By Joshua Goodwin

As teenagers in the 90s, my friends and I saw all the summer blockbusters. Lately, I’ve been thinking about one in particular: Apollo 13.

The Apollo 13 lunar mission was proceeding normally. Then, an oxygen tank explodes. A few warning lights start blinking. Mission Control thinks it might just be a glitch. More lights start blinking. The astronauts see gas venting into space. It becomes clear: all those blinking lights aren’t a glitch. They’re a harbinger of a catastrophe.

The first few blinking lights weren’t too concerning. It really could have just been an instrument malfunctioning. But eventually, several blinking lights all pointed to the same potential disaster.

This is where some of the Ohio county Departments of Job and Family Services find themselves today.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

OPLC & Legal Aid Help Secure Significant Change in Proposed Lead Poisoning Rules | Continuum of Care Chaos | Ohio Losing Millions to Administer SNAP

The blinking lights aren’t limited to SNAP.

Between July 2025 and July 2026, Medicaid enrollment fell by 200,000 people. Yet Ohioans submitted 9,000 more Medicaid applications in July 2026 than the previous July. More people are applying for help, but fewer people are enrolled.

State and federal law require County JFS agencies make a decision within 45 days of receiving a Medicaid application. In July 2025, Ohio only had 8,432 Medicaid applications outstanding for more than 45 days. One year later, more than 30,000 applicants had been waiting for a decision for more than 45 days—an increase of over 250%.

Just how long are people waiting? We don’t know the wait times everywhere, but as of Oct. 1, 2026, Hamilton County JFS’s website says it is just now deciding Medicaid eligibility for applications dated June 8, 2026. That’s a nearly four month wait.

Additionally, in July 2025, there were 6,713 Medicaid cases in Ohio waiting for the counties to renew their eligibility. By July 2026, that number had skyrocketed more than tenfold to 71,617.

Fewer people are on Medicaid, and counties are falling farther behind on processing Medicaid applications and renewals. Blink. Blink.

HR1 led to many new demands on county JFS agencies while reducing how much money the federal government gives counties to do that work. Unsurprisingly, fewer dollars to do more work means more low-income Ohioans lose access to the help they need. Blink.

And the demands placed upon the system are only going to increase. Starting January 2027, counties will have to renew Medicaid eligibility twice as often, and they will also have to ensure compliance with a new Medicaid work requirement.

If falling SNAP enrollments were the only light blinking, it might be a glitch. But with all the other lights blinking, it signals we have a problem.

In Apollo 13, everyone recognized there was an issue and worked to solve it. What could have been a catastrophe instead led to me and my friends cheering in a movie theater.

Today, a lot of lights are blinking red in Ohio’s county Departments of Job and Family Services. But these blinking lights serve a purpose: they give Ohio’s leaders a chance to act before disaster strikes. We need Ohio’s leaders to act on these blinking lights and give the county JFS agencies the resources they need before these problems become a crisis for Ohio’s most vulnerable.

By Tim Johnson

OPLC is pleased to report that proposed fee increases for Ohio’s lead poisoning prevention program have been significantly reduced in the most recent version of their lead poisoning prevention rules, following public feedback. OPLC and Legal Aid partners raised concerns that the original increases—some more than 1,000%—could have pushed contractors out of an already limited lead prevention workforce.

The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) first released draft rules and invited public comment in June. OPLC and Legal Aid partners submitted feedback on the proposal, and in September, ODH released revised rules that included substantially lower fee increases.

Under the revised rules, licensing and laboratory fees will gradually double by 2030. For example, a clearance technician license, currently $250, will increase to $500 rather than the originally proposed $1,022.

The change is important for Ohio families. Children in Ohio test positive for elevated blood lead levels at twice the national rate, and more than two-thirds of the state’s housing was built before 1980 and may contain lead hazards. Keeping qualified lead professionals in the workforce helps ensure families can identify and affordably address those hazards.

ODH is updating its lead poisoning prevention rules at a time when the program faces significant funding challenges and has not increased fees since 1994. OPLC supports the more reasonable fee structure and will continue to monitor the rules as the process moves forward.

By Zack Eckles

The federal government is proposing major changes to the nation’s largest source of homelessness funding that could reshape how communities across the country provide housing and services to people experiencing homelessness.

Administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Continuum of Care (CoC) program supports Rapid Rehousing, Transitional Housing, Permanent Supportive Housing, and other homelessness services.

HUD is attempting to overhaul the program through a recent Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFO) intended to redirect how CoC dollars can be spent by homeless services agencies. The new administration issued NOFOs that would take money away from permanent housing and redirect it to transitional housing, supportive services, and law enforcement coordination. This would completely reshape how homeless services are organized across the country with limited opportunities to plan for the change.

In Ohio, which received $178 million in COC funds, redirecting the permanent housing funds to the other services could force up to 7,500 Ohioans with disabilities back into homelessness, according to the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio (COHHIO).

The NOFO has been embroiled in litigation and new legislation since 2025. In September, HUD issued a new 30-day public comment period seeking input on the research it cited as the rationale for shifting funding away from permanent housing. OPLC will continue to monitor the process as HUD moves toward its Dec. 1 deadline to award the CoC grants. You can find more information about the CoC funding process and how to submit comments before the Oct. 13 deadline on COHHIO’s website.

Ohio Losing Millions to Administer SNAP

By Danielle DeLeon Spires

As of Oct. 1, Ohio is losing millions of dollars to administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) due to provisions in HR 1, which Congress passed in July 2025. For the past 50 years, the federal government equally split the cost of administering SNAP with states. Now the federal government has decreased its share to 25% of the administration cost. For Ohio—where counties administer the SNAP program and also share the cost with the state—the loss could total $60 to $70 million. Of that, the counties are expected to lose an estimated $38 million.

To address the shortfall, The Ohio Legislature in March earmarked approximately $12.5 million in a bill to support counties and offset some of the lost federal money. Unlike in the past when the state used the number of cases and county poverty levels to determine funding distributions, these appropriations will be divided equally among the counties. As a result, 59 Ohio counties will be fully covered with this funding, while Ohio’s metro counties will have less than 10% of their budget gaps addressed.

In addition to changes to SNAP administration, HR1 also expanded work requirements and reduced eligibility based on immigration status. At a time when counties are being asked to do more with less, Ohioans will be the ones to feel the pressure. Less money for our counties, especially the larger counties, will lead to lower staff levels and increased wait times, which will delay benefits.