Reinvest in Housing: The GCRA and the Affordable Housing Crisis

By John Wise

Housing in our community is increasingly out of reach for many of our neighbors. There are about 19,000 people in our community who, after paying for the cost of housing available to them, are left with only about $25 per day for other expenses – that’s $175 per week for food, utilities, health and child care, transportation, everything. 

The Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area (GCRA) has both the power and the responsibility to play a central role in solving what is quickly becoming an affordable housing crisis. In fact, the 10-year, $70 million budget of GCRA represents perhaps the best opportunity to truly transform our community’s housing. But that opportunity is largely being missed, as those funds are not being prioritized for programs that will have a meaningful impact on affordability. 

Reinvesting in what?

Since 2019, GCRA has been a city department that is supported by tax increment funding from both Gainesville and Alachua County. In general terms, that means that a portion of the taxes raised in the “reinvestment area” are set aside specifically for redevelopment there. 

So how are these funds being spent? This graphic from the City of Gainesville’s “2022 Affordable Housing Framework'' gives us an idea of what the GCRA is currently prioritizing for its housing initiatives. Of the $5.1 million the GCRA has budgeted for housing work this year, $3.3 million (64%) will go to Heartwood. This cluster of single-family houses will – after about 13 years – utilize the former location of Kennedy Homes to become the flagship of the GCRA’s affordable housing work. 

For context, 172 households used to have deeply affordable housing there. It is returning as a subdivision with 34 detached homes, 11 of which will be affordable for people making up to 120% of Area Median Income (AMI), or about $98,000 for a family of four. 

Reinvesting in who?

Who can afford a Heartwood home? From the Heartwood information packet, the 11 “affordable” homes will be in the $190,000 to $210,000 range. The program will contribute up to $70,000 per home, and the buyer will have to contribute 2% of the sales price for down payment. 

Obviously, this will be wonderful for the 11 households who can access these homes. But the problem with this model is that it focuses most of the GCRA’s funding on housing for moderate income households instead of the people who are most acutely impacted by the affordable housing crisis. Those who can afford to put $4,000 down and get financed for a $130,000 loan aren’t feeling the same pressure that the 19,000 people who are severely housing burdened in our community are feeling, and they’re not feeling it by many orders of magnitude. Put simply, the people who are most in need of housing support won’t be able to live at Heartwood. 

Reinvest in Housing

To make a real impact on our community’s housing crisis we need to fully realize GCRA’s transformative potential. It’s time for a change in tactics. Here’s what the GCRA can do to refocus on the most pressing needs of the people living in the reinvestment area:

1. Make sure that truly affordable housing is prioritized for funding. 

This year alone GCRA will spend over $5 million on housing programs, but most of that money will not reach the people most in need of assistance. The vast majority (84%) of the funding is targeted to moderate income households via Heartwood and the Model Block/Attainable Housing programs. These funds should be refocused on housing development for households earning 50% of AMI or below.

2. Utilize public land in an intentional manner. 

There are stellar opportunities to utilize public land in the reinvestment area for affordable housing development. For example, the 8th and Waldo area and the Power District. Between them, they are 57 acres of land in the center of Gainesville. There is the potential for dozens if not hundreds of affordable units on these properties. These are tremendous opportunities to develop new affordable housing in desirable locations, while also ensuring that any redevelopment is actually inclusive of people at all income levels. 

The $70 million budget of the GCRA could help turn the tide on our housing crisis. It’s time we recognize that opportunity and prioritize affordable housing. That would be real reinvestment in our community. 

Why the Pursuit of Happiness Is Always Political

By Sydney Lee

“Let me just say: Peace to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.” - Fred Hampton

I want you to imagine a scenario to keep in mind for the rest of this piece. Imagine you are satisfied with your life as a whole, whether this is a scenario about your hopes for the future or your life in the past or present. 

I want you to now become more conscious of this vision. Where do you imagine yourself? Do you see yourself with a sustainable dream job, or in a stable home? Having a great car? Having children? Do you imagine yourself having mental wellness or access to mental health resources? Where do you see yourself living? Are you in a good neighborhood or possibly far away from the city and owning a lot of land?

We’ve all heard the saying “money cannot buy happiness,” but does that really apply within a capitalist context, where our access to money directly affects our survival? For example, nationwide our housing crisis is rapidly worsening; no state has an adequate supply of rental housing that is affordable and available for extremely low income households. In our community there are nearly 16,000 very-low income households who are paying more than half their income towards their housing.

The reality is that our happiness and desires, whether as individuals or as a collective in the US, do not exist outside of a capitalistic context.

Let’s go back to the scenario I asked you to imagine earlier. I want you to now take note of how many of those things you were imagining are things that would be considered privileges in this country. For example, the things I mentioned earlier: stable housing, access to living-wage jobs, access to transportation, having children, and access to mental health resources, are all treated as privileges.

The point of this exercise is to show that our happiness is greatly influenced by our context and our ability to participate in societal systems. We are conditioned to believe that our lack of happiness and fulfillment in life is a personal problem and the fault of the individual, but that’s more often than not untrue. Our happiness and long-term fulfillment is directly related to our personal needs being met, like through a stable living environment and a community of folk who will show up for us.

Reflecting on our quality of life can be very telling about our needs. It is very difficult to be satisfied with your life when you are struggling to survive and sustain yourself, and that’s not always a reflection of something being faulty within an individual. The lack of satisfaction in our lives is almost exclusively a response to our circumstances and unmet needs.

When you are forced to assimilate to a system that makes human necessities inaccessible you begin to internalize that you need to earn or deserve them. You work harder and harder to assimilate to these harmful systems to meet your needs instead of fighting back, and you do so because sometimes it’s just easier that way when your options are incredibly limited.

The pursuit of happiness will always be political in this context, and our true fulfillment within life will come with the abolition of these unjust systems. We cannot treat individuals without targeting the actual problem — the systems that are harming us in the first place. In fact, there are no individual problems underneath oppressive hierarchies, and knowing this fact can be one of the first steps in liberating ourselves from the shackles of toxic individualism and bootstrap mentality. 

So before you ask yourself “why aren’t I happy?” maybe it’d be more supportive to ask “what needs am I asking to be fulfilled? Is this really a result of a personal failure within myself, or am I being personally failed?”

Housing policy has failed, and continues to fail, Black and Latino People

By Lacoyra Lynn

As stated by David Von Drehle, “History is not just about the past. It also reveals the present.” This is clear when you consider how housing and race interact in our community and country. The United States was founded off the oppression, indoctrination, and enslavement of Indigenous and Black people. Throughout our nation’s history, Indigenous people, Black people, and other people of color have suffered at the hands of greed and apathy. Indigenous people were pushed from their homes onto small, secluded reservations. Black people were subject to slavery, and if not enslaved they were subjected to the slums -- rundown, crowded, and harsh living conditions. Black, Indigenous, and other people of color are still experiencing isolation, poor living conditions, and discrimination in the housing market. However, more specifically, Black and Latino people are the ones suffering from these issues the most in Gainesville.

First, consider housing segregation. During the early 1900s, the federal government established a program to increase housing by noting which neighborhoods consisted of either “desirable” candidates or “risky” candidates for mortgage loans, also known as redlining. Redlining exacerbated residential segregation and further disadvantaged people of color, especially Black people. Due in part to these policies, residential segregation between Black and White people in Gainesville and Alachua County is strikingly apparent. There are several neighborhoods which are nearly 100 percent White or 100 percent Black (Statistical Atlas). This isn’t surprising since several of these neighborhoods even used to have racial covenants that prevented non-White people from living there (Imagine GNV Comprehensive Plan 2030). Residential segregation matters because where people live dictates their access to transportation, health care, job opportunities, education, and more. With so little of Gainesville’s resources being on the east side, many minorities, specifically Black people, are missing out on essentials towards a better life. 

In terms of living conditions, Black people suffer the most from housing problems in Gainesville. Around 20 percent of Black households in Gainesville have no mechanical air condition systems of any kind (Understanding Racial Inequity in Alachua County). Florida’s weather is too hot for this to be a reality of any kind. People may question why they can’t just move. But even if they could acquire the needed wealth to do so, they are still likely to be discriminated against when looking for a home. For example, as of 2018, “45 percent of African Americans report experiencing discrimination when trying to rent or buy housing” (Discrimination in America: Final Summary).

People of color are also disproportionately impacted by unaffordable housing costs. As outlined by the City of Gainesville’s recent Exclusionary Zoning & Inclusionary Zoning Study, there are several conditions which contribute to unstable and unequal housing outcomes in Gainesville: racial segregation, housing cost burden due primarily by low-incomes, and new rental housing disproportionately benefiting student renters. In each of these conditions, Black and Latino people are the ones most disadvantaged. While locally, most White people are able to build wealth through homeownership, more than two-thirds of Black and Latino households are renters, and even then, the average rental unit is currently only affordable to the typical White or homeowner household in Gainesville. As rent continues to skyrocket and wages stay low, things will only get worse for Black and Latino people. Despite knowing this, many of the solutions that are proposed to make housing more affordable target moderate-income households (80% to 120% AMI). 

This is a problem because, on average, people of color have less income than their White counterparts. For example, in Alachua County, the median White household makes about $52,000 per year, but for Black people it is around $27,000 and for Latino people it is around $32,000 (Understanding Racial Inequity In Alachua County). Not only this, but a huge proportion of people of color are in poverty. Given that the Black population only makes 54 percent of the overall AMI, any affordable housing solutions which target 60 percent, 70 percent, or 80 percent leave out most of the people who have historically needed it the most. If we want to improve affordable housing to include Black and Latino people, we need to focus on 50% AMI and below.

In the United States, affordable housing and homeownership is one of the greatest catalysts towards financial upward mobility, stability, and well-being. Despite efforts to improve affordability, marginalized people are still mostly left out of these endeavors. The systems have failed Black and Latino  people and continue to do so despite progressive efforts to include more affordable housing. As advocates for affordable housing, it’s important to understand how marginalized identities and oppression have played a role in making even “affordable housing” unaffordable. 

What Stats On Affordable Housing Won’t Tell You: Another Look at the Same Truth

By Julius Irving

If I told you the truth would you believe me? If by some chance you were to believe me, what would you be willing to do with that truth? Well, I’ve heard the truth and I believe it. Millions of people around the world, including myself, are living this truth everyday. One of the many things I'm doing is sharing my inside out perspective of this truth with the hope of opening eyes, ears, and minds to a truer telling of a crisis that goes beyond what statistics can express.

The truth is that the battle with unaffordable housing is a silent but huge factor in the physical, mental, and emotional traumas that affect many families daily. Every time I’ve heard government officials speak on the affordable housing crisis it has always been from the black and white perspective of statistics. It has rarely been through the gray area of personal experiences or any actual knowledge that goes beyond stats. I could tell you that 40% of your neighbors are living in substandard housing, or that 18,000 of them are paying more than half their income towards housing. But while those numbers are accurate they still don't tell the whole truth.

Instead, imagine living in a small two bedroom apartment that you share with your pregnant fiance and two young daughters in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe. To let your children go outside and play can sometimes feel terrifying because of the messed-up conditions of the community, and the energy of the atmosphere surrounding your home. So, you don't allow your children to go outside unless they are going to school or somewhere with you.

Just to get downstairs to the parking lot you must walk through large clouds of cigarette smoke, drugs, loud music, foul language, and fighting. 

You feel like you can't even make it a few steps outside your front door without being asked for money, asked for drugs, offered drugs, or just witnessing or hearing something you’d simply prefer not to. 

These are the same issues you grew up dealing with and watched your parents struggle through. Now you’re a parent trying your hardest to find a way out and a way to provide better experiences for your children. These are the same neighborhoods you were raised in which left you mentally, physically, and emotionally scarred. 

Now hold that thought, and add to it the fact that you pay $950 a month to live in an environment like that. When combined with utility fees, just those two bills alone take well over half of your monthly income. That leaves you with far too little for you and your family’s basic costs of transportation, food, healthcare, household products, laundry, clothing for your growing children, and school supplies. That’s not even considering things like birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries; these honestly can sometimes feel like punishments when you’re already struggling to provide and maintain your basic human needs. With so much of your income going towards housing alone, it's a given that some things will have to be sacrificed. You find that you often have to decide between cheap food or healthy food, between using the air conditioner or enduring the summer heat, between paying for a ride to work and not eating that day. Daily, you feel the pressure of your situation, and you wonder if everyone is also pretending to be ok and happy.

This is my story, but it doesn’t belong to me exclusively. Countless people in my community have similar experiences. When hearing stories like this, it's easy to view me and my family as victims and the people smoking and hanging in my parking lot as villains. The truth is we are all damaged and suffering through the same experiences. Each person is just at a different place in their own traumas. My neighbors had to pay the same price I did to live there, and so does everyone else in that neighborhood and others like it. The truth is there’s absolutely no difference between us, expect that you’re getting to hear a small part of my story.

Study after study has shown that poor living conditions and inadequate housing results in poor mental and physical health. So we know that access to safe, affordable housing can actually be the difference between packing the hospitals and jails or increasing graduation rates and reducing violent crime. And yet, despite this knowledge, people in power continue to overlook these issues. Our culture blames the people suffering the consequences of inadequate housing, instead of the system that caused the problem in the first place. People in these situations are often labeled with dismissive terms like lazy, poor, or criminals, and are treated like they are stains on society that are lowering property values. This idea is so far from reality. The truth is that these people are victims of a greater problem: a flawed system created and controlled by the rich for the rich.

If things are going to change, we have to understand that the truth about affordable housing is a lot bigger than money, land, buildings, and property values. I challenge you to take this truth and make it a part of your everyday life in the same way it's a part of my life. I believe only through a drastic, far-reaching change in the way the masses think and behave can this problem truly be eradicated. (R)evolution time is NOW!

Shining A Light On Affordable Housing

By Lacorya Lynn

Air, water, food, sleep, clothing, and shelter are all basic physiological needs. However, for many people, unaffordable rent means that they must prioritize shelter at the expense of their other needs. Food, health, safety--these are all things that we as Community Spring fellows have had to sacrifice to have a place to stay. Because of our backgrounds and our knowledge of other affected people, we decided that housing affordability is the most pressing issue that we want to challenge. This is how the Lighthouse Initiative first sprang into being.

The word cloud above reflects the discussions our team has had about the importance of housing and what it means to them. As you can see, housing impacts nearly every aspect of our lives, and we want to find ways to make sure everyone has an affordable and safe place to call home. Through this campaign, we will educate people on housing accessibility, change public perception about affordable housing, and increase the amount of affordable units that are available.

Accessing Housing

Knowing where and how to access resources is essential. There is some housing assistance already available - not nearly enough, but some - however, many people do not know how to connect with it. The Lighthouse Initiative seeks to address this disconnect by providing useful information in the easiest way possible. Our team has experienced barriers to housing because of language differences, or after coming home from incarceration, or after domestic violence; therefore, we know the importance of housing assistance being easily and readily accessible. Housing should be accessible to everyone regardless of any situational or language barriers.

Shifting Public Perception

Many people do not realize how a lack of affordable housing can negatively impact someone’s life, whether that’s their health, education, or interpersonal relationships. And while lots of people say that affordable housing is important, few people understand the scale of what’s needed or who really needs help. Even worse, too many people in our community have become complacent in thinking that affordable housing is just something that is unachievable and dismissible. We aim to change these conversations. The Lighthouse Initiative believes everyone deserves a place they can call a home, a place in which they feel safe and comfortable, and a place where they do not have to prioritize rent over food or other critical needs.

Increasing Affordable Units

Perhaps the biggest issue with affordable housing is simply that there is not enough to go around. There are over 13,000 extremely low income families in desperate need for affordable housing in Gainesville; however, only around 2,000 affordable units are available (Shimberg Center).  We will pull together creative solutions to increase the number of affordable units, and advocate for systemic changes that will achieve greater housing justice. The status quo - with people spending more than they can afford on rent, prioritizing their housing over their health, losing their homes because they can’t afford it, and worse - is simply unacceptable. We will change the balance and find new ways to increase affordable housing in Gainesville and Alachua County.  

Over the next several months, the Lighthouse Initiative will build a campaign to ensure that everyone has access to stable, affordable housing where they can feel at home. By helping people access housing, changing public perception, and increasing affordable housing availability, this vision can become a reality. A reality in which everyone has a place they can truly call home.