Florida Affordable Housing

Affordable and housing are two words that hardly go together in Florida anymore, with housing costs skyrocketing and incomes lagging.

But at Florida's largest affordable-housing conference, under way this week near Orlando, experts from around the state are talking about the challenges while celebrating victories -- such as Milagro Place, where homes for 26 families are being built in Immokalee, one of the state's most impoverished communities.

Needs are growing while resources are flat or shrinking, or at least are inadequately allocated, housing specialists said during Tuesday's opening of the 19th annual Affordable Housing Conference, at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate."

This is a uniquely challenging time," said Steve Auger, executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp., a quasi-governmental agency in Tallahassee that helps finance homes and apartments for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.

Land costs are soaring along with utilities, insurance and taxes, but wages are not keeping pace and neither are local, state and federal programs, Auger said during the opening session of the event, which has attracted a record 650 attendees.

Developers also are scaling back on affordable-housing deals because of the costs, he said, and the state's existing stock of subsidized housing is aging. Courtesy of Orlando Sentinel 9/6/06.