COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- NBC4 Investigates showed you how dozens of local families entered a lease option program: pay rent for 15 years, then have the option to buy your home.
However, when the 15 years were up, participants were met with silence. NBC4 Investigates dug into why, and now the CEO of the nonprofit behind the program here in Columbus is sitting down with investigative reporter Isabel Cleary.
Homeport has developed more than 500 homes through the lease option program since the late 1990s; 40 of those homes have sold.
Families said they feel misled and that did not change for many after the interview with Homeport’s CEO.
Homeport receives federal dollars, approved by the city of Columbus, for its lease option program. Low to moderate-income families can rent a home for 15 years and then get the option to buy.
“It's a program that, again, it's not done a lot,” Homeport President and CEO Leah Evans said. “It's a unique program in the fact that how the structuring with investors and lenders then transitions after that year 15. We sold 20 of 22 homes in our Framingham community, which is over off of Innis. It took six years to sell 20 of 22 homes as the residents got ready, went through counseling.”
NBC4 Investigates wanted to know why 14 families we’ve spoken with have all been waiting years longer than the original 15 years to buy their homes.
“We still are the owner and developer, but just think about it, like you would anyone else that would have a mortgage behind them,” Evans said. “We have mortgages on these homes. We have to get those released. We have to take care of all that to then be able to sell it to the resident.”
Residents across four different Homeport communities expressed their frustration as their calls and emails went unanswered. Instead of paying a mortgage, they are still paying rising rents. Two residents shared their rents are rising by $200 a month starting in 2026.
“All of this is ridiculous,” Nichole Hardy, a Homeport resident living in Elim Estates, said. “You have us here 16 years later, 21 years later, 23 years later, and you still are not taking and doing your part.”
“Can you talk to me about what those delays and issues are for some of those homeowners who are reaching year 20 and 21?” NBC4 Investigates Isabel Cleary asked Evans.
“Yes, and so, as I shared, unwinding these does take time,” Evans said. “It's taken longer than we anticipated. We're really focused on how do we help the residents now that we're sending this information out, giving them the letter so that they can buy help them to make that transition. So we're really, no one's been denied the opportunity.”
“Why has it taken longer than anticipated?” Cleary asked.
“We've had a lot of disruptions to overall, systemically, our housing market and what's going on in our community,” Evans said. “So, we've been very focused on housing stability. That's been a lot of work that we've done. Now we are able to really turn our attention to how do we help make that transition from that rental stability to that affordable homeownership that people are looking to do.”
Multiple times, NBC4 Investigates asked specifically what the delays and issues are that have led to some waiting five to six years to purchase their homes after completing the required 15-year program.
“There's multiple funders, multiple persons involved in, not persons individually, but multiple funding sources involved in how we put these deals together, and as we talked about earlier, it's unique, it's not common,” Evans said. “It's not something that everyone understands and that's going to be easily digestible to just say, okay, sign this paper and get this done.”
NBC4 Investigates showed these answers to Elim Estates resident Nichole Hardy. She has been in the program for 16 years, waiting a year to buy her home.
“Realtors and lenders been calling you guys and they haven't got a response,” Hardy said. “Why would we be putting ourselves out here, getting on the news, putting our personal business out here to say, ‘This is what's happening to us. We wouldn't be doing this. We wouldn't be out here. We would have just been buying homes.’”
Elim Estates residents received pricing letters this summer, with Homeport saying two or three are in contract.
“I think, you know, a lot of our residents are in that ‘Is buying right for me’ space and so we want to give them that time and energy to do that,” Evans said.
Some said it’s been hard to get any response on next steps.
“That's one of the reasons we got together and we're doing this is because they haven't been talking to us,” Hardy said.
Some program participants said that before this story came to light, they received some answers from the non-profit and have started to move forward in the process. However, others who have been waiting even longer to purchase their homes have not received a pricing letter.
Homeport said it is committed to making sure everyone who wants to buy their home can do so, adding the organization “can't wait to show you when these families finally close on their homes.”
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