Daytona Beach News-Journal
Far too many local workers must spend nearly half their earnings (or more) just to keep roofs over their heads.
Volusia County’s robust and growing housing market offers plenty of reasons to celebrate: Thousands of homeowners are watching the value of their biggest investment accelerate. Construction workers, plumbers and electricians are claiming good wages to build new homes in splashy new developments like Latitude Margaritaville. Those homes are likely to be snapped up by people fleeing the harsh winter and higher property costs of northern climes. And the new residents will draw more retail, offices and other business to Volusia County, increasing the area’s job base.
But there’s an underside, and it’s not so pretty. Many of those new jobs will be low-paid service work: waiting tables, mowing lawns or operating cash registers. And even for mid-range earners in the local economy — teachers, police officers, and the like — the cost of home ownership is slowly rising out of reach. For many workers, even rent is becoming nearly unaffordable, and far too many local workers must spend nearly half their earnings (or more) just to keep roofs over their heads. The local United Way estimated in 2014 that 42 percent of households in Volusia County, and 45 percent of those in Flagler County, didn’t earn enough to meet all the costs of basic living expenses. One of the biggest parts of that is housing, and those numbers were compiled before local property values really started to soar.
Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry told The News-Journal’s Eileen Zaffiro-Kean he want to focus on affordable housing this year. It’s a laudable goal. One of the key components of that effort must be to support households on the brink of losing their housing — it’s almost always more cost-effective to prevent a family or individual from becoming homeless than it is to support them through a loss of shelter and then assist them on the long struggle back into housing. Local leaders (not just in Daytona Beach, but across Volusia and Flagler counties) must also find appropriate residential space for so-called “rapid rehousing” clients transitioning out of homelessness.
Paying for it all will require help — and that starts with convincing the Legislature to stop raiding the fund set up to help build affordable housing. For years, lawmakers have diverted money from the Sadowski trust fund for other priorities — while local leaders struggle with the problems created by that lack of investment.
Beyond that, there’s only so much communities can do; housing conditions are largely market-driven, and that’s the way it should be. But local leaders should inventory their affordable-housing stock, and stay alert for ways to encourage building or renovations that provide a supply of safe, affordable housing for people who need it — including lower-paid workers aspiring to buy into the American dream of home ownership.
Article last accessed here on January 24, 2018. A print-ready version is available here.