SUMMARY

South Florida is one of the most unaffordable places to live in the entire country - and unfortunately, few new affordable units are being built and we're losing the affordable units we already have.

How did this situation come to be? Building affordable units is not always lucrative for developers, and less-than-planned governmental investment into affordable housing creation and maintenance (into the Sadowski Trust Fund at the state level and into the Community Development Block Grant and HOME investment programs at the federal level) has led to an insufficient number of new units being built. Parking and zoning requirements, as well as few protections for renters, have also contributed to the problem.

So what is happening locally around this issue? While Miami-Dade County and a few municipalities have made some policy changes to address this issue, many argue that much more remains to be done.

What can you do to help tackle this challenge? Learn. Join the 100 Great Ideas Facebook Group to dialogue and suggest ideas. 

GLOSSARY

Affordable Housing: Housing that does not cost more than 30% of an individual or family's total income to rent or own.

Area Median Income (AMI): The median income for a family of four. In Miami-Dade County, AMI is $48,100.

Cost-burdened: Spending more than 30% of your income on housing (mortgage or rent).

Low-income: In Miami-Dade, defined for a four-person household as below an annual income of $56,800.

Workforce Housing: Another name for affordable housing that sounds nicer, according to Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava.

Mixed-Income Housing: Pretty much what it sounds like - housing that has a mix of incomes living in the same building.

Inclusionary Zoning: An ordinance that a certain percentage of units in any new construction MUST be affordable housing units. 

Transit-Oriented Development: Residential or commercial area designed to make public transportation easily accessible, e.g., affordable housing development within 1/2 mile of rapid transit.

Thanks to our friends at The New Tropic & the Miami Housing Solutions Lab for these definitions: 
http://bit.ly/TNTglossary & http://bit.ly/mhslglossary

1. Building affordable units is expensive and not always financially feasible.

According to The Urban Institute, "Development costs a lot of money. Developers rely on loans and other sources to fund construction before people move in and start paying rent. But developers can only get those loans and equity sources if the development will produce enough revenue to pay back the loans and pay returns to investors. The gap between the amount a building is expected to produce from rents and the amount developers will need to pay lenders and investors can stop affordable housing development before it even begins, leaving few options for the millions of low-income families looking for safe, affordable homes."

Check out The Urban Institute's affordable housing simulation tool (as seen below):

The State of Florida established The William E. Sadowski Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 1992 to provide resources to develop affordable housing for the workforce, the elderly and the disabled. However, according to the Miami Herald, of the $1.87 billion collected and deposited in trust funds since the Great Recession in 2008, Florida lawmakers have diverted nearly $1.3 billion (or 70%) to other purposes such as tax breaks and spending. According to The Florida Housing Coalition, if lawmakers left the $272 million available in this fund, the projects that could be completed would bring $3.78 billion in positive economic impact into the state’s economy and 28,700 jobs.

3. We've seen a decline in federal investment in affordable housing.

Federal support for affordable housing programs has fallen drastically over the past 10 years. Specifically, federal investment in the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program and the HOME Investments Partnership (HOME) program fell dramatically from 2007 to 2015, as displayed in the graph to the right. For additional data, check out the official minutes from a 2015 Miami-Dade County Affordable Housing workshop.

Note: The survey sample consisted of respondents identified during door-to-door canvassing in 2008 & 2009 in Liberty City, Little Haiti, Wynwood, Allapatah, Overtown, Coconut Grove, and Little Havana. In total, 954 surveys were collected. The "Miami" statistics are from the 2007 American Housing Survey (AHS).

5. Substandard and unstable housing conditions exacerbate unaffordable housing costs.

Vulnerable poor and minority Miami renters frequently live in substandard housing conditions and have few opportunities for recourse against their landlords, a problem which further exacerbates the housing affordability problem by leading to the deterioration or complete loss of affordable rental housing. Three quarters of surveyed renters (in a 2008 study conducted by Community Justice Project and the Power U Center for Social Change) reported experiencing some type of housing problem: more than half (59%) of the residents had cockroaches and one quarter (26%) reported seeing rats or mice. Furthermore, poor and minority Miami renters lack basic legal protections. Two-thirds reported having only a month-to-month lease, a key factor in housing instability. Nearly half (48%) of those surveyed (in the above referenced study) had moved one or two times in the past five years, and over 20 percent had moved three or more times. This housing instability, in combination with the housing affordability crisis, leads to negative outcomes such as homelessness, poor health and missed educational opportunity.  

Miami-Dade County

• Affordable Housing Trust Fund: The Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a Miami-Dade County trust fund started in 2007 to provide financial resources for the building of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income households. Last year, the Miami-Dade County Commission voted to amend the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to both allocate at least $10 million to the fund and set aside 50% of that funding specifically for very low and extremely low income individuals and families. However, in 2017, the county commission allocated only $387,000 to the fund, far below what was expected. Mayor Carlos Gimenez cited Zika funding as drawing from the county’s surplus budget.

Officials break ground for an affordable housing project in Overtown in 2015. From left: Matthew Rieger, President of the Housing Trust Group; Miami Comm. Keon Hardemon; Miami-Dade Comm. Audrey Edmonson; Alonzo Mourning; Randy Rieger, and Clarence Woods, Executive Director of the Miami Community Redevelopment Agency. Photo credit: WALTER MICHOT (Miami Herald)

City of Miami

• Financial Incentives for Developers: The City of Miami Department of Community Development provides federal, state, and/or local funding to private developers to build affordable housing units in the City of Miami.

• Voluntary Inclusionary Zoning: The City Commission in 2016 passed legislation that adds incentives for 1) affordable housing projects comprised entirely of workforce housing units and affordable housing units, and 2) an allows developers to build smaller units (e.g. a density bonus) for building affordable housing projects that also include units affordable to extremely low income families.

Negative impact on local economy: When workers have less disposable income, they spend less on local retail goods and services, which depresses revenue for local businesses.

In addition, high housing costs may impact the ability of local industry to recruit and retain employees. A recent study found that of 15 of the 50 largest employers in Los Angeles, 60% said that the region's high cost of living was affecting employee retention, and 64% said they had to factor in the cost of living when negotiating hiring packages for high-level employees. As a result of high housing costs, local industry may face additional costs to recruit and retain employees - or may decide to relocate to regions with a more accessible workforce.

Increased commute times and traffic congestion: If more workers have longer commutes, there will be more traffic on the roads. And, when workers live further from public transit options, there are fewer potential transit riders. Fewer transit riders makes it more difficult to maintain and improve transit services region-wide.

Negative impact on environment: Increasing sprawl and traffic negatively impacts the environment due to increased carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, the lower density homes (often single family homes) that more frequently exist outside of the city center are less energy efficient and often use more water (for lawn irrigation) and chemicals (for lawn maintenance), all of which have negative environmental impacts.

Negative consequences associated with segregated communities: A lack of affordable housing in better-resourced neighborhoods isolates lower-income families into certain neighborhoods, which are often socio-economically or racially segregated, under-resourced, and disconnected from economic and cultural opportunities. Studies have shown the negative "neighborhood" effects of growing up in largely segregated, under-resourced environments: for example, an analysis by Douglas Massey of Princeton found that lifetime earnings are $900,000 higher for those raised in top quintile neighborhoods than for individuals from bottom quintile neighborhoods. Schools in these neighborhoods are mostly underperforming in comparison to schools in wealthier neighborhoods, leaving their students with fewer opportunities to economic mobility. 

The Miami Housing Solutions Lab at the University of Miami has published a Housing Policy Timeline, a Housing Policy Toolkit and an affordable housing map (the Miami Affordability Project).

• The following organizations are actively tackling issues of housing affordability in Miami and South Florida. Visit their websites and social media accounts for information and updates:

  • Catalyst Miami (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • Community Justice Project (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • Engage Miami (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • FANM (Website)

  • FIU Metropolitan Center (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • Miami Homes for All (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • Miami Housing Solutions Lab (Website, Subscribe to Newsletter)

  • Miami Worker's Center (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • NAACP, Miami-Dade Branch (Website)

  • People Acting for Community Together (PACT) (Website, Twitter)

  • South Florida Community Development Coalition (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • South Florida Community Land Trust (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

  • The New Florida Majority (Website, Twitter, Facebook)

• Check out the below infographic from Community Justice Project: