A little less than half of the households forced to move from Colonial Village into hotels due to unsafe living conditions were able to find permanent housing before a key deadline Friday.
Now, the city of Columbus and the Community Shelter Board nonprofit are helping families moving out of those hotels find other options. Community Shelter Board spokeswoman Sara Loken said out of 535 households, 286 transitioned out of hotels and 111 were assisted in securing housing placement.
Many more are in the process of finding housing since they moved into hotels at the end of 2023.
In total, more than 1,300 people, including more than 500 children, were forced to move from the complex.
Columbus Community Development Deputy Director Hannah Jones said many still face the possibility of not having housing and being placed into the shelter system. This includes 13 families that will get priority in the shelters and 113 single adults who have not signed a lease or applied to sign a lease.
Jones said the Friday deadline for many to move out of the hotels will not be extended, but many will be given grace if they've signed a lease or applied to sign one.
The hundreds that have done one of those two things will continue to be housed in hotels for the time being until their new leases start.
"We have always said that we saw this as a temporary option to give these families a safe space to try and access the services that they had not been able to access before because they were in an exploited situation," Jones said.
It's been a long journey for the families and the city after Colonial Village was closed down last year. The situation was complicated by the fact that many of the families are Haitian migrants who the city believes were trafficked into the country to live at the apartment complex.
Even more pressing is that there were a high number of children at this complex, compared to the Latitiude 525 complex that was shutdown in late 2022.
In all, the city has spent almost $6 million to help house the former Colonial Village residents. Jones said the remainder of that money will be used to house the people staying in hotels awaiting a lease they've signed or applied for.
Loken said the city is allowing CSB to use the remaining funds beyond Friday. She said these funds facilitate extended hotel stays for a portion of households who have pending housing and are awaiting inspection or final approval from a landlord.
Jones said the remainder will be be removed from the hotels unless they start paying for the rooms. Jones also said many of the individuals who do not have young children will be waitlisted into shelters in Columbus.
The issues residents faced while living at Colonial Village speaks to the challenges Columbus faces as a community.
"It is a crazy intersection right now, between what housing affordability looks like nationally and the impact that the ongoing stalemate on immigration has caused. They've kind of merged and it's playing out everywhere in this country," Jones said.
