United Way leads community push to address Holmes County’s housing and transportation challenges

If there is one organization with its finger on the pulse of an array of organizations and businesses in the area, there may not be a better example than United Way of Wayne & Holmes Counties.

As Holmes County continues to deal with ongoing housing and transportation dilemmas, United Way has created a community conversation about what steps need to be taken to help alleviate the struggles surrounding both issues.

United Way recently hosted Community Conversation: Housing & Transportation in Holmes County meetings Dec. 3 and Dec. 5, inviting people from throughout the county to provide input into how to find ways to improve the dearth of affordable, quality housing and transportation for those who need it.

Ashley Hershberger, UWWH associate director, said this event stemmed from their discussion with local businesses and agencies that have expressed concerns about housing and transportation.

“United Way often serves as a connector piece to communities, and we knew we had to do something,” Hershberger said. “We deal with a lot of different aspects of our community.”

Recognizing the Village of Millersburg is currently beginning to explore housing options for Western Holmes County, UWWH leaders felt the timing was ideal to create a larger coalition to assess the needs.

Approximately 60 community members representing a variety of organizations, county government groups, landlords and businesses joined the meetings for the two events, where a healthy discussion took place that proved to be productive in advancing the coalition to the next phase of development.

One such person was Matt Ellington with Avodah Contractors. Ellington provided some major input into the element of construction and material issues the county and the rest of the nation are facing.

He said this type of action from the county and its members is critical.

“We all hear about it, feel it and experience what’s going on, but if there’s not a collaborative effort to come up with a viable solution, it goes nowhere,” Ellington said. “We can talk all day about solutions, but the consumer knowledge base needs to grow and we need to educate the average American about where true costs lie.”

He said over the past five years, the nation has experienced a rapid rise in the cost of construction and materials, but there are many costs like water and sewer issues, land expenses, and other hidden costs in building and renovations.

He said the rising cost of putting a work crew in place continues to add expenses. He said utilities are above 40% of any new construction build, adding to the labor rate.

Megan Wilson, marketing coordinator at UWWH, said this type of conversation is something that has been long overdue.

“We’ve continued to receive many phone calls for both housing and transportation from the community struggling with both issues,” Wilson said. “It comes from homeowners, renters, seniors and across the board.”

She said they have taken plenty of calls from businesspeople who are struggling to bring in quality employees because there is no housing or transportation available.

“We have many people who work in Holmes County who live outside of the county,” Wilson said. “If we can figure out a way to have those people live here is the million-dollar question.”

She said while UWWH staff members aren’t experts in this field, what they do provide is an array of connections throughout both Holmes and Wayne counties that can help provide insight into the actual needs.

“We hope to be the voice of the community in solving our needs,” Wilson said. “Our main goal is to solve these gaps in the community by getting the right people together to create a dialogue.”

Hershberger said they have put a survey out to the community, with hopes of getting at least 400 responses she said can help them formulate a plan moving forward.

“We’re hoping to get responses from every facet of our community so that we can get a feel for what people need and want,” Hershberger said. “That is going to help us formulate a viable solution.”

She said the goal is to create both a housing coalition and a transportation coalition.

The creators of this effort at United Way believe one thing is certain: There seems to be enough interest to generate a strong effort toward finding solutions to each problem.

“There’s a lot of obstacles, but a lot of people care, and that's what it’s going to take for us to move forward,” Hershberger said. “Looking at all of the perspectives can be overwhelming, but it’s also great to receive so much input from the community because it sparks new ideas to overcome those obstacles.”

She said while talking about these ideas is paramount, what is more important is the community acts once the ideas are in place.

This is the initial step in doing just that.

To take the survey, visit the main page of UWWH at www.uwwh.org or call Hershberger at 330-264-5584 or email ashley@uwwh.org for a paper copy.