Mike Wolanin | The Republic An exterior view of the Villas Apartments in Columbus, Ind., Monday, April 29, 2024.
Several local nonprofits and the city of Columbus are actively engaged in discussions on how to help nearly 100 seniors who are facing displacement from their homes after their landlord announced plans to close an affordable housing complex next year.
The United Way of Bartholomew County, Thrive Alliance, as well as several other local organizations and city officials, are working to develop a community response following BHI Senior Living’s decision to close the Villas apartments, 4101 Waycross Drive, shortly after April 2025, when its federal contract that subsidizes rent for residents is set to expire, officials said.
The Villas is a HUD-subsidized apartment community with 99 units currently housing 96 seniors, including some who are disabled. Residents qualifying for rental assistance pay no more than 30% of their monthly adjusted income for rent.
“We are working together to formulate a community response to help the tenants of the Villas make this difficult transition as smoothly as possible,” said Mark Stewart, United Way of Bartholomew County president. “For many of the long-term tenants, this will be a scary process. The loss of such a large number of affordable housing units is a significant issue for our community.”
City officials said “we do feel the urgency” and are working with the organizations to put together a comprehensive response. Eric Frey, the city’s executive director of administration, said they hope to provide more details on the response within the next couple weeks.
Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon said the city has been in contact with representatives from the Villas and BHI Senior Care and plans to work with the Columbus Housing Authority, Thrive Alliance, United Way and local landlords “to strategize and assist in relocating as many residents as possible.”
“It is very disappointing for the entire community that the Villas is closing down,” Ferdon said. “It is always difficult to lose housing of any kind. This is particularly difficult as it’s a source of affordable housing and some residents have lived there for many years which makes it a challenge to relocate them so they can continue to be close to schools, shopping, jobs, etc.”
Expiring contracts
The decision to close the Villas next year has thrust the issue of affordable housing in Columbus back into the spotlight and the potential for the community to lose more affordable units as more contracts expire in the coming years.
Columbus could be at risk of losing nearly 200 more affordable housing units within the next five years should property owners not extend their agreements or obtain new subsidies when their contracts with the federal government expire, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development database of housing and contracts.
Nationwide, the U.S. is at risk of losing nearly 200,000 affordable housing units over roughly the next five years as agreements with the federal government are set to expire, according to a analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
It is currently unclear whether other local property owners will decide to no longer continue offering subsidized housing like the owners of the Villas. But that possibility is “always in the back of my mind,” Stewart said.
“Generally, (property owners) have option agreements,” Stewart said. “They enter into it for a period of time, and then of course, there are also smaller individual single-family units or small apartment complexes that accept Section 8. It might just be a private landlord with one unit and they accept Section 8, and for whatever reason, they decide not to. That’s just kind of a ongoing decision that the landlord would make.”
“They’re private property owners,” Stewart added. “It’s their prerogative on whether or not they would accept Section 8.”
Local officials said the loss of the Villas’ 99 units “will have a significant impact” on affordable housing in Columbus as the market for affordable units was already “extremely tight.”
Besides private property owners who offer affordable units, the Columbus Housing Authority owns four public housing developments, but the wait list to get a unit is currently about 12 to 18 months, according to its website.
“There’s not that kind of a surplus (of affordable housing units) in our community,” said Love Chapel Executive Director Kelly Daugherty.
National issue
However, the shortage of affordable housing is not just a local issue.
The lowest-income renters across the U.S. are currently facing a shortage of 7.3 million affordable and available rental homes, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, or NLIHC, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., that seeks to end the country’s “affordable housing crisis.”
The shortage has widened since the pandemic struck, growing by over 480,000 from 2019 to 2022, according NLIHC.
Indiana, for its part, has a shortage of 139,318 affordable and available units for extremely low-income renters, according to NLIHC. That comes out to about 34 affordable and available units for every 100 extremely low-income renters in the state.
Extremely low-income renters are defined as households as at or below either the federal poverty guideline or 30% of the area median income, whichever is greater.
At the same time, larger cities in Indiana do not appear to be faring better than Columbus in terms of affordable housing, according to HUD’s database and U.S. Census Bureau population estimates.
Overall, Columbus currently has more affordable housing units per capita than Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Evansville and has a lower poverty rate. Even with the loss of the Villas, Columbus would still have more affordable units per capita than many Indiana communities, including Kokomo, Terre Haute and Bloomington.
“The shortage of affordable and available homes for extremely low-income renters impacts all states and the 50 largest metro areas, none of which have an adequate supply for the lowest-income renters,” NLIHC said in a report released last month “…Any reduction in federal affordable housing resources will exacerbate existing challenges, which are already acute.”
In the meantime, city officials are expecting that a housing study currently underway will help the city evaluate options and opportunities for affordable housing. City officials said the housing study is expected to be completed this summer.
“We know the city’s housing study, currently underway, will identify our need for more housing — specifically affordable housing,” Ferdon said. “Losing the Villas makes our work even more critical as we evaluate both short-term and long-term options and opportunities.”
