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Housing Funds Getting Slashed Because of Amendment 1?

February 26th, 2015 by flanews

Affordable housing funds could be taking a hit this year, and as Matt Galka tells us, it could be because of environmental amendment 1. But both sides say that isn’t fair.

Theo Anderson was down on his luck, inured, and living with two children in a run down home before state housing assistance helped him get back on his feet.

“People need help, cause, you know, you never know when a hard time is going to come upon you,” he said.

The state money used to help Anderson and others could be getting raided again. Business and faith groups, builders, and the Florida Chamber stood with housing advocates to tell the legislature the money is better spent in its own program.  But the passage of environmental Amendment 1 could be changing that.

“We do feel that we’re being pitted, the environmentalists and affordable housing advocates are being pitted against each other and that really isn’t fair,” said Florida Housing Coalition President Jaimie Ross.

Both the conservation amendment and the housing programs get money out of a state real estate tax. Amendment 1 will get 33 percent, housing has been receiving 16 percent.

Affordable housing advocates say there’s no need to slash money, because there’s plenty to go around

A legislative bill meant to pave the way for Amendment 1 would cut more than $100 million dollars from the housing program. But with more than $2 billion dollars available from the tax revenues, Florida Association of Local Housing Finance Authorities Executive Director Mark Hendrickson says it doesn’t make sense to cut anything.

“There’s enough money within the doc stamp distributions to fund both fully.  It isn’t an amendment 1 versus housing, it’s a how are doc stamps to be distributed,” he said.

The Governor’s budget also proposes cutting the housing money; taking it down from around $267 million to only $100 million.

Amendment 1 advocates agreed that there is plenty of money in the tax pool to continue to fund affordable housing fully and provide money to the environmental programs.

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