Florida’s Housing Programs Benefit Florida’s Employers
Florida boasts the best housing programs in the nation for assisting employers with employee housing whether rental or homeownership. Florida provides the equivalent of an Employee Assisted Housing program in every county and larger metropolitan area in the state through the State Housing Incentive Partnership (SHIP) program. The state of Florida can provide employers with employee housing information that employers can pass onto their employees, or even have someone come to the employers place of business to provide housing information in a “lunch and learn” type of format.
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Apartment Living
For newcomers to Florida who may desire to rent an apartment before buying a home, or find rental suits their needs better than homeownership, Florida provides the Housing Locator, an online tool that allows employees to search for affordable apartments by city or county. The Housing Locator provides photos of the properties, complete details about units and amenities, and contact information. See www.floridahousing.org.
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Single Family Homeownership
Industry groups, led by the Florida Realtors and Florida Home Builders were instrumental in creating a dedicated revenue source in Florida primarily to assist first time homebuyers- this dedicated revenue comes from the Sadowski Act and funds the SHIP program.
The SHIP program requires that all permits for affordable housing of whatever kind (e.g. from development approvals to certificates of occupancy) are expedited. The SHIP program also requires that any negative impacts on the development of affordable housing be taken into consideration whenever a local government makes changes to its local land use plans or regulations. These two pieces of regulatory reform create an environment that is friendly to the development and preservation of workforce housing.
Every county, no matter how small, receives a minimum allocation of $350,000 in SHIP funding each year (this minimum allocation applies to 21 counties). The formula used throughout the state is based on population, which means that the higher the population, the more SHIP funds are available.
Virtually every SHIP jurisdiction has a program for first time homebuyer. The SHIP program provides:
- Down payment and closing cost assistance, typically a soft second that is repaid only upon resale.
- Home ownership counseling both pre and post purchase.
- The employee can earn up to 120% of area median income and in high cost areas, such as the Florida Keys, up to 140% of area median income, making this program appropriate to meet Florida’s workforce housing needs.
Florida’s employers can contact the Florida Housing Finance Corporation at (850) 488-4197 or the Florida Housing Coalition at (850)878-4219 to get more information on the SHIP program and to get details about the SHIP program in any particular jurisdiction.