By Chris Hurst, WTSP
Nearly a thousand people packed a church in Carrollwood Tuesday night, demanding Hillsborough County leaders restore millions of dollars once budgeted to build affordable housing.
Faith leaders say the money is crucial to help families live and work in the county. But that money isn’t likely to come back because right now the votes aren’t there to bring that funding back.
“What’s our call? Housing for all!” was the chant heard inside Bible-Based Fellowship Church as more than a dozen congregations from Hillsborough and Tampa came by the busload to get marching orders for advocacy plans this year. It’s another push by the Hillsborough Organization for Progress and Equality, or HOPE, to increase public funding for affordable housing.
“I dream about a day when I have a safe place to call home,” said speaker Omar Barker, who says he works in construction but during the hurricanes he could only afford to sleep in a tent in a friend’s yard.
“It was like, ‘Okay, this is where I’m at for right now until I can make my situation better,’” he said. “I had to be creative.”
He says he hasn’t had a permanent home since 2013.
HOPE is trying to prevent this year what happened the previous two, when commissioners slashed county affordable housing money from $10 million to $2 million.
“Well, if our past votes are any indication, it wouldn’t appear that the votes are there to restore the $10 million,” says commissioner Harry Cohen, who was the only commissioner present at the meeting.
HOPE plans to lobby commissioners during this summer’s budget talks, arguing more than 100,000 households in Hillsborough County spend more than a third of their income on housing.
“But you don’t know,” Cohen adds. “You don’t know what circumstances might come up that might cause some of the commissioners to look at it differently.”
Two more top agenda items for HOPE this year are asking the county to set aside housing units with wrap-around care for people with mental illness and asking Tampa leaders to invest more in stormwater retention ponds in low-income neighborhoods.
View the original story here.
