Gray Rohrer
The House and Senate remain at odds on how to treat affordable housing programs in the budget, even though they’ve agreed to an overall dollar figure as part of negotiations.
On Thursday the House came to the Senate position of $318.7 million for the programs, up from its previous position of $268.1 million.
But the House wants to spend much of those funds in a different way than the Senate.
In the latest round of budget talks Saturday evening, the House stuck to its plan to spend $128.3 million for a Florida Hometown Hero Housing program, instead of in the State Apartment Incentive Loan (SAIL) program as the Senate wants.
The Hometown Hero program would be a new program that would provide down payment and closing cost assistance to emergency workers, health care workers, and teachers buying a home as a primary residence.
During budget talks, House leaders have maintained that they prefer to use affordable housing money for programs aimed at helping people buy homes, rather than rental assistance or making it cheaper to build apartments or multi-family buildings.
“The House’s stance has always been that we want to promote home ownership, and that program would do that,” Rep. Jayer Williamson, a Panama City Republican, said Thursday.
The program is the subject of a bill (SB 788) sponsored by Sen. Ed Hooper, a Clearwater Republican, that didn’t clear its last committee hurdle and appeared dead before it popped up in budget talks.
Affordable housing advocates, though, have scoffed at the idea, since it would steer money away from SAIL at a time when rents are skyrocketing throughout the state.
Lawmakers are poised to meet again Sunday to resume budget talks. A final agreement must be in place by Tuesday to meet the 72-hour “cooling-off period” required by the constitution before they can vote on the budget by Friday, the scheduled last day of the Legislative Session.
