Full disclosure: in high school I was terrible at math.
My mother felt sorry for me and hired a tutor. It was embarrassing, but she loved me and forced me to do it. Unfortunately, now she needs your mayor and City Council to get a math tutor too.
Yes, 100 percent of the focus inside Columbus City Hall is on the corporate take-over of the city disguised as an update in zoning. With all their focus on density and building unaffordable luxury apartments they have forgotten about another part of a functional city government: protecting life.
Do the math.
The Columbus murder rate in 2025 was 81 and the death by homelessness was 168 (an increase from 112). This is where your Mayor and City Council desperately needs a math tutor: 168 is twice as large than 81.
In Columbus you’re more likely to die from being homeless than to be murdered.
They were sons and daughters, friends and family. They had names and lives that were valuable because they were unique. Good or bad, their weakness was not being born in Bexley, Ohio to rich parents. The bottom line is that they were people.
By not caring about them, your city government has admitted that the very minimum amount of effort to help people “not die” isn’t worth it. Your Mayor and City Council have admitted that they don’t care if you die because you’re homeless.
And by ignoring their deaths and showing no leadership to change Columbus is admitting to the world that we don’t care about life at all.
The Mayor and City Council spend their time making visits to community groups for new photo opportunities instead of sitting behind their desks and doing work.
- What is an acceptable loss of homeless life in Columbus?
- How have other cities solved this problem?
- What changes in the budget would have the most impact to solve this problem?
This should raise alarm bells inside City Hall, but it won’t. Serving the needs of the people of Columbus isn’t the goal of your city government.
The simple fact is that our politicians only listen to the rich and powerful.
The homeless have no money. The homeless don’t vote. All of their time and energy is spent on surviving one day at a time and when they aren’t doing that they want to be distracted from how terrible their lives have become. You would too.
The ironic part of getting a math tutor in high school? Guess what my mother’s job was?
She was a high school math teacher (in another school district).
If I could get a math tutor maybe your Mayor and City Council should get one too.
Or maybe it’s worse than that.
Maybe our city leaders need to care more about other people than themselves. Next time you see them recording a video to post on Facebook you should ask them yourself.
In Columbus the Community Shelter Board's annual "point-in-time" count, which took place Jan. 23, found 2,556 people experiencing homelessness locally — up 7.4 percent from the 2024 count of 2,380 people.
Cleveland, Ohio 84 homeless deaths in 2025.
Cincinnati, Ohio 145 homeless deaths in 2025.
