Affordable Housing Set To Receive $175 Million

WFSU | By Nick Evans

Published June 22, 2015 at 4:49 PM EDT

Affordable housing programs could be getting nearly $6 million more than they did last year.

Florida’s new budget dedicates more than $175 million to affordable housing programs. That’s about six million more than last year.

In 1992, Florida lawmakers passed the Sadowski Affordable Housing Act, setting up a dedicated source of funding for two major housing programs in the state. The majority of this session’s $175 million appropriation will be split between the two programs.

One is called SHIP—or State Housing Initiatives Partnership—and it funds unique projects at the local level. Jaimie Ross of the Sadowski Housing Coalition says the other is called SAIL.

“The SAIL program is a program that’s been around since the late eighties,” Ross says, “and it provides the gap financing for rentals—for apartments—so that they can become more affordable.”

SAIL stands for State Apartment Incentive Loan. It finances low interest loans for affordable housing developers.

And Ross says the money will be multiplied when it’s put to use.

“It isn’t just that appropriation,” Ross says. “It’s that appropriation like times five, because all of this money is leveraged with private sector money. So it makes a huge improvement.”

The Sadowski Act diverts a portion of documentary stamp tax revenue to an affordable housing trust fund.