COLUMBUS, Ohio – According to the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, 54,000 low and moderate-income households in Franklin County pay more than half of their income towards housing costs. Habitat for Humanity-MidOhio is one of the groups working to ease that burden, now with the help of a multimillion-dollar grant.

"We've got a lot of folks out there that are spending more than half of their income on just housing and with inflation doing what it's doing, that's only going to go up," E.J. Thomas said.

Thomas is the President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity-MidOhio.

The group's vision is "A world where everyone has a decent place to live." Its mission is "seeking to put God's love into action, Habitat for Humanity-MidOhio brings people together to inspire hope, build homes, empower families, and develop communities."

Recent inflation and supply chain issues are making that pursuit more difficult, but Thomas said they stretching dollars as far as possible.

"We do our best to buy in bulk when we can. As it relates to the supply chain, it's interesting,” he said. "On our supply chain, instead of ordering two or three weeks in advance, we're having to do three or four months in advance in order to make sure that we have the materials that we need at the time they're ready to go into the houses.”

Habitat for Humanity-MidOhio said it will use the money throughout the next three to five years to invest in land, infrastructure, and equipment.