People aren't making enough money to afford a home. Can Escambia County help?

By Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal

The ever-widening gap between personal income and the cost of housing is at the root of the affordable housing crisis facing the community, according to a local housing expert and finding solutions to help people who aren’t making enough to afford to buy or rent a home on their own is just the first step in addressing a multi-faceted problem.

That was the gist of a presentation Escambia’s Board of County Commissioners heard at their Committee of the Whole meeting on Aug. 7.

“You’ll see wages in Escambia County over the last 25 years have doubled,” said Pensacola Habitat for Humanity Chief Executive Officer Sam Young. “That sounds pretty good until you look at housing cost. The average home in Escambia County has quadrupled in that same period of time. So the gap between those two lines, which is ever increasing, is the crux of the problem that we’re facing today. There’s not a whole lot in place right now that is going to change those trend lines.”

So what can be done? Some say the best course of action is to make a dent in the problem a little a time.

Commissioner Steve Stroberger invited Young to talk to the board about the Community Land Trust (CLT), a program recently launched by Habitat to help people buy homes who otherwise couldn’t afford them.

A Community Land Trust operates on a model under which the trust retains ownership of the land while allowing homeowners to purchase the home on that land at an affordable price. When a homeowner decides to sell, they agree to a resale formula that ensures the home remains affordable for the next qualified buyer, preserving access to homeownership in perpetuity.

Why use the Community Land Trust?

Administrators of the model say the houses remain affordable even after resale because of the subsidized mortgage financing and the value of the land is separate from the value of the home.

Homeowners who buy through the CLT and later sell may not build as much as equity as with a traditional mortgage, supporters of the model say they save over time with lower house payments and recoup payments they put into the home as well as a small portion of the market value that it gained.

“I just love the idea that you can do this and make affordable housing happen for people right now instead of having them have to wait that long,” Stroberger said.

The CLT, which dedicated its first home in Pensacola on the same morning as the presentation, has been a big topic of conversation among different members of the community.

In May, more than 700 people packed First Baptist Church of Warrington when Justice United Seeking Transformation Pensacola or JUST Pensacola, a group of nearly 20 congregations of different denominations, asked county leaders to donate land to the CLT as a way to address the lack of affordable rental housing.

Tapping into SHIP funds to support the Land Trust

Some board members spoke in support of the program, like Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger who has donated two parcels of land from her district to Habitat to be used for either their traditional housing program or to place with the land trust.

She asked Young what more the county can do to support the Land Trust and he urged the board to donate more surplus land to the Trust’s land bank as well as allocate State Housing Initiatives Partnership Program (SHIP) funds to the CLT, like Santa Rosa County leaders do.

Until now those funds were not available to the CLT’s work in Escambia County, but board chair Mike Kohler said the county is preparing to change that.

“Now that you have the ability to allocate SHIP dollars to the Land Trust, I would ask that you do that and figure out what percentage of the available SHIP dollars is appropriate for the Land Trust,” Young said. “The more you can give the better we’re going to do.”

Escambia County’s use of SHIP funds came under scrutiny last year after county staff announced funding for down payment assistance through the SHIP program had dried up.

The state funding had been used jointly by the city of Pensacola and Escambia County and questions arose over how much of it the county was spending on other programs like building brand new homes, which they were legally unable to sell as a government entity, and rebuilding others.

Ultimately, the city of Pensacola decided to split from Escambia County and handle its own SHIP funds over the issue, and Escambia County contracted with Habitat for Humanity to sell more than a dozen county-built homes, many of which closed this week to first-time homeowners.

Options other than the Land Trust

Commissioner Lumon May, who spearheads Escambia County’s multi-million-dollar home replacement and rehab program through the Neighborhood Services Department, said he also supports the CLT, but wants to see a wider range of solutions.

View the original story here.