February 5, 2016 | Orlando Sentinel
Central Florida has been leading the way in reducing chronic homelessness in the Sunshine State. Now a smart proposal in the Legislature would reinforce this region’s effort, and give more communities across Florida the means to follow suit.
The legislation would help local governments get more homeless people off the streets — and out of tents, cars and seedy motels — into stable housing while their other needs, such as counseling and job training, are addressed. The Central Florida Commission on Homelessness has successfully adopted this strategy, known as housing first.
Homelessness is a chronic problem throughout Florida. A survey taken last year found 35,964 people statewide living on the street or in an emergency shelter.
Under the bill pending in the Legislature, county and city governments would be able to provide rental assistance to the homeless by tapping up to 25 percent of funds allocated to them under a state program for expanding affordable housing. Money for the program, known as the State Housing Initiatives Partnership, comes from a share of the state’s documentary stamp tax on real-estate transactions.
The bill doesn’t call for a tax increase — only more flexibility in spending available SHIP dollars. And while it would hand local governments a new tool to fight homelessness, it wouldn’t force them to use it. The rental assistance it would allow governments to distribute would include security deposits, utility deposits and monthly rent subsidies for up to a year.
In addition, the bill would designate rapid re-housing as a statewide strategy. The goal is to get a homeless individual or family into stable housing within 30 days.
The bill also would promote more efficiency and accountability in state efforts to reduce homelessness. It would require the State Office of Homelessness to establish performance measures and specific objectives to evaluate how the agencies that receive state grants deliver services.
The bill answers the need for a statewide housing first policy identified by Andrae Bailey, the CEO of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness. In 2014, a study for the commission found the cost to taxpayers for chronically homeless individuals — including law enforcement, health care and other public services — was about three times the cost of providing them with permanent housing.
In the House, the bill is sponsored by Republicans Mike Miller of Winter Park, Jason Brodeur of Sanford and Mike LaRosa of St. Cloud. Its Senate sponsor is Republican David Simmons of Altamonte Springs.
If it passes, the bill would pack its full punch only if the Legislature swears off its bad habit of diverting millions of dollars earmarked for affordable housing to patch other budget holes.
In the budget year beginning July 1, documentary stamp taxes are projected to generate $317 million for affordable housing, including $185.8 million for the SHIP program. In the Senate’s budget, affordable housing programs would be fully funded. The House budget, however, would slash SHIP funding by about three-quarters to just $47 million, and shrink allocations for local government, and the share for rental assistance, by the same amount. Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed budget is even stingier, proposing only $34 million for SHIP.
Legislators should go with the Senate numbers in the budget they send to Scott’s desk. According to the Sadowski Coalition, a broad-based statewide group that supports affordable housing, full funding would leverage at least four times as much in private financing, create 32,600 jobs and pump $4.6 billion into Florida’s economy.
More affordable housing is needed in Florida, not just for the homeless, but also for moderate-income families led by nurses, teachers, police, firefighters and other essential workers who struggle to afford homes near their jobs.
Housing first is a compassionate and fiscally responsible policy to reduce homelessness. It’s working in Central Florida. Legislators need to pass the bill to help take the policy statewide.
Article last accessed here on February 11, 2016.