New coalition to target housing crisis
A coalition has been formed to address Southwest Florida’s housing crisis.
Bright Community Trust will coordinate Collaboratory’s effort to bring groups together to tackle the issue in the five county area — Lee, Hendry, Glades, Collier and Charlotte counties.
The initiative began after Collaboratory, a Fort Myers based non-profit, issued a Call for Information and 30 to 40 organizations recognized the need and expressed a desire to participate in the solution.
“The first step for Bright Community Trust will be to help invite these organizations together and explore the definition of a coalition,” said Chief Collaboration Officer for Collaboratory Terry Mazany. “How that would be organized around the region’s priority that this was done before Hurricane Ian and it was already a crisis in housing. Now the housing crisis is 100 times of that. The urgency and magnitude of the housing challenges are even greater.”
The effort has been in the works for some time.
“We have been in conversation with the Collaboratory for several years about establishing regional housing work,” Bright Community Trust President and Chief Impact Officer Frank Wells said. “With the pandemic we had to put the idea on pause for a while. Four, five, six months ago we got back in the conversation. Housing issues have become more acutely challenging.”
Mazany said this is part of Collaboratory’s commitment in coordinating and solving the region’s social issues. The Call for Information was issued last spring to see where the interest was. Housing came to the top.
“Bright has experience and work doing this type of organizing around housing solutions in the region, to the north of us, but Florida generally,” Mazany said.
Mazany said he believes the need is twofold: to have an immediate solution and long-term one.
“We are not going to say within 30 days we would have housing units to fill the gap from the hurricane, but recognizing that we need to demonstrate to the community that there are solutions for new housing opportunities coming out of the ground. At the same time knowing this is a long-term realistically for three to five years adding substantial progress,” he said.
When looking at these glimmers of opportunity within a difficult time, Mazany said they look at entanglements, how everything connects. When looking at housing, there are also issues of construction cost, land availability, insurance, as well as the market itself and location of where housing is relative to the need and transportation.
Collaboratory has already had employers on the record stating there needs to be affordable employee housing.
Mazany said it’s about building to a higher standard to resilient construction that can withstand hurricane force wind and weather.
“There is a consensus from people that we work with at the Collaboratory that we don’t want to go through this level of devastation again. How do we help to build to the new standards? Most of the construction standards and building codes are already on the books. How do we make those affordable? Strengthen those?” Mazany asked.
There likely will be another hurricane, but the focus is not having people displaced from their homes at the numbers they are currently at as a result of Hurricane Ian.
“It’s really fortunate timing that we were in the midst of standing up this collaboration for housing with organizations that are doing the work and have the know how, experience and relationships with communities, so that all voices are heard at the table,” Mazany said.
Mazany said one of the premises for the collective efforts with coalitions is they will have the ability to do things that individual organizations cannot. For example, Future Makers has more than 150 partners, which is the kind of scale they need given the magnitude of devastation in Southwest Florida.
“They will have the ability to secure resources beyond the ability of any one of the organizations,” he said of a collective, united approach. “We will be able to make a case for the need and wherewithal to move quickly to help people get rehoused and remain in our community, so they are not displaced and have to leave to pursue opportunities elsewhere.”
Wells said it is going to be a big task, but there is a lot to bring to the conversation about making sure housing recovery really is a recovery for everyone living in Southwest Florida. Conversations and planning will stem around how do they plan for more resilient building efforts for individual housing, or apartment buildings at a neighborhood, city and regional scale.
The idea is to look at how they rebuild to make sure options are available at every income level and stage of life. Wells said they want to make sure options are income affordable that are safe and well built.
“From our previous experience with recovery work, the immediate response effort includes FEMA and emergency vouchers that get people into having a roof over their heads. The next step of short-term immediate housing solutions is just starting to get under way. That will be one of the most critical parts of the recovery,” Wells said. “The next stage of work, bringing the workforce back and making sure people can get back to their lives as much as possible and as quickly as possible.”
Bright Community Trust began in 2008 when it was realized that money was being put into affordable housing with rent below market rates for those with lower income to ensure they had a good, safe and affordable place to live, which only lasted for a certain period of time with more money being put into them to replace units.
Wells said they use a Community Land Trust model that allows a developer to build on a site by paying a small ground lease, which could potentially be free. The ground lease is for 99 years.
“It’s a way to extend the affordable period to a permanent affordability level,” he said. “We have been part of developing 17 apartment complexes that rent below market rate. There are 18 under construction next year in Orlando.”
A couple of years into their work, the same kind of thing was happening for affordable loan ownership opportunities.
“You are getting a home at an affordable price in exchange for affordability for the next family. You can stay in the home for five years, or 35 years, (it will remain an) affordable resale for the next family,” he said. “We love this tool for preserving affordability. It is an affordable home sale, or affordable home rental. It remains affordable forever.”
Bright Community Trust has also helped with a pandemic emergency food access program, COVID testing in neighborhoods, as well as emergency rental assistance dollars.
“We are super excited about the opportunity to work with the Collaboratory. They do some really amazing work and the way that they are framing the approach in addressing those issues is really ambitious. There are big challenges ahead, but really excited to be a part of the team working to solve it,” Wells said.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com