A Pella Company sign advertising space for rent outside a home on 14th Ave. Credit: Carly Damon | Asst. Photo Editor
If students are having trouble finding affordable, high-quality off-campus housing, they are not alone.
Every fall semester, many Ohio State undergraduate students begin the daunting search for off-campus housing, and each year, the cutthroat process becomes increasingly competitive — and expensive. With national challenges impacting housing markets across the country, students are experiencing multiple issues in Columbus firsthand.
According to online rental platform Zumper’s National Rent Report, the median one-bedroom monthly rent across the United States is, on average, $1,534. Columbus falls just under the national average, with its median one-bedroom monthly rent coming in at $1,220.
Of Columbus neighborhoods, the University District has the highest average rent at $3,466, according to Zumper’s rental market trends. Additionally, according to Zumper’s 2023 Annual Rent Report, “one-bedroom rents in Columbus have seen year-over-year increases for 20 months in a row.”
Ben Sears, vice president of expansion at Star House — a Columbus-based support center for youth experiencing homelessness — and a member of the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, said the city has struggled to build enough housing for its population throughout the last decade.
“We’ve had more people moving into our community than houses we’ve added to the market,” Sears said.
Sears said one factor contributing to this increase in the population near campus is that those who would typically move farther from campus have been pushed back into the campus-housing area due to financial concerns.
“When you’re a junior, senior or if you’re in grad school, you’d probably move to one of the surrounding communities like Grandview, Clintonville, something like that,” Sears said. “But now, all those people probably can’t afford that, so they’re staying closer to campus where it probably might be a little more affordable. So then, all the people coming in are competing with them as well.”
According to a presentation created by Michael Wilkos, vice president of community engagement at United Way of Central Ohio — a nonprofit that advocates for social welfare — Central Ohio averaged 9,000 housing units built per year from 2010 to 2020, despite needing 14,000 units built per year to adequately account for population growth.
In the same time frame, for every 100 families in need of shelter, the number of available housing dropped from 107 to 102 units. By 2030, the expected trajectory of available housing units is only 96 units per every 100 families, creating a major housing deficit, according to the United Way presentation.
This reduction in available housing for families directly impacts the housing market and engenders challenges for students trying to find affordable off-campus housing. For example, even though major changes aren’t necessarily being made to available units, student housing costs still increase, Sears said.
“In many parts of town, we’ve actually reduced units because they’ve not been capped and they’ve been demolished,” Sears said. “With that, that’s how college rents go up, because the basic demand is increasing, and then we have more people moving here.”
The United Way presentation states several factors affect off-campus housing for Ohio State students, including population growth in Franklin County, inadequate housing construction to match this growth, decreases in vacant units and rising housing costs.
As a result, companies that buy out vacated lots to build luxury apartments have turned to any available spaces for construction, including properties surrounding Ohio State’s campus, Sears said.
“Traditionally, 10 years ago, near campus, nobody would move in that space unless they were specifically building for students,” Sears said. “But now, I’m wondering if more people are just building market-rate, higher-end and luxury apartments in those areas just because they can find the space.”
Because of the broader Columbus housing market’s impact on the availability and costs of student housing, Sears said there is a potential for student homelessness rates to rise.
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a piece of federal legislation passed in 1987 that supports the education of children and youth experiencing homelessness, said the term “homelessness” applies to “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,” according to the Ohio Valley Educational Service Center.
The perception of homelessness is often shaped by stereotypes, Sears said. Still, one way students might face homelessness is if they are “doubled up” or “sharing housing with another person or family due to economic hardship, loss of housing, or another reason,” according to the Ohio Valley Education Service Center.
Sears said when the rate of housing production is lower than the rate of people in need of housing, “that’s where you start seeing stuff like on the West Coast and San Francisco, where the homelessness has continued to increase.”
For students who are struggling to find affordable housing or feel that they may be at risk of experiencing homelessness, there are options available. The Columbus Coalition for the Homeless has a Central Ohio affordable housing guide on its website for families and individuals with limited income.
Additionally, the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio provides information and advice for housing-specific concerns through email or over the phone.
