West Palm Beach, FL – Throughout the fall of 2008, PEACE worked closely with the County’s advisory board on affordable housing issues to come up with viable funding recommendations for a locally funded Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Affordable Housing Trust Funds, once capitalized, are designed to provide communities with funds to build, preserve, and rehabilitate housing that are affordable for extremely and very low income households. The Commission on Affordable Housing recommended utilizing the buyout money from the County’s Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance and the interest earned on impact fees to fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. As a strong statement of support, 175 PEACE leaders attended the January 2009 meeting of the Board of County Commissioners where the Commission on Affordable Housing presented these recommendations. In April 2009, 950 people attended PEACE’s Nehemiah Action where Commissioners Koons, Santamaria, and Vana committed to support a resolution that will dedicate these two funding sources to the County’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. By October 2010, $1.037 million had been allocated to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Starting in October 2014, 50% of the interest earned on impact fees will be used to pay for the impact fees of approximately 400 units of affordable housing each year, an ongoing revenue source estimated at $1.9 million.
