By: Adapted from a Palm Beach Post Editorial | Daytona Beach News-Journal
His budget proposal recognized the dire lack of affordable housing for low-wage families.
“Our position is that all the housing trust fund money should be used for housing.”
That was Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year upon presenting his proposed 2019-20 budget to Florida lawmakers before this year’s legislative session.
The governor needs to make good on this statement — a statement that won him cheers from long-frustrated affordable housing advocates. Advocates who have watched in frustration for the better part of a decade as legislators, with the help of Gov. Rick Scott, swept more than $2.2 billion meant for affordable housing initiatives into general revenue.
DeSantis gave proponents of affordable housing hope that these wrong-headed annual raids would finally end.
Well, here’s his chance. He should use his line-item veto power to reject the Legislature’s plan to sweep another $125 million from the Sadowski Trust Funds, a (supposedly) dedicated pool of money created from a real estate documentary stamp tax for state and local affordable housing programs. The trust funds are named after a progressive former secretary of the state Department of Community Affairs, Bill Sadowski, who was killed in a plane crash in 1992.
DeSantis certainly doesn’t get the blame for where things are now. His budget proposal recognized the dire lack of affordable housing for low-wage families and, increasingly, middle-class families in Florida.
During the 2019 legislative session, the Senate rightly backed an initial spending plan that left affordable housing dollars untouched. The House, not so much. Members said the money — an estimated $338 million — should go only to the Panhandle, still recovering from Hurricane Michael.
The two chambers eventually compromised: $115 million for counties affected by Hurricane Michael; $85 million for the rest of the state, split between two programs: the State Apartment Incentive Loan program (SAIL), which provides “gap financing” for developers to build rental units that lower-wage families can afford; and the State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP), a program that offers counties flexibility depending on community needs. For instance, money can help make desperately needed home repairs, retrofit a house for a disabled resident or bolster a first-time homebuyer’s down payment.
But the last provision of the negotiated legislation was a slap in the face: $125 million would be “swept” into general revenue to be used for … whatever.
And that’s what DeSantis should target with his line-item veto.
The significance of this opportunity cannot be overstated: DeSantis can show leadership on an intractable issue seemingly affecting every corner our state. Even as the Florida economy chugs along at an enviable clip, the number of middle- and lower-income workers who cannot afford a home grows apace.
Local median single-family home prices still trail state averages, but they are still climbing: $211,000 in Volusia County; $239,000 in Flagler County. That’s clearly out of reach for a vast segment of either county’s workforce, though retirees keep snapping them up. Meanwhile, the most recent figures from the United Way of Volusia and Flagler Counties show that 43 percent of Volusia households and 42 percent of Flagler households are struggling to afford basic needs, including rental housing.
That’s what makes continuing to use the Sadowski housing funds for other purposes so reprehensible. It’s clear that Florida is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis — from Miami to Mexico Beach. We thought Gov. DeSantis, when he proposed his budget to the legislature, understood how this dilemma impacts so many of our state’s communities.
He needs to assure hard-working Florida residents struggling to keep a roof over their heads that he does, and veto this irresponsible sweep of affordable housing funds.
Article last accessed here on May 29, 2019. A print-ready version is available here.