March 28, 2016 | Orlando Sentinel
By Mary Shanklin
Metro Orlando, long considered an affordable housing market, has the nation’s greatest shortage of rentals for extremely low-income tenants, a new study shows.
Orlando, in a tie with Las Vegas, ranked worst nationally for availability of apartments that meet the needs of its most struggling group of renters, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The two tourist-driven economies – Orlando and Vegas — had only 15 affordable rentals available for every 100 extremely low-income renters whose households make less than $18,000 a year, according to the report.
“The most significant crisis is that this forces them to spend so much of their income on housing,” said Andrew Aurand, vice president for the coalition. “You’re looking at a potential increase in your homeless population too.”
The four-county Orlando area had 48,500 households with annual income of less than $18,000. Competition has become high for the 7,200 rental units they could comfortably afford. The coalition’s research was based on 2014 Census data.
Families begin to get stretched when they spend more than a third of their income on housing. In Orlando, 90 percent of extremely low-income renters spend more than half their income on housing. Orlando’s share of strapped, struggling renters is far greater than national levels. That means those people are paying so much in rent they struggle to afford food and transportation.
For Parramore resident Corey Timms, 38, keeping the power turned on and buying groceries can be a challenge on top of paying rent. His rent varies with his income but is less than $800. He is set to start a job soon earning about $10 an hour working on a landscape crew.
In Orlando, he would have to earn $19.17 an hour to comfortably afford “decent housing” with monthly rents of about $1,000. He said he is thankful for the work he gets but expects more families will lose their houses unless wages grow.
“No man or woman wants to see their family out on the street,” said the landscaper who has a subsidized rental he shares with family members at Griffin Park Apartments. The 1940s complex is an island of rooftops encircled by highways and interstates.
ffordable-housing shortages are nothing new to communities nationwide, but Orlando had long been considered a more affordable option for homeowners. That changed because fast-rising real estate values have increased six times more than wages in Metro Orlando during the last five years, challenging homebuyers and renters in all income brackets. Extremely low-income renters have been out-priced with no other options than to cut back on other living expenses.
The rental hardships come as Florida continues to grapple with funding for affordable housing. For about 25 years, real estate taxes have been directed to housing programs, but the state began redirecting some of the funds elsewhere years ago. This year, legislators increased the funding from last year but still voted to spend about a third of those funds on general spending instead of housing.
“They’re moving in the right direction but there is a pool of money specifically for affordable housing and our position is that it should go to affordable housing,” as it did historically, said Mark Hendrickson, a consultant for the Sadowski Coalition, a housing nonprofit.
Article last accessed here on March 29, 2016.