By 1808Delaware
On a crisp morning east of downtown Delaware, shovels hit the dirt and a new idea for housing in the county took root. Channing Street Homes, an affordable housing project more than a year in planning, is officially underway. For a county known for rapid growth, the groundbreaking felt less like a routine ceremony and more like the start of overdue progress.
Homeport, a longtime affordable housing developer in Central Ohio, is leading the project. It’s their first in Delaware County. The United Way of Delaware County pushed hard to help make it real, along with a lineup of public and private partners who share one goal: give families a chance to stay and thrive here, not get priced out.
What Will Be Built
Channing Street Homes will include 44 rental units spread across three townhome buildings and one three-story apartment building. Homes range from one to three bedrooms. The target residents are households earning less than 60 percent of the area median income, with a portion of units reserved for families earning less than 30 percent.
That’s an important distinction. Affordable housing isn’t theoretical here. It means a young family, a single parent, a retiree on a fixed income, or a worker whose wages have not kept up with the cost of living can find a stable place to live close to schools, jobs, and transportation.
And there’s a catch—in a good way. The affordability isn’t short-term. The units are structured to remain affordable for at least 30 years.
The Stakes
If you ask local officials and nonprofits working in this space, they’ll tell you the same thing: lack of attainable housing is one of Delaware County’s biggest barriers to economic stability. Growth has outpaced inventory. Homeport stepping into this county signals that the problem is finally being taken seriously.
Delaware County continues to show up on national lists for fastest-growing counties. New residents bring opportunity, energy, and development. But without places for workers, young adults, and lower-income families to live, the prosperity becomes selective.
This project pushes back on that trend.
A Collaboration That Made It Possible
The list of partners is long for a reason. Homeport provided the development expertise. The United Way of Delaware County helped drive local support and resources. Funding assistance came from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency and other financial partners. County leadership backed it publicly.
None of these organizations could have tackled it alone. The project works because the community treated affordable housing as a shared responsibility, not a charity case.
Looking Ahead
Construction will stretch through next year. What’s harder to measure is the ripple effect once families move in. When people have stable housing, everything else—school attendance, job retention, mental health—improves.
Channing Street Homes won’t solve Delaware County’s housing challenges by itself. But it is a visible shift in how the region approaches growth: not just bigger, but fairer.
And sometimes, progress starts with one corner of a job site, a line of shovels, and the sense that this time, things might change.
