Word: floridas
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...Despite the housing glut, Florida is fast discovering that there is still a glaring need for targeted low-income properties, for renters and owners alike. For that reason, housing advocates say the $10 billion in affordable-housing funds contained in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package is as crucial as his more ballyhooed $75 billion bailout for homeowners facing foreclosure. "It's going to prevent a much greater crisis than we otherwise would have seen," says Jaimie Ross, affordable-housing director for 1000 Friends of Florida, a community-development organization. "Without it, our homeless rates would have skyrocketed this...
...That's true not just in Florida but the entire country. A lack of affordable homes helped spawn the economic crisis in the first place. The past two Presidents made growing homeownership rates a core goal, but to achieve that, they allowed overly loose lending standards. That caused a spike in demand for houses, which in turn raised home prices so steeply that the modest-income people whom Washington hoped to add to the homeowner rolls couldn't afford them - or eventually couldn't afford the monthly payments they had taken on. Meanwhile, affordable home construction became passé. What developer...
...Federal Housing Administration loans, which have more lenient credit and down-payment requirements, can help some low-income buyers scoop up some of those units. "But most of those homes will never be available to the people we serve," insists Lloyd Boggio, a Miami developer and chairman of the Florida Coalition of Affordable Housing Providers. Some communities are using federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds to buy up foreclosed homes and convert them into rental units, but they say it's hardly enough to fill the large gap. (See a video on facing foreclosure in Tampa...
...Which is why Florida's plundering of its affordable-housing reserves looks so ill-advised to many observers. The move could nix some 50 low-income projects slated to be built on the peninsula this year. And it seems particularly unwise when you consider that construction is one of the state's most crucial industries but is suffering the highest unemployment of any sector...
...Florida's Republican-led legislature - as well as moderate GOP Governor Charlie Crist, who signed on to the trust-fund diversion - was probably hoping the federal stimulus package would help make up for the affordable-housing gap. Indeed, the $787 billion stimulus gives Florida more than $250 million for public housing, homeless prevention (by helping people pay security deposits, utility bills and rent), affordable homes and rental assistance as well as tax credits for affordable-housing builders...