Ohio City Manager Bryan Heck has urgently requested federal aid in response to a housing crisis in Springfield, Ohio. This crisis, precipitated by a surge in the population due to immigration, is a situation that Heck fears will only worsen without a higher level of support.
Heck has been the city manager of Springfield since February 2019. Last Monday, he sent a letter to Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, warning that Springfield is “facing a significant housing crisis.”
“Springfield has seen a surge in population through immigration that has significantly impacted our ability as a community to produce enough housing opportunities for all,” Heck wrote. “Springfield’s Haitian population has increased to 15,000–20,000 over the last four years in a community of just under 60,000 previous residents, putting a significant strain on our resources and ability to provide ample housing for all of our residents.”
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“Despite 2,000 additional housing units set to come online over the next three to five years, this is still not enough,” the city manager continued. “Again, without further support at the federal level, communities like Springfield are set up to fail in being able to meet the housing needs of its residents.”
According to the Springfield News-Sun, a board member for a local Haitian Community Help and Support Center estimated that there are around 15,000 Haitians in the area; however, the newspaper noted that the exact number is difficult to ascertain. At the time, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue and other local officials expressed concerns about bringing large numbers of people into the area without the proper support systems in place.
Heck highlighted efforts to combat the city’s housing crisis, such as the Housing Consortium formed in 2018. The consortium, made up of both public and private sector leaders, which the city manager noted resulted in the Greater Ohio Policy Center preparing “two macro-level studies” to address the housing situation in Ohio.
“This identified the challenges that Springfield’s Housing Market faced, while also identifying key initiatives, policies, and programs that our community could implement to address the situation,” Heck wrote.
Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio cited the city manager’s letter during a Senate Banking Committee hearing last Tuesday. The Republican lawmaker noted that in addition to housing, Springfield is also trying to provide hospital and school services to its community.
“In my conversations with folks in Springfield, it’s not just housing. They’re trying to build 5,000 new housing units, which is a very Herculean task in a town of about 55,000 people, but it’s also hospital services, it’s school services,” Vance said. “There are a whole host of ways in which this immigration problem is having very real human consequences.”
Vance also asserted that the issue of mass immigration has had a negative impact on the wages of American workers.
“I wonder, when you hear your colleagues and other economists outside of the Fed talk about the influx of immigration and the fact that it admittedly has put downward pressure on wages, obviously that has put some downward pressure on inflation, but it also puts downward pressure on the wages that people earn to pay for their families,” the Republican lawmaker said.
“Why do we see that as a good thing? Or maybe that’s wrong. Maybe that premise is fundamentally incorrect. But why do so many economists treat an influx of new labor as a good thing? If labor is constrained, labor supply is constrained. Doesn’t that lead to rising wages for American workers?”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
