HOME FOR ALL
HOME FOR ALL
This project was coordinated by the Northern Kentucky Area Development District with Brighton Center and Brighton Properties. The project was funded by Interact for Health and United Way of Greater Cincinnati. Communication support was provided by NKY Chamber of Commerce through Scooter Media. CommunityScale supported the menu of strategies and documentation.
When I was young, I remember asking my father, a home builder, if we’d ever run out of room to build houses. He assured me Northern Kentucky had plenty of space. Today we still have enough space to build homes, but how can we overcome our current challenges to build enough homes for everyone who wants to join us here?
In 2024, over 90 community leaders and experts devoted countless hours addressing our region's urgent housing challenge, especially around our income-aligned housing supply shortage. Our goal: close the housing gap across income levels and provide a place for everyone.
The 2023 Northern Kentucky Area Development District Housing Data Study revealed we need 6,650 additional housing units in the next five years to keep up with and support our region’s growth. While some projects have advanced, our economic progress depends on implementing strategic solutions.
This document presents a menu of strategies for local governments, nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, and private employers to consider. It doesn't recommend uniform application but offers diverse strategies to address housing challenges.
Whether it’s addressing affordability gaps, expanding housing choices, or creating vibrant mixed-use neighborhoods, this menu is a flexible framework that communities can adapt to their context.
Ensuring current and potential residents have affordable, varied housing choices remains a top priority. As a community, we must work together to create opportunities for current and future generations.
I invite you to review these ideas with openness. Together, we can transform these concepts into action, ensuring our children have a place to call home in Northern Kentucky for generations to come.
This work started as regional leaders sought to identify ways to attract and retain talent in our region. The NKY Housing Data Study provided key insights to help us connect housing market trends with workforce data. It also confirmed what those in the real estate field have known: rising costs are making homeownership and rental less attainable while changing demographics are shifting market demands.
The Housing Data Study findings were helpful but we needed additional local context to help inform future decision-making by policymakers, employers as well as our local nonprofit community to support goals like home-ownership as we sought to address gaps in availability of income-aligned housing of all types.
The data showed our region lacks sufficient housing stock for young adults forming their first household, for essential workers like nurses, teachers and first responders, and for seniors.
Since we received the Stantec study in September 2023, questions began on what to do about the housing gaps identified in the report.
Meanwhile, efforts across Kentucky and nationwide began in 2023-24 to better understand and address housing shortages. Partners from Northern Kentucky presented to the General Assembly Taskforce, a Kentucky Housing Corporation Conference and to a Kentucky Chamber listening session.
In order to understand what strategies might be best for local communities, regional partners convened to work on a Menu of Strategies that may be used to address various goals of individual communities while meeting overall regional needs.
The Northern Kentucky Housing Data Study found that Northern Kentucky’s existing and planned housing stock does not match trends in its workforce development. This study is a foundational resource for data-driven approaches to addressing housing gaps in the region.
Since the release of the study in 2023, stakeholders have been gathering input from employers and residents through more than 40 community meetings and a digital survey.
Northern Kentucky is not alone in facing the issue of housing availability. This study and the menu of strategies are just some of the ways that regional partners are trying to better align employers needing talent with jobseekers.
There will not be a one-size-fits-all solution to NKY’s housing issues. Each community will require tailored solutions to address their different needs. This menu of strategies will provide a starting point for officials and other stakeholders to begin conversations about how to address the significant housing inventory gaps in their communities.
The options listed in the menu of strategies can help bolster efforts to fill the gaps in both housing stock type and price point. Additional housing units must be a mix of houses, apartments, and condos that fit the financial and lifestyle needs of our workforce - from young professionals to empty nesters and everyone in between.
Homes are where jobs sleep at night. Housing stock and housing availability is a critical component of site selection for employers in Northern Kentucky. According to Site Selection Magazine, income-aligned housing is a top 10 location factor for companies in the site selection process.
The Housing Coalition meeting on November 18, 2024 allowed stakeholders to share how availability of residential options at varying price points impacts them and their work.
Links to material and videos from the meeting:
Welcome – Judge Executive Gary Moore – Boone County
Community Engagement – Wonda Winkler
Housing Meeting – November 18, 2024 presentation material
These materials are also available on NKADD's website.
Filter by strategies by housing type
Filter by strategies by lead partner
Filter by strategies by commitment
| Theme | Strategy | Strategies by housing type | Strategies by lead partner | Strategies by commitment |
|---|
One of the strongest ideas to emerge is a Regional Housing Trust Fund
Across the country, communities are creating Housing Trust Funds, which vary widely in their use to promote housing production. Over the last year, as committees met to explore the menu of strategies to address Northern Kentucky’s housing gap, there was cross-cutting support for establishing a Regional Housing Trust Fund. There was a desire for a fund to be administered through The Catalytic Fund of Northern Kentucky or another Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).
The committees identified several prioritized uses for the fund, including the following:
To ensure the funds are targeted to address the gaps identified by the 2023 Housing Data Study, it was suggested that grants or forgivable loans be prioritized, followed by low or no-interest debt.
Possible Sources of Funds
To be effective, a Regional Housing Trust Fund would require sufficient resources to ignite development and address our gap in the right price points in key locations near amenities and employment centers.
Possible funding sources could include employers, local, state, or federal grants, private philanthropy, or even funds generated through an Industrial Revenue Bond (IRB) pilot project that could create revenue as a fee from developers.
There is widespread agreement that the current shortage of housing can be traced back to the impact of the Great Recession in 2008-2009. One of the specific impacts from that economic downturn was the flight of smaller developers and those in construction trades from the industry. Lack of sufficient workforce in residential construction drives up costs and the time to build new homes.
While Northern Kentucky has strong institutions supporting the trades, such as Kentucky Community And Technical College System (KCTCS), Enzweiler Building Institute, and Trades NKY, over the past year, the New Development Committee (see page 16), discussed workforce strategies to support more growth in the construction trades industry.
This effort will create stable, well-paying jobs while addressing market demand for adaptive reuse, in-fill and customized home builds not typically taken on by larger home builders.
Ideas for supporting small developers include:
Employee relocation plays a critical role in attracting and retaining the workforce essential to our region. A key focus for the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce (NKY Chamber) is growing, attracting and retaining talent, which was identified by members as the number one concern in the annual member survey. As the second-largest chamber of commerce in the Cincinnati MSA, and the third largest in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the NKY Chamber represents more than 1,750 member businesses. It promotes and supports the development of strong businesses and a vibrant economy in the Northern Kentucky region.
Relocation is a cornerstone of talent attraction and retention, impacting businesses of all sizes. As we look toward recruiting and retaining businesses in our region, we know that housing availability ranks among the top 10 location factors for companies during the site selection process, according to Site Selection Magazine.
Northern Kentucky’s workforce reflects the diversity of its businesses, from entry-level employees to executives. This mix requires housing that meets a wide range of preferences – including rental.
To address this need, the creation of a Landlord Property Inventory, a centralized resource where community partners and individuals can easily access housing options based on searchable categories like housing type, rental rates and fees, size, distance from employment hubs, school district and even if that landlord accepts Housing Choice Vouchers - would have a tremendous positive impact.
This resource would foster connections between available properties and tenants needing housing at all price points, supporting not just those looking to relocate, but also those within our community struggling to secure housing.
A robust inventory would support talent in our region, thereby enhancing our region’s competitiveness in the global economy. Additionally, if this directory were populated fully, it could help regional leaders see where we are depleted of certain types of housing in specific areas.
NKY Chamber and its partners already invest in talent resources like: Livability Magazine and Living in Northern Kentucky. Developing tools like the Landlord Property Inventory will continue to strengthen the region’s appeal for businesses and talent, ensuring a thriving and vibrant community.
The Data: The Northern Kentucky Housing Data Study makes broad observations that apply across the entire eight-county region. The study found that Northern Kentucky’s existing and planned housing stock does not match trends in its workforce development.
Northern Kentucky Housing Study Data Analysis Background Information (August 2024)
Northern Kentucky Housing Data Analysis Results: Regional Summary
County Profiles: Detailed analysis for each county from 2023
Distribution of household income and affordability: One page summaries updated in April, 2024
The Northern Kentucky Area Development District (NKADD) is a collaboration of local leaders and staff supporting and empowering communities by convening stakeholders and implementing quality services. NKADD serves as a forum, clearinghouses, technical center, convener for the region and provide continuity to projects during the transition of local elected officials. NKADD has had federal and state statutory authority (KRS 147A) since September 1971 and serves the communities in Boone, Campbell, Carroll, Gallatin, Grant, Kenton, Owen and Pendleton Counties.
Since 1966, Brighton Center has believed deeply in the potential of people and that everyone deserves the best quality of life possible. Brighton is committed to creating opportunities for individuals and families to reach self-sufficiency through family support services, education, employment, and leadership. Brighton Properties is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brighton Center focused on quality income-aligned housing development for rental and homeownership, facilities and property management, and community development.
Interact for Health works so that people in our region are healthy and thriving, regardless of who they are or where they live. We advance health justice by tackling the root causes of unfair systems, amplifying community power and partnering with trust.
United Way of Greater Cincinnati is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to building long-term solutions and aligning systems to help families in our community thrive. We do that by bringing people and organizations together to solve problems holistically, using community input and data-driven decisions.
CommunityScale is a pioneering urban planning and spatial data analysis company serving clients across the United States. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter/X.