Report: Many of Ohio’s most popular jobs don’t pay enough to afford rent

DAYTON — Working a minimum wage job can no longer get you the apartment of your choice, data from a new report suggests.

The fair market rent for a two bedroom apartment is almost $900 in Ohio, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The coalition said in order to make payments without spending the majority of your paycheck you have to be making over $35,000 a year or $17.05 an hour.

“The wages just are not keeping up,” Amy Riegel, executive director of the Coalition of Housing and Homeless Organizations said.

In a national report by HouseCanary three Ohio cities made up the top 10 list for having the least expensive monthly rents on average.

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“This is true when you compare us to a California or New York but it doesn’t change the fact that in Dayton it’s $17.05 which is far more than our average job pays,” Riegel said.

Of the top 10 jobs in the state only occupational nurses and general managers make more than $20 an hour to comfortably pay rent.

“You need to make more than that to pay $900 rent,” Riegel added.

She said it all has to do with supply and demand.

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“People are taking the unit they can find, when a person goes to renew their lease that rent is going up on average $250 per month,” she explained.

Riegel said COHHO is seeing an uptick in families who are unsheltered or living on the streets.

“I feel sorry for the people who cant afford their rent,” Louis Dixon of Dayton said.

Riegel is asking the state to use more than $300 million of its pandemic recovery dollars to build more affordable housing units.

She said Dayton does have a need, especially after the 2019 Memorial Day tornadoes.

The pandemic money expires in 2025, according to Riegel, so she said in order to get supplies and start building she’s hoping to get the money before the need of this year.

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