Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood), who is the only LGBTQ+ lawmaker serving in the 135th General Assembly, reintroduced the Ohio Fairness Act. Senate Bill 132 aims to end discrimination against Ohio's LGBTQ+ community by adding sexual orientation and gender identity into Ohio’s existing anti-discrimination law. 

The Ohio Fairness Act was first introduced in the General Assembly in 2003. It passed in the House of Representatives in September 2009 but was not approved by the Senate. It has been introduced in each legislative session since. SB 132 has bipartisan support and is co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Hearcel Craig, Bill DeMora, Paula Hicks-Hudson, Catherine Ingram, Kent Smith, and Vernon Sykes; and Republican Senators George Lang and Nathan Manning. 

Ohio is one of 27 states without laws protecting individuals from employment, housing, or public accommodation discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.



Ohio Housing Needs Assessment

In July, the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) published the findings from its Fiscal Year 2024 Ohio Housing Needs Assessment. The assessment uses a wide range of data to identify the scale and scope of the state’s housing challenges. Among the findings were:

• Vacancy rates show a very tight housing market. Homeowner and rental vacancy rates at the end of 2022 were 0.9% and 6.2% respectively, up from the all-time low of 0.4% and 4% in 2021.
• Ohio renters are severely cost-burdened by rising rental costs and at risk of eviction and homelessness. When adjusted for inflation, current rents are higher than any other year except 2021.
• The gap between supply of affordable housing and demand for affordable housing is widening. There are 447,717 extremely low-income renters in Ohio, but only 177,318 rental homes affordable and available – meaning Ohio’s shortage has now reached 270,399 units.
• Ohio’s rate of homeownership is declining and, at the end of 2022, stood at 64%, lower than the national average of 66% for the first time.
• The gap between the cost of buying a home and Ohioans’ incomes is also widening. In 2021, the median Ohio home price was 2.6 times the median household income, which is the largest price-to-income ratio since 2005.
• More than 400,000 Ohioans of color are housing insecure, which means they live in a household that spends at least 50 percent of its income on housing. Ohio also had the lowest Black homeownership rate in 2021 compared to our neighbor states.

OHFA facilitates the development, rehabilitation, and financing of housing for low- to moderate-income individuals. The needs assessment helps the agency establish its priorities.