Last month, GOPC released Quality Housing for All: A Four-Year Strategic Plan for Springfield. This plan (2022 - 2025) provides a roadmap for the City of Springfield—in partnership with community organizations, the private sector, and philanthropy—to work together to address Springfield's current housing needs and long-term goals.

To preserve and create quality housing for all residents, the City of Springfield engaged the Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) to develop a strategic workplan to guide local policy development and pro-active strategies. The plan focuses on strategies to provide safe, quality housing in Springfield – at all price points and for all residents.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, 36% of Springfield’s renters and 17% of Springfield’s homeowners were housing cost burdened, and there was a shortage of safe, affordable housing for Springfield’s most vulnerable residents.

Quality Housing for All has four main pillars, which organizes more than a dozen recommendations for community leaders. The activities are sequenced over the four years to build momentum and increase impact. The four pillars are:

• Protect Vulnerable Residents, especially housing cost-burdened renters and homeowners

• Promote and Enhance Existing Neighborhoods

• Produce Affordably Priced Housing

• Lower Barriers to Development and Redevelopment

GOPC presented Quality Housing for All to the Springfield City Commission and the Housing Solutions Consortium – a multisector group of community leaders in the public, private, philanthropic, nonprofit, and private sector focused on elevating housing in Springfield. GOPC joined the City of Springfield’s “Live from Springfield” podcast to discuss GOPC’s work and the strategic plan.

In 2019, GOPC completed a Comprehensive Housing Analysis for the City of Springfield to provide an in-depth analysis of the market-rate and affordable housing markets in Springfield. The Comprehensive Housing Analysis provided preliminary policy recommendations to help community leaders address housing priorities in Springfield. Quality Housing for All expand upon this analysis to provide a sequential action plan that community leaders may consider when implementing housing solutions.

Community leaders in Springfield have identified housing as a communitywide priority, which should be recognized as a catalyst for the great work underway. Quality Housing for All serves as a resource guide for community leaders as they continue to address housing in Springfield.

You can read the full report or a one-page summary. To see some of the coverage of the release of the report, visit the In The News page on our website.