The Community Shelter Board is beginning a campaign to raise more money from private sources to fund its efforts against homelessness.
The shelter board said Thursday the five-year, $50.2-million strategy is aimed at ending family homelessness in Columbus and Franklin County by 2031.
The first investment is a $1.2-million gift from the Crane Family Foundation.
Family homelessness decreased in the last two point-in-time counts in 2025 and 2026. Still, in the past fiscal year, 2,135 families called the Homeless Hotline seeking emergency shelter and of those, 623 families entered shelters.
The shelter board said public funding represents 86% of its funding and that's largely restricted to shelter and permanent housing. Just 5% of the shelter board's budget goes toward homeless prevention.
"While public funding remains essential to our work, it often comes with restrictions that often comes with restrictions that limit flexibility and innovation," Community Shelter Board spokesperson Niel Jurist said in a statement. "Private philanthropy gives us the opportunity to be more strategic, creative and responsive in advancing solutions that make a lasting impact."
"We see this as an opportunity to build on that legacy and mobilize our community around a shared commitment to ending family homelessness," Jurist said.
In a statement, Crane Group CEO Dan Crane said, “As a family, we are inspired by the generations before us who showed us the power of service and trusted us to carry that legacy forward. It is our honor to come together now to make a gift we hope will be truly transformational for other families and the broader community."
Over the next five years, the shelter board plans to expand targeted homelessness prevention for more than 1,000 households each year.
It also plans to increase help for expectant mothers, expand a direct cash transfer, expand rapid rehousing and develop more affordable housing for families.
In August, the Columbus Foundation approved an emergency grant of $2 million for the board.
That followed concerns raised by Franklin County Commissioners John O’Grady and Erica Crawley that the private business community wasn’t stepping up enough to help fund programs for the homeless.
In March, Columbus City Council approved a budget with an additional $7.2 million for the Community Shelter Board for services. Mayor Andrew Ginther's proposed budget included $5.7 million for the shelter board until city council amended that amount to provide more money.
