By: Tom Harmening | North Port Sun
NORTH PORT — Florida is facing a crisis of available affordable housing and Sarasota County and the Gulf Coast are right in the middle of it.
That’s the warning from Jon Thaxton, senior vice president for community investment of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, who addressed the Convocation of Governments in Sarasota on Friday.
“Rental rates and housing costs are rising and wages are relatively stagnant,” he told the group of 50 county and municipality officials attending the convocation. “And the jobs coming in as well as those being created here? More of the same.”
Thaxton said he’s not about to blame any one group, but it’s important to note that while the demand for affordable housing is rising rapidly, “no such housing is being constructed at this time.”
He defines “affordable housing” as residences that does not cost a family any more than 30 percent of its income each month.
“That doesn’t happen very often,” he said. “In fact, we find that more than 40 percent of Sarasota County residents pay more than 40 percent of their income for housing. Some a lot more.”
One word to explain the issue, Thaxton said, is the word “market.”
He explained that developers are building larger, more expensive homes that are out of the reach of much of the work force.
“We’re not building entry-level housing,” he said. “And the issue is with us and not about to go away overnight.”
New apartments are also more upscale — and expensive.
“There’s no ‘magic bullet’ solution to all this,” he said. “It took us 30 years to get into this situation and it will take that long — or longer — to get out of it.”
Venice city manager Ed Lavallee followed up Thaxton’s comment by saying his city has seen the need for more affordable housing and it is looking for ways to address it.
“Having affordable housing is an issue in our city and we need to make developing such units a reality. We know that,” he said.
Thaxton said many people are afraid to have affordable housing in their neighborhoods.
“What we have discovered is that once a community develops it, that community is richer, not poorer. Having affordable homes with nearby transit and other services enriches a community. It does not endanger it. Every community in Sarasota County needs to have units for service workers. We need it desperately and the need is only going to grow in the future.”
Article last accessed here on January 29, 2019. A print-ready version is available here.