Chipping away at the area’s affordable housing crisis, Pensacola Habitat for Humanity and Escambia County are hosting a series of dedication ceremonies this week for new homeowners across the county.
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The “home dedication tour,” which started Monday, includes 15 new affordable homes. Fourteen of them were built through a partnership between the county and Habitat to provide more affordable housing to residents in need.
Amid steady rainfall, the first stop on Tuesday was at the new 200 S. M St. home of William Kimmons and his family of five.
“Those are big scissors,” mused his 7-year-old daughter Arabella in reference to the large ceremonial scissors used to cut the ribbon on their new home.
After the ribbon-cutting, Commissioner Lumon May made the handover complete.
“William, we’d like to give you your keys of your house,” he began. “Thank you. We know it’s gonna be a lot of love, a lot of caring."
Following the ceremony, Kimmons and his family graciously welcomed attendees inside for a brief tour of the new home they're proud to call their own.
“We just got married in July of 2023 and were living in a two-bedroom apartment, 700 square feet,” said Kimmons. “So this is basically a mansion compared to that, and it's just pretty awesome."
What he loves most about their new house is that it offers more space for his family.
"I love that it's a 4(bed)/2(bath)," he said. "That way, if there is another kid coming, we’ve got some room and maybe somewhere in-laws can sleep if they want to visit.”
This day is extra special for Kimmons because, like many of this week’s new homeowners, he’s never owned a home before.
“This is the first one (home), and I’m almost 40. It’s been a long time coming,” he said. “I grew up in the trailer parks in Beulah, and they were old when I lived in them back in the early 90s. And, I was couch-surfing and sort of homeless in my late 20s, so this is just amazing. It really is beautiful.”
Participating in each of the dedication ceremonies has been a happy and emotional time for Commissioner May, who shared that he got assistance to help buy his first home.
“To see the young girl, who walked in the house, and her mom said, ‘We’ve never lived in something new, never had a new house,’ and the little girl just dived on the floor. That’s what I love,” said May, adding that some of the new homeowners are in their 70s.
"All their life, all they ever wanted to do was own a home. To me, it's worth it."
Concerned about gentrification and the overall lack of affordable housing in the Pensacola area, May has pushed for the better part of a decade for more such homes to be built, which Escambia County is now doing.
“A lot of politicians talked about doing it,” May stated. “I heard 500 houses in five years, and ‘we’re gonna build this and tax-credit projects here and tax-credit projects here’ and finally I simply said, ‘Let’s start with one.’ If we build one house, then we win.”
Ultimately, 14 new homes were built through the partnership with Habitat, which sold the homes to eligible buyers at or below 80% Area Median Income in order of approved applications.
The commissioner acknowledged that it might be a small start, but he said they’re making a dent and making an investment in human capital.
Now, with some government subsidies, there are more than a dozen new homeowners in urban core neighborhoods that they, otherwise, could not afford to live in.
“I think this is real work that the government should be doing, helping our citizens, particularly our most vulnerable citizens,” he said. “This helps families to have home ownership, but it also puts these properties on the ad valorem tax rolls, that were sitting vacant.”
The 15th and final dedication ceremony, which took place this morning in the 3000 block of N 6th Avenue, celebrated the milestone of welcoming the first Northwest Florida Community Land Trust homeowner into their new home.
Sam Young, president and CEO of Habitat, which administers the Land Trust, confirmed that this is the program's first home to close, but added they have about a dozen more in some level of development.
“This is something that is gaining tremendous momentum,” said Young. “We have a partnership with the Home Builders Association for three homes that are nearing completion right now. We have an agreement with the City of Pensacola for the old Malcolm Yonge property. We’re gonna build 12 townhomes and they will all be in the Land Trust.”
Santa Rosa County is also investing in the initiative.
Young points out that the Community Land Trust provides a different, multi-faceted approach to homeownership for lower-income families.
It reduces the cost of homeownership by eliminating the need to buy land. Also, it’s designed to build a permanent stock of affordable homes — that, otherwise, would be lost to the market once sold — through a shared equity model.
“It allows for the first homebuyer to extract some of the appreciation, all of their principal payments," Young said. "But the shared portion of that equity remains in the home, which makes it affordable for the next homebuyer and then the next homebuyer after that. That’s the beauty of the Land Trust model. ”
According to Young, the current actions on the affordable housing front are important, as they represent a recognition at the local and state level that there is a crisis when it comes to workforce and low-income housing.
“I talk to politicians, elected officials, and they will tell me, unquestionably, the number one concern of their constituents is housing affordability,” he said. “It’s everywhere and we are on the ground doing everything we can to address it.”
Back at William Kimmons’ new home, he is experiencing the first-time joy of seeing his seven-year-old daughter, Arabella, pick her own room.
“I like that my room is bigger,” she said, adding that she picked the one in front of the bathroom.
Kimmons’ recommendation for others on a similar path is to stay abreast of Habitat offerings and remain diligent.
“Dot your i’s, cross your t’s...be on your p’s and q’s,” he advised. “And just have faith in God that everything will work out, because it did for us and it will for you, too.”
