YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Three economic development organizations in two states have launched an effort to work together to address the housing shortage.
“It’s the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber; it’s Penn Northwest; and it’s Forward Lawrence,” said Rod Wilt, executive director of Penn-Northwest Development Corp. “And the three of us have been meeting to try and put together a strategy to market and attract housing developers” to the region.
The organizations are working regionally toward the same goal, he said.
“We already have a really good relationship among the three of us, just on general economic development and business services,” said Guy Coviello, president and CEO of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber. “And we, all three of us, realize that our communities all face the same top challenges: growing population and growing housing.”
They also realized they should be working together to market the region’s assets.
As companies expand in the region and new ones locate here, the region needs people to work at those companies, said Ben Bush, CEO of Forward Lawrence.
“We need to retain the people that we have, and we need to grow the populations that we have to be able to help support and sustain the projects that we’ve won, and the projects that we will be winning in the future,” he said. “We need people, and to get people you need the housing that they want to live in.”
The three leaders began working together on housing about a year ago.
“If all goes well, we might have something to work on collaboratively by the end of the year or the first of next year,” Coviello said.
He acknowledged the partnership marks a departure from the way organizations and governmental entities used to work.
“I would say it’s a complete 180 from five years ago,” Coviello said, pointing to new leadership at key organizations.
The Regional Chamber, Western Reserve Port Authority, Eastgate Regional Council of Governments and other organizations started working together, and it made sense to continue the collaboration across state lines, he said.
Wilt believes working together makes sense.
“We don’t see it as a loss if someone goes to Masury or Brookfield or any community across the line from us and builds housing,” he said. “We think those people are going to work in our community. They’re going to shop in our community. And our people that live in Mercer County are going to go to Warren and Niles and shop there and go to the restaurants.”
Rather than competing, the three economic development organizations are working together and sharing ideas and programs.
While the whole country faces a housing shortage, Coviello said the region’s low property values prevent it from attracting builders. It’s more profitable for developers to build elsewhere.
Bush said much of the existing housing in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys is older and the region needs new housing stock. He also said that beyond connecting with housing developers, the agencies want to learn the obstacles to development to try to ease them. That could be regulations, for example.
Housing fits with the population effort that’s underway as officials and communities on both sides of the border try to attract people to the region, retain those who live there and return those who have moved away.
In Mercer County, for example, Penn-Northwest entered into a contract with MakeMyMove, a company that markets communities to remote workers in other parts of the country, enticing them to relocate. Hermitage, Greenville and Sharon are participating, and those who meet criteria and relocate are awarded perks, including cash.
Nearly 700 people have applied to move to Mercer since April, and a few have moved there.
“We’ve got a lot of jobs coming to the region, and we don’t have enough people to fill them,” Wilt said. “And part of the reason we don’t have enough people to fill them is we don’t have enough places for them to live.”
He said what’s holding the region back isn’t jobs, the lack of a data center or issues in the manufacturing, service or warehouse distribution sector.
“All those things are looking to come to this area,” Wilt said. “The biggest problem they have is, where are people going to live that want to work there.”