Freedom BLOC wants Akron’s voters to become the guiding hand for the city’s housing initiatives, rather than simply leaving those decisions to elected officials and the administrators who report to them.
Housing continues to be one of the biggest concerns among Akron-area residents. City leaders last week launched a new program, Civic Assembly, to incorporate residents’ voices into policymaking and planning. But well before that, the Freedom BLOC was laying the groundwork to place issues on the 2026 ballot that would give Akron both urgency and a roadmap for taking action.
The organization spent the past year crafting 15 legislative proposals addressing Akron’s housing struggles to put before voters this year. Freedom BLOC, a nonprofit focused on social, racial and economic justice, is hosting a forum to present the proposals to residents at 6 p.m. Jan. 15 at the main Akron-Summit County Public Library, 60 S. High St.
Over a third of Summit County residents believe the region lacks affordable housing, and 1 in 5 residents say they don’t have stable housing, according to the latest Community Pulse Report from the Center for Marketing and Opinion Research. The data comes from the Summit Poll, which CMOR has conducted annually since 2007.
“All 15 we might not be running on this ballot initiative,” said local attorney Imokhai Okolo, an organizer with Freedom BLOC and a member of its housing campaign. “This housing problem is not going to get fixed with one ballot initiative, with one year; it didn’t start in one year, we’re not going to fix it all with one ballot initiative, but we’re going to be able to make some progress.”
Okolo said other organizations including the United Way of Summit & Medina County, The Well CDC and the city’s neighborhood assistance department have been invited to the conversation, too.
He said last year’s housing symposium and other housing work the group has engaged in revealed three major concerns: accountability in the landlord-tenant relationship, the conditions of Akron’s housing and the availability of homes.
“Accountability was the big one,” said Parinita Singh, a Freedom BLOC volunteer and member of its housing campaign, “just because there’s been a lot of out-of-state landlords that are coming in buying properties, and then they’re not present at their own properties where tenants are now suffering. They don’t have proper access to removal of mold, sewage, whatever have you. There’s been a lot of issues.”
Singh said the housing symposium featured a panel of people struggling with housing conditions, some of whom found themselves unhoused due to property mismanagement. Tenants withholding rent over unsafe conditions are being evicted, she said, and are being blamed for their homes’ condition despite reporting the issues.
She said she knows the city is short on housing inspectors. With more inspectors, she said, the city could “hopefully” better address the problems.
Okolo said housing inspectors’ efforts to enforce code violations are hampered by the limits of the law.
What people are concerned about, Okolo explained, differs by neighborhood. For example, in East Akron, he said, “residents are thinking more about environmental issues, and that is partly to do with landlords, but also partly to do with big business and industry coming in.”
Okolo sits on the solutions team of the newly formed Civic Assembly.
“In my mind,” he said, “everything is all working together to move our community forward with sort of an all-hands-on-deck approach.”
What are some of the proposals Freedom BLOC has crafted?
In crafting these proposals, he said, it was important to outline penalties for bad actors because Akronites have been asking for accountability.
“One of our ideas,” Okolo said, “is that a landlord needs to be required to provide a receipt on any rent payment” within five days of a request or be charged with a fourth degree misdemeanor.
Singh said another draft policy would allow renters to pay off their security deposits across several months rather than all at once, something Okolo said would have an immense benefit for Akron’s renters.
“We have this ‘first-to-file’ rule that says landlords must accept the first application they have and work from that order” provided the applicant meets all pertinent qualifications, Okolo said. Landlords being able to “arbitrarily pick and choose,” he said, often results in discrimination against Black people, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities and those who are poor.
Another proposal, he said, stipulates that landlords must take fair housing training “every three years in accordance with their rental registration.”
To levy more money to build housing, one proposal suggests taking a portion of the so-called IT4 funds — an income tax benefiting police, fire and roads — and diverting it to housing needs and more, Okolo said.
Okolo believes the city government will hold parties responsible for violating these proposals, should Akronites vote them into law.
“I think of all the city departments who I would think would be enforcing things, it is going to be the housing inspectors,” said Okolo. “I’ve seen them firsthand on the ground, pushing enforcement, writing code violations, following up on those code violations.”
Freedom BLOC volunteer and housing campaign member Trey Phillips said one of the first things discussed at the start of the ballot initiative campaign was the anticipated resistance to further regulation and accountability.
“Our plan of attack was to try and make sure we have a unified front,” Phillips said, “that we’re talking to other organizations in Akron that are also concerned about the housing crisis to make sure that we have as much power behind the initiative as possible to counteract that adversity.”
Contact reporter Derek Kreider at DKreider@Gannett.com or 330-541-9413.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Divert tax dollars to housing? Akron group pitches this, other solutions
Reporting by Derek Kreider, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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