LORAIN, Ohio – In north central Ohio sits a county that offers a prime view of Lake Erie and is home to the third oldest Latino organization in the state.
Lorain County, which has more than 312,000 residents, includes the industrial cities of Lorain and Elyria, the county seat, as well as the growing suburbs of Avon, Avon Lake and North Ridgeville.
It is the 28th largest county in Ohio but packs a lot of diversity and culture when it comes to education, jobs, age, ethnicity and more. When it comes to ethnicities, according to the 2020 U.S. Census, 247,300 residents are white; 32,900 are Hispanic or Latino; 26,000 are two or more races; 24,900 are Black; and 3,600 are Asian. Lorain per capita is currently home to the largest Latino community in the state, making up 28.5% of the population in the city and 10.5% in the county.
In the 2020 election, more than half of the county voted for former president Donald Trump, making the county red for the first time since 1984, when former president Ronald Reagan won.
Four years later, residents say there are hot button issues that need to be addressed: Lack of solid public transportation, scarce affordable housing, lagging veterans’ benefits and children and families who rely on the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Ohio, county leaders said in interviews with cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
Key leaders in Lorain County shared what they hope to see happen when residents cast their ballot in this year’s presidential election on Nov. 5.
On the eve of the election, cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer set out to ascertain people’s hopes as they cast their presidential ballots in eight Northeast Ohio counties. Today, Lorain County.
Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley
More funding for transportation from Washington is one of Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley’s biggest hopes when he casts his ballot.
Bradley, 75, who has also been an attorney and a teacher in the Lorain City School District, says Lorain County Transit has not done well for a long time.
“I’ve been trying to pursue all this federal funding that’s out there,” he said, noting there’s a lot of money available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act. “I would hope that they (winner of presidential election) continue with the bipartisan infrastructure program so that that money is available for states to then distribute to the cities.”
Lorain County Transit has a new micro transit called “ViaLC.” It provides transportation in Lorain and Elyria or to a Lorain County Transit fixed route, to go further. Cities like Avon, Avon Lake and Oberlin would like to opt into the micro transit, Bradley said.
“This is more efficient than the county transit that we had,” he said. “At one time, there was over 600,000 people using Lorain County Transit. I think last year it was under 60,000. That’s sad.”
Bradley would also like to see a focus on affordable housing for people who have landed on hard times.
The city of Lorain and Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority in 2022 was one of nine American cities to receive a $500,000 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant through the U.S. Housing and Urban Development. The first area of focus is the distressed Southside Gardens properties in the South Lorain neighborhood. With the success of the grant and the work that’s being done on affordable housing, the city of Lorain could secure an implementation grant of up to $50 million from HUD, Bradley said.
The housing authority also raised about $1.2 million through community foundations and other sources to build a community center in that area, Bradley said.
Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley stands outside of the Lorain County Board of Elections office talking about his hopes for the county in the upcoming presidential election. Key leaders in the county spoke on what they hope to see when they cast their ballots.Kaylee Remington
Julie Chase-Moorefield, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Ohio
After voting in the 2024 presidential election, Julia Chase-Moorefield, 51, of Huron wants to see how elected officials will make the economy and the world better for the whole country.
Working with residents who are struggling with money, universal free lunch, a school program for low-income districts, is critical in Lorain County, she said.
“That’s the most important thing is that then you know every kid has the opportunity to make sure they have a good, nutritious meal,” she said. “But also, the economic benefit to the family. If you have a single parent with three kids in the district, and it’s $1,000 for every kid to eat lunch, that’s $3,000 in a family budget.”
Families took a huge hit with the coronavirus pandemic and believe they will never recover, Chase-Moorefield said.
Another big issue for her is the Farm Bill, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as a number of smaller nutrition programs to help low-income citizens afford food for their families.
Avon Mayor Bryan Jensen
Bryan Jensen, 64, of Avon has witnesses Avon, Avon Lake and North Ridgeville flourish with development and industry. Avon is home to some of the biggest employers, including Cleveland Clinic — Avon Hospital and Bendix. Avon Lake has part of Ford Motor Company, Avient Corporation and more. North Ridgeville has Ridell and Beckett Thermal Solutions. Being the leader of one of the most prosperous cities in the county, Jensen would like to see unity among all the communities in Lorain after voting in the presidential election.
“Avon’s been very fortunate. We’re insulated in a lot of ways because we have such diversity in our different businesses and the way we’ve grown that even on a downturn we’ll be one of the later (cities) to be affected. Lorain and Elyria will be immediately affected by any kind of terrible thing that could happen.”
Jensen is talking about things like an economic downturn where more residents live “paycheck to paycheck” when something like the coronavirus pandemic occurs. It’s hard for those communities to build themselves back up, but that’s where unity needs to come in, he said.
Jensen credits the development success of Avon, Avon Lake and North Ridgeville as an extension of Westlake, the booming west Cuyahoga city that has been built out.
Jensen hopes that push will continue west toward Lorain and Elyria. It could lead to great investments like one Ford has announced. The automotive maker plans to expand its operations and build new electric vehicles at the Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake, which also sits on Sheffield Village and Sheffield Lake land.
Victor Leandry, executive director of El Centro de Servicios Sociales
There is no stability when it comes to job opportunities for the Latino community in Lorain County and a fight for fair wages continues, Victor Leandry, 59, of Lorain said.
El Centro, located on Pearl Road in Lorain, is an affiliate of Unidos US, the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the country. Most of the Latino community in the county lives in the South Lorain neighborhood, Leandry said.
“Our Latino community here is a very hard-worker community, but working for part-time jobs, not making the minimum wage, maybe without health insurance,” he said. “There’s this misconception that people are not working because they don’t have health insurance, and they need assist to try to get public health insurance. They work it’s just that they cannot afford the health insurance or the employers are not providing the health insurance.”
Many eastern suburbs in the county are thriving economically with jobs, being closer to Cleveland and having their own booming industry. There is a gap between employers and communities like Lorain and Elyria, where workers are struggling to find work and getting to the job location, he said.
“They are trying to find people to work in their companies, they don’t know how to approach our (Latino communities),” Leandry said. “It could be language; it could be that they live (in Lorain County) and don’t have transportation to get there (Cleveland).”
Leandry notes inadequate transportation affects not just the Latino community, but the entire county. Strong public transportation modes need to be established to connect people to jobs in or outside the county.
Affordable housing is also a problem. “The cheapest housing is $600, $700 a month for an apartment,” he said. “Prices are too high, there are houses you should not be paying that for that.”
Leandry also wants an immigration plan that makes sense, saying he wants to see the borders secured and a system that screens and puts people on the path to citizenship.
Lorain has a large immigrant community, including many farm workers. Many of the families are “mixed status,” he said, meaning someone in the family is not allowed to be in the U.S., or doesn’t have their residency or citizenship or a visa, but is married to an American and has children who are U.S. citizens.
The families live in the shadows, he said.
“They don’t try to expose themselves or be out there,” Leandry said. “They live their life like going to church, going to work and they go to school; they don’t participate in a lot of the school stuff because they’re afraid that that person in the family will be identified.”
Larry Amato, deputy director for Lorain County Veterans Service Commission and Krystol Mayer, lead county veterans service officer for LCVSC
Lorain County has the ninth-largest population of veterans in the state and stands third when it comes to financially assisting veterans, according to LCVSC. It’s behind Cuyahoga and Franklin counties.
One of the biggest concerns is that if a veteran does not have at least a 50% service-connected disability rating, that veteran does not get paid disability and retirement, said Larry Amato, 51, of Elyria.
Amato, who is retired from the Navy, explained that if a veteran was injured or has a disability based on his or her time in the service, they can receive a disability rating, much like Social Security disability. If you’re under 50% a veteran would only be able to receive his or her military retirement benefits and not their VA disability payments, he said.
“Whoever the next administration is, we would hope that that was eliminated,” Amato said. “We would also like to see the continued expansion of VA benefits including the PACT Act.”
The PACT Act, enacted in 2022, opened presumptive conditions for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and also opened a variety of locations to help with Agent Orange exposure, Krystol Mayer, 44, of Elyria said.
“So those veterans that didn’t serve in country Vietnam, but did serve in Thailand and Cambodia, places like that, they are considered Agent Orange exposed,” she said.
Including in the act is Gulf War illness, so there are additional conditions a lot of people who follow into the PACT Act category don’t necessarily know about, Mayer said, and getting veterans in the office is important so they know what benefits they may qualify for.
Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz, executive director of Lorain Public Library System
Libraries have been a technology center for Lorain County. When new gadgets come out, residents tend to come to the library and learn how to use them, said Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz, 50, of Lakewood.
“A lot of people don’t have Internet still, so I’m encouraged seeing certain programs at the federal level hopefully supporting people having access to the Internet and other technology because that is critical,” she said. ”The wider that gap is, the more disparities we see.”
She hopes officials at the national and state level prioritize access to the Internet and infrastructure.
Farmers in rural Lorain County areas like Columbia Station have access to Internet only through satellite, which doesn’t provide the kind of speeds like major county cities, Diamond-Ortiz said. She also said technology and the Internet are like water. People have a right to access.
Many residents in Lorain County struggle to find a way to get to six of the library system’s locations. Diamond-Ortiz said some of the libraries have tutoring programs, but for many children they can’s find reliable transportation.
Unreliable transportation is “such a deficit to the community,” Diamond-Ortiz said.
“It’s just making sure that there’s a prioritization of communities and places like Lorain County that are actually collaborating well and works together and prioritizing those kind of things,” Diamond-Ortiz said.
Kaylee Remington is the shopping and entertainment commerce reporter and metro reporter for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. Read her work online.