Daytona Beach News Journal
By: Allison Shirk
Jodel White cashed her paycheck of $226 after long days of cleaning hotel rooms on the beachside at $8.75 an hour. After bills, new shoes and school uniforms for her two teenagers, she had $34 to her name until the next payday — two weeks later.
That money won’t pay the rest of the electricity deposit she owes or help with rent for the month. It barely covers any groceries for the 16-year-old, 250-pound son she refers to as an “eating machine.”
“It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” White said of choosing which bills to pay first as she sat on a hand-me-down couch in her small South Daytona apartment beside her partner and children’s father, Douglas Johnson, a disabled vet.
Johnson wore a single dog tag around his neck and wearily stared at the tile floor beneath him as White listed off the bills they still owe. Wearing burgundy scrubs — her work uniform — White pulled back a few loose strands of curly hair that had fallen out of her bun while folding sheets and stacking towels that day. It’s not that she feels entitled to help, White said, “But the people that work every day and try don’t get the help they need.”
The family’s situation is all too common for many residents of Volusia and Flagler counties who live paycheck to paycheck. Numbers show 57 percent of renters in the two counties are “cost-burdened,” meaning they pay more for rent and utilities than they can comfortably afford, according to a national housing study by Harvard University. Nearly one in three local renters are classified as severely cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than half of their pre-tax income on housing and utilities. For more than one in four local renters, those costs eat up more than 30 percent of their pre-tax income.
Those figures rank the area that includes Volusia and Flagler counties 15th among the nation’s 382 metro areas for the most burdened renters. Within Florida, the area ranks second among nine regions, while having the lowest median income for renters — only $30,000 annually, with a median monthly housing cost of $963.
The Harvard report shows that counties all over the country are struggling to find affordable housing as resources decrease and demand increases, but the Volusia-Flagler area is particularly vulnerable to the factors driving the trend. Among the problems: a high level of service industry jobs that historically offer low wages; a lack of affordable housing and demand that greatly exceeds the supply; and a continuing decrease of state and federal funds for housing programs.
As a consequence of these factors, the wait lists for affordable housing developments in Volusia and Flagler counties are as long as five years in some places. Even when spots are available, people like White can’t meet some of the criteria, which include good credit scores and no past evictions.
White said it can be frustrating when it seems no matter how hard they work her family can’t get ahead.
“We are in the middle,” she said. “We are not poor enough to be able to get help, and we are not rich enough to be able to save ourselves.”
‘Trying to survive’
The idea that so many Volusia-Flagler renters are stretched to their financial limits doesn’t surprise Fran Gordon, executive director of the Mid-Florida Housing Partnership based in Daytona Beach.
“Nobody I know makes $20 an hour who comes through our programs,” Gordon said, noting the number of tourist-based and seasonal work in the area. “I find that people in the rental market are paying way more than they should — sometimes 50, maybe 60 percent of their income.”
Numbers show and officials agree more affordable rental housing is needed in the area, but getting developments approved and built isn’t so easy.
Driving west on Granada Boulevard in Ormond Beach and just past the Interstate 95 exit is a corner of the county that looks similar to the rest of Volusia. Along the road sits a Dunkin’ Donuts, where the average starting pay is minimum wage, or $8.10 an hour in Florida. Next to that is a RaceTrac gas station where a new employee might expect to make about $9 an hour. Behind the gas station is the Baymont Inn & Suites, and down the road a little farther west sits the Halifax Health Children’s Medical Center where pay could vary widely.
That corner of the county brings to light the abundance of low-wage work available in Volusia, and the shortage of jobs that would raise the median renter’s income in the area. Yet when an affordable housing development was proposed in a commercial area next to the Baymont hotel, many residents spoke out against the idea in emails and at a meeting to consider the rezoning request. Their objections focused on three fears: an increase in traffic, decrease in property values and increase in crime.
Despite those concerns, the city commission voted 4-1 to allow for a $17.5 million affordable housing development that will be financed through federal tax credits. Called Tomoka Estates Apartments, rent for the new units will range from $400 to $800 — well below the average rent of $937 in the county, according to numbers provided by RentCafe.com.
Noting the need in the area, Ormond Beach City Commissioner Rick Boehm was among those who voted for the rezoning, which will allow 100 “workforce housing” units to be built on the land by Beneficial Communities.
“The people who work (in that area), other than maybe the managers, are all going to be making incomes that would qualify them for affordable housing and where are they going to live?” Boehm said. “I feel like we have an obligation to the best of our ability to try and make housing available.
“It’s people trying to get through life — people trying to survive,” Boehm added. “For me, people who are working to better themselves, if we can help supply decent housing for those people then we should do it.”
There are 1,300 people in Ormond Beach alone that could use that type of workforce housing, according to a market analysis done by the project’s developers. During public comment at the October meeting, Beneficial developer Ken Bowron said 600 people are on a waiting list for Olive Grove Apartments, the other affordable housing development the company has in the city.
“The people that neighbors want to keep out are already here,” Bowron said in the meeting. “They live here, they work here, their children go to school together.”
Tomoka Estates and Olive Grove can only rent to people who earn up to 60 percent of the area median family income. That works out to about $33,000, with a local median family income of $54,300 as stated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Studies (HUD). Ten percent of the units are required to be rented to people who earn no more than 45 percent of the area median income.
While Olive Grove and Tomoka Estates are in high demand, they are two of about 65 affordable housing developments available in Volusia and Flagler counties — a majority of those being in Volusia.
The News-Journal reached 40 of those developments, their names provided in a list from both county governments, and found most of them had waiting lists. Housing for seniors and disabled people had waiting lists ranging from six months to as long as five years.
Some of the apartments listed as affordable in Volusia were actually apartments listed at market value, like a one-bedroom for $1,095 a month at Lyme Stone Ranch in New Smyrna Beach. Coastline Cove in Daytona Beach was also provided in the list, but a representative said they no longer offer income-based rental assistance. The Park at Capri Apartments in DeLand won’t accept applicants for a one-bedroom apartment who make under $2,300 a month.
Executive Director and CEO Anthony Woods from the Daytona Beach Housing Authority sees the need only increasing as more industries move into the area. The housing authority’s waiting lists range from three to five years for all their programs, and Woods said the agency’s intent is to expand and increase the availability of affordable housing even more, specifically for seniors and veterans.
“The demand right now exceeds the inventory,” Woods said. “And I think the greatest indicator of that would be the exorbitant waiting period on the waiting lists.”
‘Everybody’s in debt’
For renters hoping for some help from the government, the chances are slim.
The county waiting lists for the housing choice voucher programs, also known as Section 8, are closed in both Volusia and Flagler counties. Section 8 is the federal government’s program to help low-income families, seniors and the disabled afford safe, clean housing in the private rental market.
Woods said their program also recently stopped taking applications, and Volusia County Vice Chair Deb Denys said that when the county’s Section 8 program opened in April, more than 5,700 applicants applied within the first three days.
Volusia County is currently providing assistance to only 250 of those eligible families.
“There is no way any government can assist 5,700 renters like that,” said Denys, who represents the southeast portion of the county.
Unsure what the answer is for affordable housing, Denys said she is sure about one thing — the answer can’t just be with the government.
“The demand is high, especially in New Smyrna Beach,” Denys said. “I do know there are people moving out of New Smyrna because they just can’t afford the rent. We are a victim of our own success.”
Denys thinks credit-worthiness is also a factor. She said she has noticed through her work and volunteering that many people don’t meet the requirements for housing assistance because of poor credit scores. Places like Habitat for Humanity require potential homeowners to be in good credit standing before taking on a large mortgage. Denys used to sit on the board of the Southeast Volusia Habitat and said they had difficulties finding people who qualified for the agency’s help.
“If you are going to walk away from a cell phone bill or cable bill, you are going to walk away from the investment that you owe,” she said.
Edgewater landlords Karen and Norman Haich don’t check credit scores the way bigger rental companies do.
The couple has been renting out homes in the area since 2005 and currently have six homes they rent out. All 3-bedroom, 2-bath homes except for one 2-bedroom, 1-bath duplex.
The average is about $1,100, which is on the cheaper end compared to what some people could pay for a three-bedroom home in southeast Volusia. The Haichs said they see people “struggling” in the area.
“As long as I’m living comfortably then I’m OK,” Norman said. “We don’t want to be millionaires.”
Their philosophy toward renting is a little different compared with bigger companies. Their process for choosing renters is not “cut and dry,” as Norman puts it. They take them on a case-by-case basis, and they try and understand if a tenant will be late on rent.
“Everybody’s in debt these days,” Norman said.
‘A complex problem’
The News-Journal asked residents over social media their thoughts about rental prices in the area. The question garnered hundreds of responses with a majority of them stating the cost of living in the area was getting out of reach for them.
Nancy Mallory, 67, of Edgewater sold her home last year and decided to rent for a while. She said she didn’t want to be tied down anywhere, and without a mortgage, homeowner’s association fees, taxes and insurance, renting would be cheaper. But she soon found out how difficult it was to find a clean, decent home in her price range that would accept a small dog.
“The average person working in this area is making minimum wage to barely a little over it, and I don’t how they can do it if they’ve got a family and raising children,” Mallory said. “If they are paying it, they probably have 5 cents left over.”
Mallory eventually was able to find a two-bedroom duplex in a nice neighborhood. She lives on a fixed income and pays $950 a month plus utilities.
“Edgewater really needs to step up to the plate and do something for people in this area for not only jobs but rental properties,” she said. “It’s really in tough shape.”
In Florida, a person would need to work 102 hours a week making minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom rental without spending more than 30 percent of their pre-tax income on rent, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. A worker would need to make $18.44 an hour to afford a two-bedroom rental in Volusia County and $19.77 an hour in Flagler County.
There are more than 3,100 counties in the country and in only 12 of them could a minimum wage worker afford a one-bedroom apartment, said Andrew Aurand, vice president of research for the national coalition.
“It’s surprising how national in scope the problem is,” Aurand said. “It’s a complex problem and we need more resources federally and at the state level to deal with it.”
Since the recession hit in 2007, more and more people are becoming renters instead of homeowners, Aurand said. Home ownership rates are at 63.5 percent, which is low compared with previous decades. With more of a demand of rental housing, that has put a lot of pressure on prices, he said.
“We’ve seen rental prices increase fairly significantly over the past eight to 10 years,” Aurand said. “At the same time, low wages have not increased at the same pace.”
Rental prices have increased faster than household income, particularly in the lower income groups, and federal and state funding has not kept pace with the skyrocketing rents, Aurand said. HUD’s budget for many housing programs has decreased over the years, except for the Section 8 program. That program’s funds have increased to keep pace with inflation — not necessarily to help more renters, he said.
Affordable rental housing has always been hard to find for severely low-income people, but with the growing need for rentals that cost burden is climbing up the income ladder. The coalition found that only one out of four low-income renters who qualifies for housing assistance based on income actually receives it because of inadequate state and federal resources.
“In some places, you see low-to-moderate income households that have challenges finding affordable rental units,” Aurand said.
Ongoing struggle
Florida actually has some great affordable housing programs, unlike many other states, said Jaimie Ross, president and CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition. The Sadowski State and Local Housing Trust Fund was created in 1992 to be a dedicated source for affordable housing funds in Florida. But over the years, the state Legislature has swept monies from it into the general revenue fund for other purposes, Ross said. She has advocated for years to get more money into the Sadowski trust fund because the state is facing a rental crisis.
“There is no community that has a sufficient amount of affordable housing,” she said, citing the large service industry across the state. “The need is overwhelming because of the mismatch between what people earn and what people can afford in the market.”
The National Low Income Housing Coalition has several policy initiatives to lower the cost burden among renters nationwide, including raising the minimum wage. Another idea, switching the mortgage interest deduction to a tax credit and making it available to low-to-moderate income homeowners, could save the government about $241 billion over 10 years — money that could go toward affordable rental housing.
Aurand also suggests that local governments review zoning regulations and building codes to make sure they encourage developers to build affordable housing units in the area.
For now, the combination of how rental prices and low wages leave families like White’s caught in a paycheck-to-paycheck cycle that’s nearly impossible to break. About 160 hours away from a degree in medical billing, White said she can’t finish school because she can’t get time off work to go to classes.
White is proud of how resilient her children have been through their constant moves and periods of homelessness, though. Her son is taking honor classes at Atlantic High School and her daughter has a full-ride scholarship from the Florida nonprofit Take Stock in Children to any state college as long as she maintains a 3.0 GPA or higher in high school.
But life is still tough at times. It’s tough making ends meet while also working toward a better future.
“It’s always been a struggle,” she said. “Some people just slip through the cracks.”
Article last accessed here on November 2, 2017.