Michele Reynolds is the Republican candidate running for Ohio Senate District 3 in the 2026 general election.
Housing affordability has recently made national headlines and sparked conversations. My work to transform the housing landscape in Ohio began before this became a political talking point.
When I entered the Ohio Senate four years ago, I took a particular interest in housing because I could see the challenges facing my community. Ohio’s fast-growing economic environment outlasted the housing market, leaving families to compete at high prices for a fraction of the homes needed.
Housing is not a Republican or Democratic issue. It’s a quality-of-life issue. Every Ohioan should have access to a safe, stable and affordable place to live.
Today,
as chair of the Senate Housing Committee, I’ve kept affordable housing legislation at the forefront.
Senate Bill 428, SB 250 and SB 184 are all pieces of legislation I've personally brought before the Housing Committee this GA to address affordability from several angles. Working with Senate majority leadership, our colleagues in the General Assembly, the administration and local communities, we’ve moved beyond talking about the problem to put real solutions in place.
Ohio families need homes, not talking points
One of the efforts I’m most proud to have championed is the Residential Economic Development District Program that was passed in the last operational budget.
Economic development and housing development are intertwined, and it requires us to consider them side by side. When a business comes to Ohio, it brings jobs, and those employees need apartments or homes to rent or buy. But before more homes can be built, the water, sewer and public safety infrastructure has to be there too.
That’s why I pushed for the Residential Economic Development District program, and the legislature funded it with $25 million to help local communities ready their infrastructure to attract and sustain new housing growth. Housing without economic development means empty homes, and economic development without housing means high demand pushes costs much higher.
According to Ohio Department of Development data, Residential Economic Development District projects are expected to produce 5,780 new housing units across 14 counties, with $23.2 million committed to projects.
The Welcome Home Ohio program tackles another part of the problem by helping communities create and preserve owner-occupied housing. Together, these efforts increase housing supply while expanding pathways to homeownership. And housing policy is economic policy.
CNBC named Ohio the No. 1 state in America for business in 2026.
Clearly, this is a place people want to stay as well as migrate to. In order to maintain this growth, we have to be able to accommodate it. The growing national attention on housing is welcome. We need Republicans and Democrats, local officials, builders, nonprofits and community leaders working together. No political party owns this issue, and Ohio families aren’t looking for talking points.
As a new legislator, I advocated to make the Select Committee on Housing a joint committee to spend more time intentionally addressing the housing crisis. My colleagues supported that change, and four years later, we have an even greater resolve to legislate the housing solutions our communities need.
The housing crisis is nonpartisan and so are the solutions. I welcome innovation from both sides of the aisle and hope that we can shift the focus from political agendas back to results as we return to session this fall.
Michele Reynolds is the Republican candidate running for Ohio Senate District 3 in the 2026 general election.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Housing is not about party labels. I am a Republican and I am fighting for families | Opinion
