The lack of affordable housing has been a rising issue in Florida for a number of years, but in 2022, the state’s largest metropolitan areas saw an average rent increase of 24 percent, according to rent.com.
Many local governments have been dealing with it on a weekly basis, but Tallahassee hasn’t offered much assistance since state legislators there have regularly diverted funds from the state’s designated trust fund intended to promote affordable housing programs.
Now, lawmakers will examine for the first time on Wednesday a bill intended to alleviate Florida’s growing affordable housing dilemma.
With the support of both House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, the “Live Local Act” (SB 102) is a $711 million legislative plan put forth by Miami Senate Republican Alexis Calatayud. The proposal was unveiled at a news conference in the Capitol last month.
Regarding the housing situation, Passidomo said, “This is something that has become a disaster in our state.” “It has grown to be a significant burden for our residents and citizens. And it’s a problem that needs to be solved.
The bill includes a ton of tax breaks for developers, including a local option for cities and counties to exempt builders who dedicate at least 20% of their units to affordable housing from paying taxes.
“We’re giving incentives to companies that build affordable homes. Sen. Passidomo stated during her news conference that there was a “quid-pro-quo” involved.
The prohibition of rent controls
Additionally, the bill prohibits local governments from establishing any kind of rent control measures, eliminating the previous law that only allowed counties to do so in the event of a housing emergency that constituted “a major risk to the general public” and was only valid for a year.
Last year, the main metro regions in Florida were pressured by housing activists and residents who had been priced out of their homes and flats to pass such limitations by city councils and county commissions.
Local lawmakers, however, frequently encountered strong opposition from their own government attorneys.
In the end, Orange County was the only local government to pursue the proposal. There, 59% of voters supported an ordinance last November that forbids apartment owners from raising rents faster than the local inflation rate. The county commission has decided to challenge the local judge’s decision to block the ordinance.
Maribel Gomez Cordero, an Orange County commissioner, backed both the ballot initiative and the ensuing legal appeal challenge. The fact that housing developments in her district with hundreds of apartments have previously received approval dating back to 2016, but “have not yet been developed,” is one issue that continues to annoy her, she claims.
She wrote to the Phoenix in an email, “It’s critical that we work hard to ensure that prices do not continue to escalate out of hand and that our most vulnerable community members are not left behind.”
Homelessness
A negative consequence of the local housing problem has been a rise in homelessness in Central Florida. According to a December article in the Orlando Sentinel, the number of homeless pupils in the Orange, Osceola, and Seminole school systems increased by 45% from the previous year.
Sheena Rolle, senior director of strategy for Florida Rising, a statewide organizing group, claims that over the past year, a tent city with numerous people has grown in the Parramore neighborhood close to downtown Orlando. With more people residing in automobiles or storage units, she claims that the present problem is expanding what homelessness looks like and that it is not being handled.
You can rent a storage unit for $200 to $300 a month, but you can’t afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment for $2,300, she explains. “Or drive by Starbucks and you’ll notice more U-Haul trailers and people living out of U-Haul trailers because you can afford the monthly cost to hitch on to your car and live out of that rather than paying rent,” the man continued.
Several counties have passed what has been referred to as a Tenants Bill of Rights, including Pinellas County, even though no other Florida county went as far as Orange County last year in seeking to control the steep spike in rents.
This law forbids discrimination against renters based on their source of income (such as Section 8 housing vouchers), mandates landlord notification of late fees and rent hikes of more than 5%, and informs tenants of their rights.
David Jaffee, a professor of sociology at North Florida University, oversees the JAX Rental Housing Project, which gathers and examines information on the rental housing market and the circumstances of tenants in the Jacksonville/Duval County area. Jaffee accuses institutional investors of causing the “financialization of human shelter” in a recently released report on Jacksonville’s affordable rental housing dilemma.
Jaffee told the Phoenix earlier this week that “we have these businesses coming in and they’re buying hundreds to thousands of single-family homes across the state.” In essence, they are turning them into rental homes. They are combining the rental properties into investment portfolios for their affluent clients or the clientele they want to draw in with the promise of a high rate of return.
In an ideal world, according to Jaffee, local governments might set up registries that listed those businesses and the properties they owned in each municipality. He claims that this would be difficult to do because a single equity firm could employ many LLC registrations. He wants to see the government impose a transfer tax on every single-family house, which, in his opinion, would deter institutional investors from amassing such a large number of properties. (Democrat Adam Smith from Washington state presented a similar bill last year in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Evictions
City Councilman Richie Floyd tried unsuccessfully to put a rent stabilization legislation on the ballot in St. Petersburg last November. But he has spearheaded the charge for the city to implement a program to offer legal representation to people facing eviction, starting with those on the southside’s economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. In the upcoming fiscal year, “we’re aiming to expand it citywide, at least that’s what I’m fighting for,” he says.
Floyd expresses his skepticism about the recently announced legislative proposal but is “grateful” that state legislators are addressing the issue of affordable housing. The proposal would eliminate all forms of rent stabilization, so Floyd is wary of it.
“I’ll take advantage of every chance to give more folks a place to live. I just want to be sure I understand the specifics first because there are ways to approach this that would offer some relief to those in need of housing but actually amount to gifts to developers, so I hope they’re going about it the proper way,” he says.
When arguing for a rent stabilization proposal in 2022, City Councilman Orlando Gudes of Tampa was likewise unsuccessful. He is clear that he prefers rent stabilization to rent regulation.
Because you lack the funds to maintain the buildings, he claims that rent control is ineffective. “However, rent stabilization will work because now you could say you’ve got 2%, 3% increase for the year, whatever, to be able to ensure that those places stay livable, and don’t turn into a dump,” the author said.
The legislative proposal also encourages the use of public property for affordable housing; mandates local governments to keep a written public policy outlining the processes for quick approvals and development orders for affordable housing projects; and increases funding for Florida’s Hometown Heroes program by $100 million to help teachers, healthcare professionals, members of law enforcement and military personnel, as well as “workers in other fields,” with down payment assistance.
According to Esteban Leonardo Santis, a policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute, “Floridians are in dire need of a solution for our state’s acute affordable housing issue today, even while the measure contains important provisions to incentivize and fund affordable housing going forward.” The folks who are unable to afford a place to live will not receive much immediate help from this bill.
At 9:30 a.m., the Senate Community Affairs Committee will hear the bill. a Wednesday. Demi Busatta-Cabrera, a Republican from Miami-Dade, submitted a companion bill to the Florida House on Monday.