Columbus residents heading to the polls will get to vote on $1.9 billion in bonds and a competitive city council race on or before Tuesday.
The bond ballot language voters will see explains how each pot of money in Issues 5-9 will be aimed at housing, safety, parks and other projects. Neither candidate for District 7 said they oppose the bonds, but the pair gave differing visions on how to use the funds when they appeared Thursday on 星空无限传媒's All Sides with Amy Juravich.
Jesse Vogel said some of the $500 million for affordable housing shouldn't just be for new housing projects.
"We need to target some of that funding towards preserving existing housing that's at risk of being lost when it's...a family owner passes away or decides they can't continue to rent out a place and an investor out of town purchases it up," Vogel said.
Tiara Ross said the city should focus on building more housing.
"You need dollars to be able to build. And quite frankly, we haven't been building at the rate of our growth for several years now," Ross said.
Ross and Vogel are both attorneys with differing experience in the public sector. Ross is an assistant city attorney with the city's property action team. She has often dealt with landlords who were negligent on their properties, leading to displaced tenants in Colonial Village and Latitude Five25 towers.
Vogel now works with immigrants and refugees through Community Refugee & Immigration Services, but once worked for Legal Aid of Central and Southeast Ohio with tenants.
The city's housing shortage is deemed by many to be a crisis. It has been one of the center points of this election.
Vogel has also proposed using city funds to provide tenants money for a down payment and the opportunity to purchase rental properties they live in, before the properties are sold to a larger property management company.
Ross said the bond does a good job of preventing increased taxes to pay for city services and the projects the bonds will likely fund.
Ross also said the city needs to focus on making sure new developments to build housing stock are actually affordable for the people who are looking to purchase them.
