Affordable Housing

Retiree Judy Schofield moved from Connecticut to a home in Haines City. She took on a part-time job to help keep up with her bills due to rising lot rent.

Melissa Preen moved to Florida with her parents in 2015. After her parents moved back to Ohio, she stayed to take care of the house. But the cost kept increasing to the point where she started donating plasma twice a week to get money to survive.

Floridians who live in manufactured home parks are often older, retired people on fixed incomes who bought property with hopes it would be their "forever home." Now, lot rents are pricing them out.

The state budget allots $235 million to SHIP and SAIL programs, projects that subsidize developers building low-income housing.

JUST Pensacola continues to press for action on the critical need for affordable rental housing and to increase use of the pre-arrest civil citation programs for juveniles and adults in Pensacola and Escambia County.

Applications are now open for 14 homes available through Pensacola Habitat for Humanity to eligible buyers at or below 80% of the Area Median Income.

Two initiatives were approved at the Dec. 12 Escambia County Commissioner meeting to provide more than two dozen affordable homes.

The Connecting Capital and Community initiative looks to build or preserve affordable housing in Miami with small-scale developers and owners.

According to a Florida Policy Institute analyst, the law puts an unfair burden on those who are singlehandedly supporting children, parents or people with disabilities.

Zoning reform could alleviate an affordable housing crisis, but the possibility of loosening single-family zoning restrictions could spell conflict.