A central Ohio housing crisis is delaying the American dream for newly arrived refugees and straining the resources of local resettlement agencies.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the fall of 2024, a man from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said he officially became a “Columbus man.”

Speaking anonymously to 10 Investigates, he said the move came after 14 years of waiting for his American Dream to come true.

“I was in Kenya for long before I came here, in the camp,” he said.

“The life in the [refugee] camp is difficult. When I come here, I was like in a dream.”

But to his surprise, that dream came with delays and isolation after he spent three months in a hotel waiting for a permanent place to live.

“You don’t go anywhere. You stay in a hotel. And you, you can’t know what is outside, what happens outside,” he said.

ETSS is a local group that works to resettle new Americans.

New data shows that they make up 71% of the people who have moved to central Ohio since 2020.

A leader with the group, Dianna Russell, said that as that population grows, so do stories like that of the refugee from the DRC.

“For the last three or four months, we have had people in longer than we wanted. Generally, they have three months that they’re with our organization, that we have the time to be able to do that in and that is just not enough time,” said Russell.

Russell added that finding jobs for new Americans and getting them the necessary documents is part of the delay.

But she said that the biggest roadblock is the lack of affordable housing in central Ohio.

“It’s not even affordable for some of our staff, you know, we have people who have full-time jobs who are homeless,” said Russell, “And that’s Americans and new Americans, so that’s a major problem.”

And as the group advocates for better housing for all Americans, the man we spoke to said he’s hoping to make good use of his dream, saying he hopes to open his own barber shop.

“Yeah, yeah, if I get the chance. I would be so happy for that, yeah,” he said.

Between the lengthy hotel stays and cuts to federal grants, Russell said ETSS’s budget has taken a hit and they’ve had to cut staff as a result.