Politico
By: Matt Dixon
TALLAHASSEE — As the need for affordable housing grows in the wake of Hurricane Irma, especially in the devastated Florida Keys, some lawmakers want to see an end to the practice of “sweeping” housing trust funds to boost other areas of the budget.
Legislation filed in the state Senate, FL SB874 (18R), would exempt state and local housing trust funds from being raided when lawmakers are building the state budget. Over the past five years, more than $660 million has been swept from housing trust funds to help balance the state budget.
That bill, sponsored by state Sen. Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples), unanimously was approved by the Senate Community Affairs Committee on Tuesday, with more than three dozen people speaking in favor of it.
Each year, there is a high-profile fight over sweeps to the trust funds that fund affordable housing options. That fight is amplified headed into the 2018 legislative session because of Irma’s catastrophic impact on the Keys’ already stressed affordable housing market.
Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed budget set aside $20 million for affordable and workforce housing in the Keys, but his proposed 2018-19 spending plan also has drawn the ire of housing advocates for sweeping $91 million from state housing trust funds, the type of move Passidomo’s bill would end.
Jaimie Ross, facilitator of the Sadowski Coalition and president and CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition, said preventing the trust funds from being used in other areas of the budget is needed for stability.
The bill will “create a stable and reliable source of funding … exponentially when our need has grown exponentially in the last year,” she said after the bill’s committee approval.
Though the impacts of Irma are not directly part of Passidomo’s bill, the increase Ross referenced is tied, in part, to the storm wiping out what little affordable and workforce housing existed in the Keys. The storm’s impact on the region has made affordable housing a top-tier issue this session, which is rarely the case.
In the House, state Rep. Holly Raschein, a Key Largo Republican who has become the face of the issue in the Legislature, is asking for $2.8 million for 30 disaster housing units in Monroe County, a pilot program that seeks a “disaster housing solution” in the area. She is also carrying the request in the House for Scott’s $20 million Keys workforce housing budget request.
The House also has legislation that would prevent housing trust fund sweeps, but it has yet to receive a committee hearing. That bill, FL HB191 (18R), is sponsored by state Rep. Sean Shaw, a Tampa Democrat who announced Tuesday that he’s running for attorney general.
Article last accessed here on January 17, 2018.