Throughout the years, the population on the Suncoast has continued to grow.
The President and CEO of the Sarasota Housing Authority William Russell is saying there’s another group that is growing as well. “People who have modest income are spending way too much of their income towards housing if they want to live anywhere where they work.”
Russell’s agency provides public housing in the city and the county. He says in the past decade, the housing authority has done their part in apartment development, but overall the effort to get working class families into affordable homes is looking bleak. He says, “The market hasn’t built any new apartments in the last 10 even 15 years.”
So currently, they’re looking to redevelop old public housing and redevelop the site as affordable elderly housing. They’re also working on a critical 3-acre development that Russell says will provide 130 to 150 affordable rental units. The key now, says Russell is trying to access some capital in financing to make it a reality.
“We’ve applied to the state to get competitive tax credits to help finance….it’s looking promising, but we still need other sources of funding. The city is committing 3-million to the development.”
And as the need for a solution is urgent, they’ve even brought in an expert in the field of affordable housing to Sarasota, Russell saying the visit — not costing anything to taxpayers.
“He did it as a favor. I invited him to come down to share some of their experiences, some of their wisdom about what works what doesn’t work.”
But developer Harvey Vengroff has been trying for years to pursue various affordable housing projects in the City of Sarasota. He says the authority has a high mountain to climb to make a dent in this particular problem.
“we have an affluent society and that society does not want to live next to the people that work, because it’s not cool.”