Disabled mother, 4 kids getting home with nonprofit's help

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - A disabled mother and four of her children will finally have a place to call home thanks to the help of several nonprofit groups.

Patrece Shears lost her daughter in a shooting in 2018. More misfortune followed early this year when she broke her leg in a car accident. While she was in the hospital, she learned her landlord was evicting her and her children.

"He wanted me out because his place was getting tooken already," said Shears. "There was a lien on it."

Shears spent the last two months looking for a place she could afford while rotating between the homes of friends and relatives as well as her car. But Wednesday, she and her four children will move into a Mt. Airy apartment. At least three months of rent is being paid by nonprofits that teamed up with the group Neighborhoods United.

"These investors are buying up our neighborhoods, and then that housing is not available for families like Patrece because they're pricing people out. They're gentrifying the neighborhood," said Brian Garry, executive director of Neighborhoods United.

Tuesday morning, the head of Cincinnati's Port Authority testified before the U.S. Senate about the problem of investors buying properties and pricing out longtime residents.

For Garry, the solution is simple.

"We're imploring the city that they should actually buy these properties in the neighborhoods and keep them affordable," he said.