COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The City of Columbus is investing millions of dollars toward combating the city’s looming housing crisis.

Houses are getting more expensive, and, at the same time, central Ohio is growing exponentially, with some reports showing Columbus’ population doubling by 2050.

According to Realtor.com, the median listing home price in Columbus was $289,000 as of July, a year-over-year increase of 11.2%.

“Central Ohio doesn’t need to wait to see the overcrowding and to see that unsheltered homelessness before we move,” Carlie Boos, the executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance Central Ohio, said. “We don’t need to wait until the housing market is so broken that it takes half a million dollars to buy your first home.”

She said there is an extreme need for this type of housing right now.

“When you have more people than you have homes, someone is going to lose that game of musical chairs,” Boos said.

It’s for this reason Columbus is making significant investments towards accessible and affordable housing.

“We have a supply and demand issue in the city of Columbus,” city councilmember Shayla Favor said. “That is why we are seeing rent go up, sometimes double or triple in some communities.”

She is spearheading these efforts at city council. Last month, council passed legislation funding new projects across the city, rental protections, and much more.

“We have to be building across the board,” Favor said. “We need affordable housing across all income structures.”

One such project is Easton Place Homes, being built in conjunction with Homeport.

The two have worked together on a number of housing initiatives across the city. When it’s all said and done, the building will have 200 units ranging from 1 to 3 bedrooms.

And for residents already in these types of units, they’ve felt the impact.

“Some of the places I lived along the way there were things like mold, some other environmental issues to the point it took my voice away for a number of years,” resident Michael Roebuck said. “As the years rolled by I had a chance to not only take my hat off to them but benefit from it so thank you City of Columbus.”

It’s stories like these that encourage Favor, though she knows it’s not that simple.

“The reality is there is a stigma around the word affordable housing but I want to help demystify what that actually looks like,” she said. “We can’t dictate where somebody is going to move; we just need to make sure we have enough units to accommodate that growth.”