Palm Beach to Publicize Programs, Tax Credits to Help Affordability Problem

The affordable housing efforts have been so fragmented in Palm Beach so far that the county could miss out on millions of dollars in state grants and tax credits, the Housing Leadership Council said Tuesday.

At its first meeting since the release of the county’s Housing Needs Assessment, Michael Campbell, executive director of Habitat for Humanity in South Palm Beach and a member of the council’s technical advisory group, which is looking at solutions to address the lack of workforce housing, pushed for awareness and utilization of Florida tax credits.

“The state has a community contribution tax credit program. No one in Palm Beach County has applied for this,” said a frustrated Campbell. “This is, ‘Give us your money and we’re going to give it back to you at the end of the year.’ It’s our job to find people to say, ‘Yes, we’ll do that.’”

The tax credit, administered by the state, is available for businesses in Florida that make donations to approved community development projects, such as Habitat for Humanity. Businesses can take the credit on their Florida corporate income tax, insurance premium tax or as a refund against sales tax, and can receive up to $200,000 a year in credits.

“But no one knows about this,” Campbell said.

Getting the word out is one of the council’s goals.

A new program has the potential to be an even bigger source of workforce housing money for Palm Beach County, said Mike Jones, President and Chief executive of the Economic Council, which organized the Housing Leadership Council about six months ago.

Coordinated action is needed, however, or the money — which totals more than $50 million — will go somewhere else. Counties must compete against each other for the money, said Ian Smith of the Florida Housing Finance Corp., which is drawing up rules for the program.

The law that mandated the program stipulates the money will go to public-private partnerships to build affordable housing.

“The law says you have to contribute 15 percent of the cost of the project in kind or in money. Do hospitals have that money? Does the school board have land? We can serve as a clearing house. If groups will come forward and work collaboratively, we could submit more requests,” Jones said.

A Housing Leadership Council survey released last month documents just how dire the situation is in Palm Beach. The gap between what workers can afford to pay for a home and what homes actually cost is more than $200,000, and 90 percent of the workforce — which earns an annual median wage of $27,851 — could not afford to buy the county’s median-priced home, which cost $392,900 in 2005. That cost rose to more than $400,000 last month.

“We have 2,500 employees at our operations in Palm Beach County. Many have to travel long distances in order to get to work as a result of the lack of housing,” said Gaston Cantens, spokesman for giant sugar producer Florida Crystals, one of Palm Beach County’s largest employers.

A six-month rise in Florida home loans, insurance premiums and energy prices has done little to lower the stratospheric cost of housing in the county. Throughout the South Florida market, prices have been holding steady, if not continuing to grow incrementally. The combination of factors involved is leading people across the region to push for change in order to preserve their way of life.