Affordable Housing Creates Jobs, Spurs Economic Growth and Helps Families
The Coalition of Attainable Housing Providers (CAHP) is a strategic alliance of non-profit and for profit developers and professional service providers dedicated to providing safe and affordable housing to Floridians.
The need for affordable housing has long been a critical issue facing working families in Florida. Florida continues to face a housing crisis with increased foreclosures caused by high unemployment and underemployment.The coalition advocates affordable housing legislative initiatives; promotes the affordable housing industry through networking and disseminating information; and acts as a liaison to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation (FHFC) to promote the private sector’s interests in affordable housing development in Florida.
CAHP helps to provide Florida’s working families with their most basic need, permanent, affordable housing. It helps families satisfy this need so they may start a small business, engage in a career, improve their education, raise healthy families or one day own their own home.
CAHP has helped develop a fair and efficient system for allocation of funds made available through the housing trust funds, as well as other state and federal resources allocated to provide affordable housing. CAHP also continues to work with FHFC to facilitate the most effective improvements to these programs to provide Florida residents with the best quality affordable housing in the country.
Affordable Housing Creates Jobs
Housing is Key to Economic Recovery: Housing = Jobs. For every $1 million of state funding, $7.66 million of economic activity is generated. As part of that economic activity, each $1 million of state funding generates over $2.98 million of earnings/income. For every $1 million of state funding, 77 jobs are created.1
Affordable Housing Spurs Economic Growth
The Sadowski Coalition was formed in 1991 to obtain a dedicated funding source for Florida’s affordable housing programs. Florida’s housing programs are funded by the 1992 increase on the documentary stamp tax paid on all real estate transactions. This money funds local programs in all 67 Florida counties. Affordable housing programs are essential to Florida’s economic recovery. The appropriation of state and local housing trust funds in Fiscal Year 2011-12 into Florida’s housing programs will create nearly 15,000 jobs in Florida and more than $1.4 BILLION in economic impact.2
Comprised of the Florida Home Builders Association, Association of Realtors, Bankers Association, League of Cities, Association of Counties, 1000 Friends of Florida, and others, The Sadowski Coalition has worked tirelessly to promote continued funding of affordable housing along with CAHP.
Helping Families Through Affordable Housing
The perception that economic growth in the state will cure the housing crisis is incorrect. Many newly created jobs in Florida pay very low wages. The more jobs created increases the need for housing that is affordable for the workforce. The fact is that there is not a single county in Florida where an employed full-time worker at minimum wage can afford to rent a home at the area’s fair market rate or purchase one even with today’s historically low interest rates.
The police officers and firefighters who risk their lives to keep our families safe, the nurses who care for us when we are sick, the teachers to whom we entrust our children’s education, and many others who perform the most essential services which keep Florida communities growing strong, are the essential workforce of Florida. Without safe, clean and affordable housing, there is little likelihood that these families can enjoy a stable and healthy family and community environment. Residents must be income eligible, gainfully employed and pay rent and mortgages to qualify.
Support Full Funding for Affordable Housing
The availability of affordable housing is of great importance to Florida’s economic development and workforce sustainability. Because affordable housing is a basic need, communities without it will deteriorate, as individuals within it cannot focus on other needs until their need for housing is satisfied. CAHP urges the Governor and the Florida Legislature to fully fund the Affordable Housing Trust Funds to make safe, decent affordable housing available to all Floridians in need.
1 Sadowski Housing Coalition, Housing = Jobs. Retrieved August 19, 2011 from http://www.flhousing.org/trust-fund-advocacy
2 Sadowski Overview. Retrieved August 19, 2011 from http://www.flhousing.org/trust-fund-advocacy
