Jobs and housing: Use housing trust funds as intended

March 22, 2011 | Florida Times-Union

Contractors and subcontractors constitute a substantial number of those who are now unable to pay their mortgage or rent. But Florida has work for them to do.

Thousands of foreclosed and abandoned homes need rehabilitation; in need of all the skills they can provide.

We have the money to put them to work. We have approximately $193 million in dedicated revenue from Florida’s state and local housing trust funds in 2011-2012.

If the Legislature appropriates that money for its intended purposes, it will create nearly 15,000 jobs and more than $1.4 billion in economic activity.

Unemployment and underemployment in the construction industry are causing financial hardship for carpenters and painters, persons who hang drywall, install roofs and plumbing, lay floors and wire electric. They have lost their jobs due to the downturn in new construction, a consequence of Florida’s severe foreclosure crisis.

Housing rehabilitation, whether in the form of restoring vacant or abandoned single-family houses or preserving federally subsidized apartments, creates as many or more jobs as new construction.

While “job creation” is the top priority in today’s economic environment, the facts are that housing construction or rehabilitation creates more jobs per million of state expenditure than any other program.

The total economic impact is the leveraging of the housing trust fund monies with private sector funds plus the economic multiplier effect – creating 77 jobs for every $1 million in trust fund dollars.

Using housing trust fund monies for housing puts the “trust” back into trust funds, but it does more. It puts Florida’s construction industry back to work and provides a much needed lift to our troubled real estate market.
Economic recovery will only be further delayed by failing to appropriate housing trust fund monies for housing, and Florida cannot afford to delay its economic recovery.