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The Ohio Housing Finance Agency board approved financing Thursday for three affordable housing developments that together will rehabilitate 399 units across Toledo and Columbus, all of them preservation deals for existing affordable housing rather than new construction.
The approvals span three of OHFA's core financing tools: Housing Development Loans, Housing Development Assistance Program funding and Multifamily Housing Revenue Bonds, each paired with 4 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit reservations. The deals are Ashland Manor in Toledo, George's Creek in Columbus, and the Lutheran Social Services North Community and Village Place development, also in Columbus.
Preservation has become an increasingly large share of state housing finance agency work as the affordable housing stock ages, and Thursday's board package is a compact illustration of how that work is actually financed: layered state debt and grant tools underneath the 4 percent credit.
The largest by unit count is Ashland Manor, where Essence, LLC received approval of a $2 million Housing Development Loan alongside a 4 percent LIHTC reservation. The development will rehabilitate 189 affordable units for older Ohioans in Toledo, in Lucas County.
George's Creek carries the deepest stack. Columbus Housing Partnership, operating as Homeport, received approval of a $2.5 million Housing Development Loan, $3 million in Housing Development Assistance Program funding and authorization for up to $12 million in Multifamily Housing Revenue Bonds, again with a 4 percent LIHTC reservation. The development will rehabilitate 120 affordable units in Columbus, in Franklin County.
The third deal, Lutheran Social Services North Community and Village Place, pairs co-developers The Finch Group, through TFG Housing Resources, and Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio. The board authorized issuance of up to $10 million in Multifamily Housing Revenue Bonds with a 4 percent LIHTC reservation. The development will rehabilitate 90 affordable units across two sites for older Ohioans in Columbus.
Two of the three developments specifically serve older Ohioans, and all three are rehabilitations. That profile reflects the math facing housing finance agencies: much of the affordable stock built or rehabbed in the 1990s and early 2000s is reaching the end of its first lifecycle, with aging systems, expiring use restrictions and owners deciding whether to recapitalize or exit. Losing those units to deterioration or market conversion is cheaper to prevent than to replace.
Senior housing carries particular urgency. Ohio's older adult population is growing faster than its overall population, and seniors on fixed incomes are among the most rent-burdened households in the state. Rehabilitation deals that keep senior units affordable and physically sound address both the housing stock problem and the demographic one at the same time.
The 4 percent credit pairing is also telling. Four percent LIHTC deals almost never work on the equity alone; they need exactly the kind of soft debt and bond authority OHFA deployed Thursday. The board package shows the credit functioning as intended, as a base layer made viable by state gap financing.
Housing Development Loans are OHFA's flexible gap product, typically structured on terms conventional lenders will not offer. The Housing Development Assistance Program provides grant-like support for the deepest affordability. Multifamily Housing Revenue Bonds provide the tax-exempt debt that generates the 4 percent credit itself, since bond financing above a threshold share of project cost is what qualifies a deal for the as-of-right credit.
For developers and syndicators, the George's Creek structure is the template worth noting: $2.5 million HDL, $3 million HDAP and up to $12 million in bonds against 120 units. That works out to roughly $145,000 per unit in state-supported financing before the credit equity, a ratio that illustrates how expensive preservation has become even without new construction costs.
OHFA's announcements do not include construction timelines or closing dates, and board approval is a financing commitment, not a completed transaction. The deals still must close, and bond authorizations in particular are ceilings rather than final amounts.
The 4 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit is the workhorse of preservation finance, and Thursday's approvals show why. Unlike the competitive 9 percent credit, which is allocated through a point-scored application round, the 4 percent credit is available as-of-right to deals financed above a threshold with tax-exempt bonds. That makes it the natural fit for rehabilitation: the credit equity covers a meaningful but minority share of costs, and soft financing fills the rest.
The trade-off is that every 4 percent deal needs a gap filler. Ohio's answer, visible across all three approvals, is to stack the Housing Development Loan and, where deeper affordability requires it, Housing Development Assistance Program funds beneath the bonds. George's Creek drew all three sources; Ashland Manor and the LSS development each drew bonds or loans matched to smaller gaps. The pattern is deliberate: the agency sizes its soft money to the deal rather than forcing every project through the same template.
For owners weighing a recapitalization, the approvals also show the credit reservation arriving alongside the debt, not months later. Coordinating the pieces at one board action reduces the carrying cost and uncertainty that kill marginal preservation deals, particularly for smaller sponsors without staff dedicated to managing multi-year financing timelines.
Homeport, the Columbus Housing Partnership affiliate behind George's Creek, is among the most active nonprofit affordable housing producers in central Ohio, with a portfolio spanning rental housing, senior communities and homeownership. Its role in the largest deal of the three continues a long relationship between OHFA and the region's nonprofit development sector.
The LSS North Community and Village Place deal pairs The Finch Group, a national affordable housing developer with deep Ohio experience, with Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio, one of the state's largest social services agencies. That co-development structure, mission agency plus production partner, has become a standard pattern for senior housing, where services coordination matters as much as construction management.
Essence, LLC's Ashland Manor keeps 189 senior units in Toledo's affordable inventory at a moment when northwest Ohio's older housing stock faces some of the state's heaviest physical-deferred-maintenance pressure. Lucas County's aging multifamily inventory makes preservation deals there particularly cost-effective relative to replacement.
OHFA released the approvals in its standard board-cycle format, naming Penny Martin as media contact, and framed the three developments simply as financing to create or preserve affordable housing throughout the state. The agency is an Equal Opportunity Housing entity, a reminder that its programs carry federal fair housing obligations alongside their financing terms.
Thursday's approvals continue a steady cadence of OHFA board actions that have made Ohio one of the more active preservation markets in the Midwest. The agency's mix of loans, HDAP awards and bond authority is designed to move multiple deals per board cycle rather than concentrate resources in a few large projects, spreading preservation across counties and sponsors.
The nonprofit-heavy sponsor list is also characteristic. Homeport is one of central Ohio's largest nonprofit developers, and the LSS deal pairs a faith-based social services agency with an experienced affordable housing co-developer. Essence's Ashland Manor keeps a Toledo senior property in the affordable inventory. Preservation at this scale depends on owners willing to recapitalize rather than sell, and mission-driven sponsors are disproportionately those owners.
The county spread matters as well. Two of the deals sit in Franklin County, home to Columbus, where population growth has tightened the rental market across every price point, and one sits in Lucas County, where Toledo faces the opposite challenge of maintaining quality in an aging stock with weaker market support. A state agency's preservation program has to serve both conditions, and Thursday's package does exactly that.
For lenders, syndicators and development partners reading the announcement, the practical takeaway is that OHFA's fall pipeline is moving. Agencies that commit bond authority and soft loans in October give deals a realistic path to closing within the fiscal year, which in turn protects the credit reservations attached to them. Delays compound: a slipped closing can cost a deal its pricing, its rate lock or its reservation. The board's decision to move three deals at once reduces that risk across a meaningful share of the state's near-term preservation queue.
OHFA did not attach subsidy-per-unit breakdowns or completion schedules to the approvals, and the release describes the deals only by their financing components, sponsors, locations and unit counts. Further detail will emerge as each transaction moves toward closing.
The practical next steps are closings. For practitioners tracking Ohio's pipeline, the markers are whether the bond deals price on the authorized schedule, whether the 4 percent reservations convert to allocations, and whether construction starts hold within the agency's expected windows.
The bigger signal is for other state agencies. As the national affordable stock ages, board packages like Thursday's, modest unit counts, layered soft financing, senior housing and nonprofit sponsors, are becoming the routine work of preservation. Ohio's version shows what that routine looks like when it is functioning: three deals, three tools, 399 units kept affordable rather than lost.
The Ohio Housing Finance Agency has approved financing for three affordable housing rehabilitation projects that together preserve 399 affordable apartments across the state.
The awards use OHFA's preservation financing tools to extend affordability on existing properties rather than build new, keeping at-risk homes in the affordable inventory.
Preservation deals like these cost less per unit than new construction and protect residents already living in the properties from displacement when affordability periods expire.
The three projects span multiple Ohio communities, reflecting the agency's routine pipeline of keeping existing affordable housing viable with capital for repairs and extended restrictions.
OHFA officials said the approvals continue the agency's focus on preservation as a core part of Ohio's affordable housing strategy alongside new development.
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