Five years ago, the Collier County Community Foundation worked with the Schultz Foundation for the first needs study ever done in Collier County with the intent to repeat it every five years.
That time frame resulted in the study being done again in 2023 and the results revealed housing is the number one community concern.
The foundation has set about addressing the issue, according to President-CEO Eileen Connolly Keesler.
"Dick Schultz from the Schultz Foundation came to me and said, 'I will put five million at the table if you raise 5 million and the county puts some land at the table, and let's create a housing project for essential employees," Connolly-Keesler said. "Let's get our police, teachers, nurses, EMTs and firefighters back here in Collier County, instead of them driving an hour or two to come to work. So we did it. We got the county to give us 30 acres on this golf course that they bought in Golden Gate."
Connolly-Keesler continued, "We’re working with Rural Neighborhoods, which is a nonprofit developer. We will be building 260 units rental units for employees that are essential employees."
The plan is to break ground after the first of the year. The foundation also created a Housing Impact Fund.
"We hope to raise 20 million in it. And, we're going to do revolving loans for developers to get them to get their early steps done," she said. "Because in the early phases for developers in housing here in Collier County, it's cumbersome with Collier County policies. They have to do zoning, permitting architectural drawings. All this stuff has to be done before they can take a project into the county, and that can run a couple million bucks.
So we'll do those loans one or 2%. Then we'll get paid back in three years once they get their loans in place and it happens. But we need to move these developers quicker to get housing in here for employees’ affordable housing. That really has to be a push."
When it comes to affordable housing, the foundation is not stopping there.
“We also put together the Housing Trust and HELP. HELP is a housing organization. We hired consultants to bring them together to have one Housing Alliance for Collier County. That is also happening right now. They're going to be in the process of hiring an executive director and the Community Foundation funded about $50,000 for consultants. We're putting $200,000 at the table for them to hire an executive director."
The foundation is also involved in developing resources to help residents find affordable housing.
"We're gonna move forward on getting a hub. So when you're hiring an employee, you got a place to call. And they're gonna have maps to show exactly where there's affordable housing in this county. So we're pretty excited to see this all coming together."
So it sounds like, in lieu of a separate Collier County Economic Development office, the Collier County Community Foundation is at the forefront of these economic issues.
Karen Moore is publisher of Southwest Florida Business Today and special to WGCU.
