Ohio received an “F” for its sex education policy, according to a new report from the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. 

This is the second year in a row Ohio has earned an “F” on the report card from SIECUS, a national organization that advocates for comprehensive, medically accurate, and inclusive sex education. 

“It’s deeply concerning that such an important part of our responsibility to prepare students for life is being so poorly managed,” said Abortion Forward Executive Director Kellie Copeland. 

“The goal should be to help students be prepared to make decisions about their bodies and their lives, and that’s just not what the Ohio curriculum does at all.”

The grades were determined using two categories — Sex Ed Requirement and Sex Ed Content Requirement. Ohio earned a “D” on the sex ed requirement and an “F” on the sex ed content requirement. 

Nine other states also received an “F” on SIECUS’s report card: Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. 

“What young people are allowed to learn about their bodies is increasingly being determined by politics—not by what they need to be healthy and safe,” Callie Simon, SIECUS Executive Director, said in a statement. 

“This goes beyond the classroom because what young people are allowed to learn today will shape their health, safety, and wellbeing for years to come.”

California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington each received an “A” on the SIECUS report card. 

A 2021 report from the Journal of Adolescent Health reviewed three decades of research and determined there is strong support for comprehensive sex education.  

“When you have a curriculum that is scientifically accurate, and teaches young people about the emotional, the physical, the social aspects of sexuality in an age-appropriate way, they understand their bodies better. They develop healthy relationships,” Copeland said. 

Ohio’s curriculum stresses abstinence as a general policy and requires some instruction about sexually transmitted infections, according to the Ohio Revised Code. 

Schools are required to “emphasize adoption as an option to unintended pregnancies” and “teach the potential physical, psychological, emotional, and social side effects” of sex outside of marriage, according to Ohio’s law. 

Ohio lawmakers decide curriculum requirements, so the State Board of Education can not require health education standards. Because Ohio lacks comprehensive sex education, it’s ultimately up to each school district on how they decide to teach it. 

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce is required to conduct an annual audit to ensure school districts are in compliance with the state’s law. 

Every school district completed the 2024-25 audit and all but two school districts were found to be overall compliant. 

Jefferson Township Local School District (Montgomery County) and Ridgewood Local School District (Coshocton County) were non-compliant. 

Both districts were also non-compliant during the 2024-23 audit as well. 

“Many family structures exist today, and all can provide children with a loving and supportive environment,” Ridgewood explained in ODEW’s audit. 

“We have school staff and students who come from single-parent households, same-sex couples, and traditional married-couple families alike. This highlights the importance of recognizing and respecting all family types. Furthermore, sex education should never be used to shame students for their family background.”

Jefferson Township’s district explained there was an “unexpected resignation of our Jr./Sr. High School principal on Feb. 21” who was making arrangements for the sexually transmitted infection education. 

“Our interim building principal was unable to restart/reconnect for the training,” Jefferson Township said in ODEW’s audit. 

“We also lost our Phys. Ed. teacher this year. We have hired a new staff member certified in Health and Phys. Ed. She will be responsible for scheduling the sexually transmitted infection education during the 2025-2026 school year.” 

The Ohio Center for Sex Education is the education arm of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio that teaches comprehensive sex education in schools and community organizations using the Get Real comprehensive sex education curriculum for middle and high schools. 

“That curricula focuses a lot on social and emotional learning, so we’re excited that not only do we get to talk about the stereotypical STIs, birth control, pregnancy prevention, but we also talk to folks about how to be members of their community and have proper communication skills and healthy relationships and just think about consent as a whole and and gender as a way that’s affirming,” said Jes Fuller, director of the Ohio Center for Sex Education.

Comprehensive sexual education is developmentally appropriate, she said.

“We want to give information to young people before it becomes incredibly useful because they can have that information for the future,” Fuller said.

Ohio has a higher teen birth rate than the national average. 

The national birth rate for females 15-19 years old was 12.6 per 1,000 females and Ohio’s teen birth rate was 14.0 per 1,000 females in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ohio lawmakers passed a bill over the summer that will soon require schools to teach students to graduate high school, get a job, and get married — in that order — before having a baby. This is known as the success sequence and the law takes effect Oct. 6.

Ohio House Bill 485, also known as the “Enact Baby Olivia Act” would require schools to show either the ‘Baby Olivia’ video or a similar video to students every year starting in fifth grade all the way up through twelfth grade beginning with the 2026-27 school year.

Ohio state Rep. Melanie Miller, R–Ashland, introduced the bill, which the Ohio House passed last year and has had two hearings in the Ohio Senate Education Committee. 

The Ohio lawmakers are currently on break and will come back after the November election. Any bill that does not pass before the two-year General Assembly ends in December would have to be reintroduced. 

This story originally appeared on ohiocapitaljournal.com

The post Ohio gets a failing mark on sex education policy from national group appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

More than half of households surveyed that visited an Ohio food bank were forced to choose between paying for utilities or paying for food, according to a new report. 

That 57% statistic was even higher for households with children, which stands at 65%, according to the Ohio Association of Foodbanks annual report which surveyed 2,644 food pantry visitors from April 18 to May 22 this year.

“Ohioans are facing real, real challenges and difficult choices every day, and that those choices are putting them in situations that we know are untenable,” Ohio Association of Foodbanks Executive Director Joree Novotny said. 

Utilities were not the only trade-off. 63% reported choosing between paying for transportation or food, and 59% said they were forced to choose between clothes and personal hygiene products or food. Another 48% said they had to choose between affording medicine or food, and 45% had to decide between paying their rent or mortgage or paying for food.

Households with children saw additional trade-offs as well, with 30% choosing between paying for education or food and 23% choosing between affording childcare or affording food. 

“There’s a lot of trade-offs that are being considered and often being made,” Novotny said. 

“We have to remember that someone making a choice sacrificing medicine to afford food, or wrestling with being able to put gas in the car to get to work, or put food on a table for their kids, or, even many making choices to regularly skip meals to stretch the resources that they do have, that reinforces concerns about what that means for the health and well-being of individual families and collective communities longer term.” 

Slightly more than half (52%) said at least one person in their household skipped a meal during the past year and 59% said they had to skip a meal every month, according to the report. 

When it comes to households with seniors, 53% reported visiting food pantries more than 12 times per year.

Food is often the first thing people cut back on, Novotny said. 

“You still have to put gas in the car to get to work to keep your job,” she said. “You still have to pay the rent, keep utilities running, but food is a thing you can sacrifice.”

Who was surveyed 

Of those surveyed, 46% said there was at least one senior over the age of 60 and 46% said there was at least one child under the age of 18. 

Slightly more than half of those surveyed had annual household incomes below $20,000 and 69% reported having an income below $30,000. 

Nearly a third of those surveyed said they got an extra job to make ends meet. 

About half (49%) had Medicaid coverage and 76% had someone in their household living with a health condition including high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart disease. 

A little less than half (45%) received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. Of those households receiving SNAP, 24% said their benefits lasted one week or less.  

More than 100,000 Ohioans — including more than 50,000 children — have lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits since President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” made the largest cuts to food stamps in the history of the program. 

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post Nearly half of households using Ohio food banks have had to choose between paying for rent or food appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

A full-time Ohio worker needs to be making at least $23.82 an hour to be able to afford a “modest” two-bedroom apartment, according to a new report released this week. 

This is slightly more than a 5% increase from last year — which was $22.51, according to National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio’s annual Out of Reach report. 

The Housing Wage is an estimate of the hourly wage full-time workers must make to afford a rental home at HUD’s Fair Market Rent without spending more than 30% of their income.

Ohio’s Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,238, meaning a household must earn $49,537 annually to cover rent and utilities, according to the report. 

The state’s Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $996, according to the report. Ohio has nearly 1.6 million renter households. 

The report showed the average Ohio renter earns $19.59 an hour, $4.23 less than what they need to be making to afford a two-bedroom apartment. 

The Housing Wage gap was $1.57 an hour in 2020, meaning the Housing Wage has increased by 169% in the past six years, the report said. 

“Renters’ incomes shot up in the early 2020s, but then rent increases eventually swamped the wage gains,” COHHIO Executive Director Amy Riegel said in a statement. 

“And it’s not just housing. The cost of food, transportation, healthcare, childcare, and education is continuing to rise while people working in low wage jobs are getting squeezed.” 

Of the 10 most common jobs in Ohio, only general operations managers and registered nurses pay more than $23.82 an hour, according to the report. 

Fast food workers, retail salespeople, stockers, laborers, home health aides, and cashiers earn a median hourly wage less than $20 an hour, according to the report. 

Ohio’s minimum wage is $11 an hour for non-tipped workers — meaning a minimum wage worker would have to work 87 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom rental and 70 hours to afford a one-bedroom rental. 

Economic Policy Institute modeling shows 616,700 Ohio workers would get a raise due to a state minimum wage increase of $15 an hour by 2030, according to a report by Policy Matters Ohio published earlier this year. 

Union County had the highest Housing Wage, where full-time workers need to make at least $27.56 an hour, the report showed. 

Urban areas in the state were not far behind. The Housing Wage is $27.50 an hour in Columbus, $26.02 in Cincinnati, $24.60 in Cleveland, and $24.48 in Dayton. 

Ohio has a shortage of 266,000 affordable and available rental units, according to the 2026 Gap Report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and COHHIO. 

“While we’re helping many families get stably housed, even more are falling into homelessness every day,” Fred Berry, president and CEO of Humility of Mary Housing in Akron, said in a statement. 

“The lack of affordable housing is increasing the risk of homelessness and making it harder to get out of homelessness.” 

There were 12,196 people experiencing homelessness in Ohio last year, according to HUD’s annual Homelessness Assessment Report. 

Only one in four eligible households receives federal housing assistance, NLIHC President and CEO Renee M. Willis said. 

“To meaningfully address the affordable housing crisis, the federal government must adequately fund housing programs in a way that would expand rental assistance and both preserve and increase the supply of deeply affordable homes for those with the lowest incomes,” she said in a statement. 

“We have the resources to invest in expanding housing solutions that provide stable homes for the lowest-income people in our country. We just need the political will to do so.”  

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post Ohio renters need to earn at least $23.82 an hour to afford two-bedroom rental, new report shows appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Despite Ohio ranking 12th in education overall, 68% of Ohio fourth graders were not proficient in reading and 68% of Ohio eighth graders were not proficient in math, according to the latest Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Book. 

The study shows the percentage of Ohio students not proficient in reading has increased 4% from 2019 and Ohio students not proficient in math has jumped 6% since 2019. 

Despite those increases, Ohio fared better than the rest of the country — 70% of American fourth graders were not proficient in reading and 73% of American eighth graders were not proficient in math, according to the report.

Ohio ranked 27th in the nation overall, 12th in the nation for education, 26th for health, 27th for economic well-being, 27th for child well-being, and 33rd for family and community, according to the study released last month. This is the 37th edition of the foundation’s data book. 

“Our current rankings reveal the urgent need for policies that reduce child poverty, improve educational outcomes, and expand health coverage,” Ohio’s Children’s Defense Fund Director John Stanford said in a statement. 

“We cannot afford to wait—our children’s futures depend on it.” 

Ohio school districts were required to teach the science of reading curriculum starting with the 2024-25 school year, one year after the law was enacted through the 2023 state budget.

The science of reading is based on decades of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine often touts the science of reading and lists it among some of the most important work he has done for Ohio’s children.

Ohio’s literacy scores were down from last year, with 61.3% of third graders reading at or above grade level in the 2024-25 school year compared to 64.5% from the 2023-24 school year, according to the most recent state report cards that were released in September.

DeWine recently signed an academic interventions bill into law which requires school districts or individual schools to provide academic interventions for free to students who scored at a limited skill level in a state assessment test in math or English language arts, or both.

Ohio high school students not graduating on time declined — going from 18% in 2018-19 to 12% in 2023-24, according to the report. Nationally, 13% of high school students did not graduate on time. 

There were 165,000 Ohio children ages 3 and 4 not in school from 2020-24 — going from 55% from 2015-19 to 59% from 2020-24, the study said. The national rate was 54%. 

The study showed Ohio’s child poverty rate decreased since 2019 — dropping from 18% to 16% in 2024. 

There were 417,000 Ohio children living in poverty in 2024; 661,000 children whose parents lack secure employment, 632,000 children living in households with a high housing cost burden; and 38,000 teenagers not in school and not working, according to the report.  

Nationally, 15% of children were living in poverty.

Health

Nearly 9% of babies in Ohio were born with low birth weight in 2024 — totaling 11,158, according to the study. 

About 152,000 Ohio children (6%) did not have health insurance — a percentage point better from 2019. About 1.4 million Ohio children are enrolled in Medicaid. 

The percentage of Ohio children 10-17 who were overweight or obese dropped from 35% in 2018-19 to 31% in 2023-24, the study says. The national rate was 30%. 

Economic well-being

Nearly 14% of Ohio children are receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, the study says. 

About a third of Ohio children were living in single-parent families — totaling 852,000, according to the study. This is a decrease from 37% in 2019. 

Ten percent of Ohio children lived in high-poverty areas during 2020-24, a decrease from 12% in 2019. 

Nationally, 7% of children were living in high-poverty areas. 

“Every number in this report tells a story about Ohio’s children—stories of resilience, disparities, and potential,” Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio Policy and Research Manager Christian Davis said in a statement. 

“It’s time for Ohio to prioritize investments in early childhood, education, health, and family stability. Our children’s well-being should be a shared responsibility and a top priority for all policymakers.”

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post 68% of Ohio fourth graders are not proficient in reading, according to new study appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

The number of Ohio unclaimed funds paid out nearly tripled during the 2026 fiscal year, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce. This comes after Ohio lawmakers and the governor decided to tap that money to fund sports stadiums.

There were 884,912 claims filed for $746.50 million during the 2026 fiscal year, said Ohio Department of Commerce Spokesperson Reagan Reetz. 

Of those, 184,083 claims were paid out for $182.57 million during the most recent fiscal year, she said. 

In fiscal year 2025, there were 68,787 claims paid out totaling $109.73 million, Reetz said. 

It’s been a little over a year since Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine approved using $1 billion of the state’s unclaimed funds to help Ohio professional sport teams pay for new stadiums or improvements through the state’s two-year operating budget. 

Of that money, $600 million of unclaimed funds have already been spoken for and will go to the Cleveland Browns’ new domed stadium in Brook Park — about 15 miles south of downtown Cleveland. 

The remaining $400 million is set aside for other qualifying projects as determined by the Ohio Office of Budget and Management and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. 

Twenty-two applicants are trying to get a slice of the $400 million for their facilities, according to the Ohio Office of Budget and Management. 

Eight of those applicants have been denied — narrowing the list down to 14. 

Teams with facilities still in the running include the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Cavaliers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Cleveland Guardians, and FC Cincinnati. 

The budget allows the state to take existing unclaimed funds that are at least 10 years old as of Jan. 1, 2026, and put them into the Ohio Cultural and Sports Facility Performance Grant Fund. It also gives property owners until 2036 to make a claim even if their money was previously transferred to the state.

Ohio’s unclaimed funds is money that is property of Ohioans held by the state for things like forgotten bank accounts, rent or utility deposits, or uncashed insurance policies. An initiated claim is when someone submits a form to claim their funds. Additional documents are needed to prove ownership of the funds. 

Ohio’s unclaimed funds is worth close to $5 billion, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce. 

Two former Ohio Democratic lawmakers — former state Rep. Jeff Crossman and former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann — filed a class action lawsuit against the state’s plan to use unclaimed funds for the new Browns stadium at the end of last year. 

Franklin County Common Pleas Court Magistrate Jennifer Hunt granted a preliminary injunction blocking the state from taking unclaimed funds to help pay for the Browns stadium earlier this year. 

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with the state.  

The Cleveland Browns broke ground on the new stadium earlier this year and it is expected to be ready for the 2029 season, according to the NFL.  

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post Ohioans received $182.5 million from the state’s unclaimed funds during 2026 fiscal year appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Costs, provider availability, and health insurance limitations were the top reasons Ohio children were not able to access mental healthcare, according to a recent study from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. 

Nearly half said unaccepted health insurance was the reason their child did not receive mental healthcare treatment while 40% said provider availability and 29% said cost (people surveyed could select more than one barrier). 

“Many young Ohioans experience mental health challenges, and families often have difficulty navigating the mental healthcare and insurance systems,” according to the study.

“Accessing needed mental health treatment is important, especially for children, because mental health conditions often continue into adulthood.” 

The average out-of-pocket cost for an individual 60-minute psychotherapy visit with an out-of-network provider cost $55 in 2021, according to the study.  

“If a child needs to receive treatment from an out-of-network provider for therapy once a week … the family would pay an average of $220 per month,” the study said.

Seeing an in-network provider came with a $28 out-of-pocket price tag, it showed.

That cost jumps to $164 for someone without health insurance or someone who pays without insurance, the study said.

“Healthcare for mental health issues can be expensive, and as many mental health conditions are chronic, they often require ongoing treatment,” according to the study. “Costs of care and prescription drugs can accumulate quickly with or without insurance.”

OhioGuidestone — Ohio’s largest community behavioral health provider that is not a federally qualified health center — charges $142 per hour for therapeutic behavioral services. They charge $206 per day for their day treatment group and $41 per hour for group psychotherapy.  

Just under half of Ohio children were on Medicaid and 46% had commercial insurance in 2023. 

Health Policy Institute of Ohio found commercial plans rarely cover therapeutic behavioral health support, case management, intensive home-based treatment, behavioral health nursing, crisis services/mobile response, and peer recovery services. 

“One of the most important takeaways from this brief is unlike traditional physical health care, it tends to be that insurance problems are more substantial for kids who are on commercial insurance compared to a program like Medicaid,” said Health Policy Institute of Ohio Analyst Brian O’Rourke.

“This can range from really narrow provider networks in terms of difficulty finding an in-network behavioral health provider to help with those mental health needs,” he said. “It could include really high out-of-pocket costs, even when you do find a provider in network, and then limitations on the types of covered services.”

An Ohio patient was 1.6 times more likely to see an out-of-network provider for a behavioral health office visit and 3.6 times more likely to see an out-of-network provider for inpatient behavioral healthcare. 

 The state has a lack of mental health providers and 75 Ohio counties are mental health shortage areas, according to a study last year from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. 

Ohio behavioral health clinicians are reimbursed an average of 18% less than medical or surgical clinicians, which can “lead some providers to not accept insurance and instead require patients to self-pay, which is out of reach for many families,” according to the study. 

Sometimes having a health insurance plan is not always enough. 

Going without behavioral health services over time can ultimately make things worse, O’Rourke said.

“If someone’s going through with untreated severe anxiety or depression, they’re going to have to deal with the burdens of that condition, but also it’s going to affect their school performance, potentially their ability to find a job and secure employment,” he said.

Ohio lawmakers have introduced a handful of insurance related bills. 

Ohio House Bill 219 would create network adequacy standards for Ohio health insurers. Ohio state Rep. Kellie Deeter, R-Norwalk, introduced the bill which has had two hearings so far. 

Ohio House Bill 220 prohibits health insurers from retroactively denying a prior authorization for mental health or substance use disorder treatment. Ohio state Rep. Heidi Workman, R-Rootstown, introduced the bill which passed the House earlier this year. 

Ohio House Bill 709 would require private insurers to cover telehealth mental health services. Ohio state Reps. Karen Brownlee, D-Symmes Twp., and Meredith Craig, R-Smithville, introduced the bipartisan bill earlier this year and it has had one hearing so far. 

The lawmakers are on break and will return after the November election. Any bill that does not pass before the end of the year must be reintroduced in the new General Assembly to be considered. 

Health Policy Institute of Ohio recommends the state monitor costs of behavioral healthcare, expand provider availability, and consider changes related to insurance limitations and mental health parity. 

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post Ohio children unable to access mental healthcare because of insurance, costs, and lack of providers appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Ohioans will not have a chance to vote to eliminate the same-sex marriage ban in the Ohio Constitution in the November election. 

Ohio Equal Rights recently announced they will not try to get two amendments on this year’s ballot, but will instead sight their sights on the 2027 election. 

Their other proposed amendment would add language to the state’s constitution protecting citizens from discrimination based on race, color, creed or religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression regardless of sex assigned at birth, pregnancy status, genetic information, disease status, age, disability, recovery status, familial status, ancestry, national origin, or military and veteran status.  

“We made the strategic decision with the attacks on voting, the high cost of marketing, and the everything that is going on this year — as well as wanting to stay in line with Ohio Coalition to End Qualified Immunity and the data center ban — we would rather be on the same ballot and in lockstep with folks who are values and mission aligned, and in an ecosystem that is a little bit less chaotic than what we’re seeing right now,” said Ohio Equal Rights Executive Co-Chair Lis Regula.

To get on the November ballot, Ohio Equal Rights would have needed to collect about 413,487 signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties by July 1 for each amendment.

Ohio Equal Rights would not say how many signatures they have collected so far, but those signatures remain valid since they did not submit them to the Ohio Secretary of State. 

Ohio’s constitution includes a ban on same-sex marriage after 61.7% of Ohio voters approved an amendment in 2004 that says marriage is only between one man and one woman. The United States Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015 through the Obergefell case originating out of Ohio. 

However, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called on the justices to revisit Obergefell after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

LGBTQ bills

At the Ohio Statehouse, Ohio Republican lawmakers are advancing bills to pass anti-LGBTQ legislation while bills that would support LGBTQ Ohioans have seen virtually no movement. 

“We’re in Pride Month right now, we have over a half a million LGBTQ+ Ohioans, so it’s very much a community that we should be serving,” said Josh Meek, statewide advocacy manager with Equality Ohio. 

The ACLU is currently tracking 530 anti-LGBTQ bills nationwide and 10 bills in Ohio.

Ohio state Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Twp., has introduced many of Ohio’s anti-LGBTQ bills. He recently lost in the Ohio 9th District Republican Primary to Derek Merrin, so Williams won’t be returning to the Ohio Statehouse next year. The Ohio Capital Journal reached out to Williams for an interview, but he was unavailable. 

Ohio House Bill 249 would ban drag performers from performing anywhere that is not a designated adult entertainment facility. 

The bill passed the Ohio House in March, but has yet to have any hearings so far in the Ohio Senate. This type of law has been blocked in other states for violating freedom of speech.

“The language they use is so legally vague and broad that this could target theatrical performances that we might not consider obscene or harmful to juveniles,” Meek said. 

Williams and state Rep. Angie King, R-Celina, introduced the bill. 

Ohio House Bill 693 would prevent parents from being charged with abuse and neglect if they do not recognize their child’s trans identity. 

Williams and state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, introduced the bill, which has had two hearings so far in the Ohio House Judiciary Committee. 

Williams introduced these bills earlier this year, which have had no hearings so far.  

• Ohio House Bill 700 would ban using state funds to provide gender transition for minors. 
• Ohio House Bill 796 would make sure Ohio inmates and prisoners are housed by their biological sex. 
• Ohio House Bill 798 would restrict transgender Ohioans access to using public bathrooms and prohibit changing sex markers on birth and death certificates. 
• Ohio House Bill 838 would prohibit state and local municipalities from covering gender reassignment surgery. 

Ohio House Bill 172  would ban children 14 and older from receiving mental health services without parental consent. State Rep. Johnathan Newman, R-Troy, introduced this bill, which has had a few hearings so far in the Ohio House Health Committee. 

Ohio House Bill 262 would designate the weeks from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day as Natural Family Month. Williams and state Rep. Beth Lear, R-Galena, introduced the bill, which has had four hearings so far.  

“So many of our LGBTQ+ Ohioans, especially the youth and the youth that are in rural Ohio, they don’t have anybody they might know that was part of the community, or they might not see others like them, so I think passing this kind of bill just reaffirms the narrative that Ohio is not really a welcoming place right now for LGBTQ+ Ohioans,” Meek said. 

Ohio House Bill 190 would require parental permission for schools to use different pronouns or different names for students that don’t match up with the biological sex or birth name. Williams and Newman introduced the bill, which had sponsor testimony last year. 

Ohio House Bill 196 would require political candidates to list their former names on candidacy petitions. This, however, would not apply to names that have been changed due to marriage. 

King and state Rep. Rodney Creech, R-West Alexandria, introduced the bill, which had sponsor testimony last year. 

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio —  the only openly gay lawmaker in the Ohio General Assembly — has introduced a few bills that would help LGBTQ people, but none of these bills have had any hearings so far this General Assembly.

• Ohio Senate Bill 70 would expand anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity. House Bill 136 is a companion bill. 
• Ohio Senate Bill 71 would ban any licensed health professionals from doing conversion therapy when providing mental health treatment to minors. Antonio and state Sen. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, introduced the bill. House Bill 300 is a companion bill. 
• Ohio Senate Bill 211 would designate the first full week of June as “Love Makes a Family Week.” 

Antonio has introduced the Ohio Fairness Act in every General Assembly since she was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2011 and this is the first time since 2018 the bill has no Republican support. 

Any bill that does not pass before the end of the year must be reintroduced in the new General Assembly to be considered. 

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post Ohio Equal Rights will try to get two amendments on 2027 ballot appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

The number of people experiencing homelessness in Ohio in 2025 increased more than 3%, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

There were 12,196 people experiencing homelessness in Ohio last year, according to HUD’s annual Homelessness Assessment Report. 

Overall homelessness in the U.S. decreased 3% with 745,652 people experiencing homelessness. 

“We know that housing is what helps solve homelessness, and it really is just how we as a state and as a system can fine tune our approaches so that we can reach everyone in Ohio who might face homelessness,” said Amy Riegel, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.

HUD’s Point-in-Time count are one-night estimates of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness that took place in January 2025. 

About 20% of those experiencing homelessness in Ohio were unsheltered, according to the report. 

“(Unsheltered) is a type of homelessness that people tend to see more because it is out in the open, whereas for individuals who might be experiencing homelessness and who are staying in a shelter — which is very common with family homelessness — you don’t see that as much, Riegel said. 

The report estimates there are 1,452 chronically homeless people, 946 unaccompanied homeless youth, and 668 homeless veterans in Ohio. 

“We know that these increases in chronic homelessness are directly tied to the lack of housing that we have in our communities,” Riegel said. “Building more deeply affordable housing is incredibly important,” 

Ohio also has a shortage of 266,000 affordable and available rental units, according to the 2026 Gap Report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and COHHIO. 

“Housing is not improving on the affordability side, especially for those who are the most vulnerable and who have the lowest income within our communities, so with that situation, we know it’s becoming more difficult for individuals to stay housed and to find that housing that they really can remain in for a long period of time,” Riegel said. 

Another way to reduce homelessness is having protections for the renter. 

“(When a landlord) realizes that they could start renting their unit for twice as much as they’re charging today, where they just kick the renter out, knowing that the renter will probably not be able to defend themselves in court if they try to challenge it,” she said.

“We see all kinds of other ways that landlords are trying to undercut individuals who are currently in their housing for the promise of somebody else who might be able to pay more or who might be able to stay longer within the unit, so being able to protect individuals and their units is really important.”

The number of homeless people in Ohio has increased 8.3% since 2007, according to the report. 

Franklin County’s annual Point-in-Time Count identified 2,587 people experiencing homelessness in January — a 1.2% increase from 2025. 

Franklin County, the state’s most populous county, is projected to see a 68% increase in unsheltered homelessness by 2028. 

Ohioans need to be making at least $22.51 an hour working a full-time job to be able to afford a “modest” two-bedroom apartment, according to an annual report released last year. 

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post People experiencing homelessness in Ohio went up 3% in 2025, according to federal report appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wants Ohio to abolish the death penalty, but stopped short of taking any executive action Tuesday when he held a news conference on the subject. 

“It is impossible today to make the case that the death penalty is a deterrent,” DeWine said. “I no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. … The most effective thing to deal with violent crime is to go after the repeat violent offenders and lock them the hell up, that’s what’s effective.”

DeWine is calling on Ohio lawmakers to either take action legislatively or have the death penalty on the Ohio ballot for voters to decide, but DeWine said he does not want to lead a citizen-initiated statue. 

“I don’t think (a citizen-initiated statue) is an effective pathway,” DeWine said. “It seems to me these things, the legislature decides if it gets on the ballot because the legislature pushed it on, unless there’s a whole bunch of money behind it.” 

Ohio lawmakers have introduced bills — Ohio Senate Bill 133, Ohio Senate Bill 134, and Ohio House Bill 72 — that would end the death penalty, but none of the bills have received a hearing. Any bill that does not pass before the end of the year must be reintroduced in the new General Assembly to be considered. 

Ohio’s death penalty was reinstated in 1981 after a law DeWine helped write passed and was signed into law. 

“I believed that in some cases capital punishment could serve as a deterrent to keep some people from killing,” DeWine said. “For me, it was the moral justification for having a death penalty. …  I’m responsible for that decision.” 

DeWine is in his final months in office as he is term-limited and said he has not talked to Ohio Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy about the death penalty. 

“I felt that I had an obligation to explain to people why I now believe that the death penalty is not a deterrent, and why I believe that we should abolish the death penalty,” DeWine said. 

Ohio’s last execution was in July 2018, months before DeWine was elected governor. DeWine put a hold on all capital punishment due to not having enough lethal injection drugs to carry out the execution at the end of 2020. 

Ohio has 113 inmates on death row, the nation’s fifth-largest death row population, according to former Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s Capital Crimes report that was published in April. 

Of the 337 people in Ohio who have received a death sentence since 1981, 56 people have been executed. Forty-one died of either natural causes or of suicide on death row, and 89 death sentences were overturned, DeWine said. 

Certainty and swiftness are the two things DeWine said he looked at when determining whether capital punishment is a deterrent — will the death penalty be carried out and how long does it take from sentencing to execution? 

“It would seem that if the death penalty were an actual deterrent for some people, it would need to happen quickly,” DeWine said. “Statistically, the odds of the death penalty actually being carried out are very low, and if it is carried out, it is all but guaranteed it will take a long, long time for that execution to happen.” 

The elapsed time between sentencing and execution ranged from 14 to 32 years for the last 10 people who were executed in Ohio — averaging 21 years, DeWine said. Those statistics omit the people who have died waiting to be executed or whose case was overturned.  

“The truth is that there is no prospect that these long delays will be substantially changed in the future,” DeWine said. 

Ohio averaged 14.25 death penalty sentences each year in the 1980s, and 13.6 death penalty sentences per year in the 1990s, a little more than five death penalty sentences per year in the 2000s, less than four death penalty sentences per year in the 2010, and only two people have been sentenced to death since 2020, DeWine said. 

“The odds of a murderer being indicted for capital offense are dramatically less today, and the odds of them being sentenced to death are even more remote,” DeWine said. 

“Throughout my career, I’ve always stated that the most important way to protect the public is to lock up violent criminals and to keep them out of society. That is a proven way of saving lives and protecting our citizens.”

DeWine also talked about the victim’s families. 

“One feeling, however, seemingly universally held by victims’ families is that the long, long wait to see if the death penalty is carried out is frustrating and very hurtful to these victims,” he said. 

“Any decision to officially end the death penalty in Ohio can not change the hurt and anger that we all feel in regard to these murderers, nor the deep sorrow we feel for the victims, and for the pains. These murderers ended the life of a precious human being.”

Death Penalty Action Executive Director Abraham Bonowitz said DeWine’s call to abolish Ohio’s death penalty is well-reasoned. 

“The legislature already knows this cannot be fixed, and if we can’t fix it, we must end it,” he said in a statement. 

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said he supports the death penalty in Ohio for the “most heinous crimes.”

“While I respect Governor DeWine’s perspective, I disagree with his conclusion that the General Assembly should eliminate capital punishment altogether,” he said in a statement.

DeWine said he respects Huffman’s opinion.

“Reasonable people for centuries have come down on both sides of this issue for thousands of years,” DeWine said. “There are good people on both sides who have thought it through and tried to figure out what is the right thing.” 

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, thanked DeWine for his support in trying to end the death penalty. 

“I have talked with countless families and advocates and have come to understand an absolute truth: the death penalty is not justice, but rather a component of a broken justice system,” she said in a statement. 

“Capital punishment is not the answer for Ohio. We must abolish the death penalty and seek justice for families by instituting life sentences without parole, ending their recurring trauma of the appeal process.”

Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, told reporters in April that the death penalty is a very complicated issue. 

“(It) elicits a lot of emotions from a lot of people, but I would imagine that if it were to come up for a vote, we would not have the votes in our Republican caucus to pass it,” he said.

He said he personally is “in the middle” when it comes to his own personal stance on the death penalty and sees some cases where the death penalty seems appropriate.

“I look at other cases where we’ve seen individuals who are on death row who end up being exonerated later on because there was exculpatory evidence that maybe was withheld, and you’d hate to see somebody go through the entire death row process and wind up being executed. … That’s a very small minority of those cases.”

Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C. do not have the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine calls on lawmakers to get rid of the state’s death penalty appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Ohio lawmakers passed a bill last week that increases the penalties for illegally passing a stopped school bus.  

Ohio House Bill 3 passed the Ohio Senate and the House concurred with changes made, so it now goes to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Ohio state Reps. Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, and Bernie Willis, R-Springfield, introduced the bill. 

“As the parent of three young kids who get on the bus every morning and get off in the afternoon, I really appreciate my colleagues taking the time to work on this and strengthen safety for all kids in Ohio,” said state Senator Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson.

The bill increases the penalties for illegally passing a stopped school bus with a fine that would range from $250 to $1,000. Repeated offenses could lead to a license suspension, a required safety course and a $2,000 fine. The current penalty for illegally passing a stopped school bus in Ohio is between $0-$500.

The bill also authorizes the use of school bus camera requirements as a way to record drivers illegally passing a school bus. 

“The goal of this legislation is really to change behavior and deter those from putting our children at risk through the reckless action of passing a stopped school bus,” said state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green. 

“There’s no destination that a driver needs to get to that’s worth more than a child’s life.” 

The Ohio State Highway Patrol issued more than 16,000 citations for passing stopped school buses from 2018 to August 2023, Gavarone said. 

“That’s more than 16,000 times that a child’s life was placed in danger due to the reckless action of a driver,” she said. “No parent should ever have to worry about their child traveling to and from school.” 

The Ohio Department of Public Safety reported in 2021 more than 14,000 citations were issued over a four-year period for illegally passing school buses, Paul Imhoff, government relations director of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, said during his testimony last year.  

The bill does not require seat belts on buses. 

Seat belts are optional on large school buses weighing more than 10,000 pounds and 63% of Ohio school districts have at least one bus that has a seatbelt, said Lacey Snoke, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. 

Only eight states require seat belts on school buses: New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, and Texas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Several states allow cameras, and Nevada, Arkansas, and New York have both laws in place. 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine assembled the Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group in 2023 after Aiden Clark, a Northwestern Local Schools elementary student, died in a school bus crash. The Working Group issued 17 recommendations last year, but requiring seat belts on buses was not one of them.

The National Transportation Safety Board recommends states mandate school buses to have over-the-should and lap seat belts for all passengers.

There were 976 fatal school-transportation-related traffic crashes from 2013 to 2022 and 1,082 people were killed in those crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

Republican state Sens. Nathan Manning and Kristina Roegner were the only lawmakers to vote against the bill. 

This story originally appeared at ohiocapitaljournal.com.

The post Ohio lawmakers pass bill that would increase penalties for passing a stopped school bus, add cameras appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.