AOF Co-Chair and Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN)-Ohio Executive Director Steve Wagner had a guest column published in the Columbus Dispatch Friday September 18th discussing the importance of housing stability to a person’s overall health-especially during a pandemic.
Though the recently announced eviction moratorium will help families stay in their homes through the end of the year-those months of rent payments do not go away. Instead, families will face enormous bills as they ring in 2021.
Some local governments have used their CARES Act federal funding for rental assistance-to help satisfy rent owed. Our neighboring states have also gotten the message. Illinois and Pennsylvania have dedicated over $100 million each to emergency rental and mortgage assistance so people can stay safe in their homes.
Though Governor DeWine has genuinely acknowledged that people are hurting, he is still sitting on over $1 billion in federal CARES Act relief funds that must be spent by the end of the year. He shows no signs of using some of that money as a needed relief measure to help unemployed Ohioans meet urgent, basic needs like housing, utilities and food.
Steve couldn’t say it any better: “Governor, you are right when you say, “We can do hard things; we can certainly do two things at once.” Ohio can and must do two things at once — invest in testing and stabilize housing for struggling families to contain the spread of the coronavirus. We have families with urgent basic needs, money is sitting on the table and time is running out to spend it.”
Read the full column HERE