the select committee for holding this hearing in Cleveland. We appreciate the focus on housing in this budget cycle by the legislature and governor’s office, and we hope it will continue going forward. It will be necessary for Ohio to compete in this economy. I’m also grateful for the opportunity to address this committee.
CHN is a nonprofit affordable housing developer, housing services provider and residential lender founded in 1981 right here in Cleveland to create a scaled response to Cleveland’s housing challenges.
Our mission is to leverage the power of a permanent address to change lives and improve communities. Once a family has that permanent address, everything else follows. Children thrive. Neighborhoods thrive. Ohio thrives.
In our 42 years we have built more than 7,000 homes for the residents of Northeast Ohio.
We own or manage 2,500 affordable units, and we serve tens of thousands annually through various programs like home weatherization, utility assistance, and financial and homeownership counseling.
More recently, we’ve made home mortgages to almost 800 Ohioans to help them make the dream of homeownership a reality.
So what is needed on the state level?
We believe in a whole system approach to housing that supports consumer choice for both homeownership and rental housing. This consumer choice allows Ohioans to determine what is best for them personally and financially, an ideal free market state. It allows for both housing stability as well as asset building and generational wealth creation, core principles in housing. Fully functioning real estate markets naturally create these opportunities, however, most markets in Ohio, unfortunately, do not for a number of different reasons. This is where we think state and local government should be involved.
For homeownership, we advocate for the following:
1. Align resources to make homeownership within reach for more individuals and families. Less people believe in homeownership than before, and we are working to change that. State and local government aligning resources to remove barriers to homeownership, such as an expansion to OHFA’s and other down payment assistance programs, as well as supporting community banks, credit unions and community development financial institutions—such as our non-profit mortgage lending affiliate, CHN Housing Capital—with low-cost capital, will make a real difference.
2.Support for the rehab and construction of affordable single family homes to increase the inventory of quality, affordable housing stock. The State has taken great steps with the passage of the Single Family Tax Credit program and Welcome Home Ohio program, though the thoughtful implementation of those programs and any legislative fixes necessary to make them more functional than they are today should be a priority.
3.Support seniors so they can age in place through leveraging current and identifying new home repair resources and property tax relief to support them. Deploying creative models to support home accessibility modifications and reducing the cost of property taxes to long-term owners who are seniors have the benefit of keeping those seniors housing stable and maintaining those properties as viable homeownership opportunities for future generations.
As to rental housing, we advocate for the following two things:
1. The further expansion of the state affordable housing tax credit to the amount proposed by HB 33 and sponsored by State Representative Pavliga – $3 billion over six years. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit is a bipartisan tax credit that is a true public private partnership supported by conservatives from President Ronald Reagan to President Donald Trump. This will ensure the preservation and expansion of the supply of quality affordable rental housing across rural, suburban and urban counties of Ohio.
2. Strategic investments with property owners who are committed to helping their tenants interrupt the cycle of poverty. There are national models that we could consider modifying and tailoring to Ohio, which would help people to break the cycle of poverty and take those next steps to self-sustainability and homeownership.
If there’s one thing I want to emphasize to this committee today in my remaining time, it’s this: Over this past year, there has been considerable discussion about housing. At times, it has pitted those who want to see homeownership against those who were advocating for rental housing. In Ohio, we need a both/and strategy to meet the needs of our community and there should be room to fulfill the policy preferences of all of the above in support of our fellow Ohioans.
Thank you.
About the author
CHN Housing Partners
