Orlando Sentinel
The Florida Legislature can reverse a long trend of budget hijinks keeping many workers from affordable housing — and it’s not strictly housing for poor people. If you spend more than 30 percent of your income on rent or for a mortgage, your housing is unaffordable.
There’s an urgent need to end the Tallahassee money grab, as several community leaders make clear in outtakes here from the latest Central Florida 100.
ANOTHER RAID ON HOUSING FUNDS
Joel C. Hunter , chairman, Community Resource Network: Are you kidding me? With our crisis of homelessness, especially in Central Florida, being increased to catastrophe level in the near future with our fellow citizen Puerto Rico evacuees trying to find more permanent lodging, we now are witnessing every day the growing scarcity of affordable housing. What is the reaction of the politicians in Tallahassee? They plan on raiding again the
Sadowski Fund, those monies supposedly set aside for affordable housing. Unbelievable. With an increasingly healthy economy, and increasing revenues coming into the state, our Legislature still can’t give the poor the help designated for them?
IT’S BROKEN. HELP TO FIX IT.
Shelley W. Lauten, CEO, Central Florida Commission on Homelessness: I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but our approach to housing is broken. We need local governments to think creatively about allowing a mix of smaller, less expensive housing — like tiny homes or backyard dwelling units. We need developers willing to find a way to build these homes for people who make less than $35,000 a year. We need state legislators to use the Sadowski Fund to do what it was established to do — fund the building of more affordable housing. We will never be a prosperous region if we don’t address our ever-expanding housing crisis.
WHAT IS THE SADOWSKI ACT?
Eric Jackson, president/CEO, Total Roof Services Corp.: The William E. Sadowski Act was enacted in 1992 to create a dedicated source of revenue for housing from a portion of documentary stamp taxes on the transfer of real estate. Beginning in 2003, the Legislature began simply taking money out of the trust fund and using it to shore up the budget. This raid has been carried out every year since, and this year it is proposed to take $182 million.
This goes on even though Florida suffers from an extreme shortage of affordable housing, which is a main impediment to eradicating homelessness. This practice must stop or at least be capped or restricted to how often it can be enacted by the Legislature.
There is still hope that the Florida Senate will not agree with the House proposal.
WHERE WILL WORKERS LIVE?
Jeff Hayward, president and CEO, Heart of Florida United Way, president and CEO, Heart of Florida United
Way: The Florida House of Representatives voted to sweep $182 million from the Housing Trust Fund. Have these representatives not heard about the affordable housing shortage? More jobs are moving to our state,
but where do House members expect these new employees to live? Amazon’s recent search for another headquarters taught us this … employers are looking for attributes like ease of transportation, quality of life and affordable housing for their employees. If housing is unaffordable, people will not take a job here. If people do not take a job here, employers will move the jobs to places where it is more affordable. When will the Florida House learn?
WOULD YOU BE A DESIRABLE RENTER?
Phil Hissomp, founder/director of the Polis Institute, an Orlando-based think tank focused on revitalizing neighborhoods:Orlando has a critical shortage of affordable housing. Some estimates suggest that we only have one unit for every 20 that we need. Worsening matters, applications for developments coming online include highly restrictive criteria to automatically eliminate those with even minor criminal issues and credit missteps when a closer look would reveal desirable applicants. This approach makes it easier on the landlord to process high volumes of applications and safeguards against lawsuits but flies in the face of the true
intent of fair housing policy, which is to make sure everyone has a genuine opportunity for housing.
THE ROAD THAT LEADS TO HOMELESSNESS
David D. Swanson, senior pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Orlando: Once again, the Florida House swept $182 million out of a fund designated for Affordable Housing, but thankfully the funds remain in tact in the Senate plan. Which version passes will be critical in determining whether we will make progress in housing our vulnerable citizens or whether we will simply fall father behind on a road that leads to homelessness.
Article last accessed here on February 19, 2018. A print-ready version is available here.