Institute Leads Florida Affordable Housing Charge
The time to fix the growing affordable housing problem is now, urges an editorial in today’s Pensacola News-Journal.
From rural communities in the Panhandle to the metropolitan areas of South Florida, whether it’s apartment rentals or home purchases, citizens deserve the right to have access to fair, decent and affordable housing.
The American dream has always been to own a home.
Unfortunately for most Floridians, this dream has morphed into a nightmare that has left too many of us out on the front stoop.
That’s why the Florida League of Cities has led the charge in forming a powerful coalition and created the Florida League of Cities Institute for Community Housing (ICH), an undertaking we hope will become a model for the rest of the nation.
This initiative was shaped with the concerns of citizens in mind. Half the battle in creating affordable communities lies in knowing where to begin and what resources exist to help local governments achieve their housing goals.
Florida mortgage costs being what they are, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the housing crisis. However, the institute is designed to ensure that cities have the knowledge and tools to define their role in addressing this crisis.
Its mission is to expose municipal elected officials and their housing staffs to the latest tools, trends and funding resources geared affordable community housing development that is both successful and attainable.
The ICH is holding a series of eight separate full-day educational seminars for local government officials.
Through these seminars, the ICH will provide local officials access to the most current information and innovative techniques necessary to address their community-housing needs.
This program is a step in the right direction to ensure home ownership remains an obtainable dream. In fact, for most Americans, home ownership is considered a basic part of adult life and a wise investment.
Citizens have been getting priced out of the South Florida housing market for years, and now, this disturbing trend is spreading to the Central and Northern parts of the state as well. In Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando and other cities, a full-time worker must earn upwards of $14 an hour – more than twice the minimum wage — to afford an average two-bedroom apartment, or more than $12 an hour to afford a one-bedroom unit.
Even middle-income families earning $50,000-75,000 a year feel the pinch of escalating home prices. According to the Florida Housing Coalition, the median existing home price increased 77 percent from 2002-2005, while the median family income increased only 1.4 percent. As home prices balloon, fewer and fewer Floridians are able to afford a home.
The federal government defines affordable housing as housing that costs 30 percent or less of household income. A 2002 study by the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University found that nearly one-quarter of all homeowners in Florida experience a cost burden - in other words, they’re paying more than that 30 percent.
The Florida government has worked hard to position the Sunshine State as an economic haven that attracts potential businesses and bright talent. Other states compete for the same jobs. Florida’s private and public sector employers also compete with other states to hire talented people.
But if potential employees can’t afford to live where they work, not only does the employee suffer, so does the economy.
Local governments and their elected officials must continue to search for innovative solutions to increase access to home ownership. The formation of the Institute for Community Housing is not going to transform the housing landscape overnight, but it represents a bold step in the right direction for those in search of affordable Florida home loan financing.
