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JUSTIN GEORGEThe state program sputters as half the trust fund goes into the general revenue pot. SHIPP could help more than 100 county residents this year.
HOMOSASSA - There are 15 pictures of Christina Hallinan's three children in her living room. Four hang taped to the wall, surrounding a crucifix,, seemingly symbolizing the single mother's faith that frames will come later.
She is not in a hurry, because she has nowhere to go. For the first time, she said, that means something different from what it did when she moved from apartment to apartment.
"My first house," Hallinan said. "Something that's all mine - that no one can take away from us."
"It's all ours," echoed her 4-year-old daughter, Brianna Murray, resting in mom's lap, on a donated couch, which rests on a $60 carpet remnant not yet stapled to the floor.
Hallinan, who is 31, bought the house in May with the help of the state's affordable housing trust fund, which was in danger of being eliminated by the governor until he reauthorized it last week for another four years. In Citrus County, that means another 101 families, such as Hallinan's, could be helped this year.
Although affordable housing advocates are grateful, their applause is half-hearted. For the second year in a row, Gov. Jeb Bush's office will slice away more than half of what could have been a banner year from the fund. It rises with the state's real estate market, which has been booming over the past five years.
"Every year has been better than the previous year," said Russell Grooms, president of the Florida Association of Realtors.
Except in the minds of affordable housing advocates.
"We did not even get 50 percent of the money we should have gotten," said Jaimie Ross, president of the nonprofit Florida Housing Coalition.
Hallinan was one of the lucky people who benefited from what the state's affordable housing program, known as the State Housing Initiatives Partnership, or SHIPP, did get. She dropped out of high school after her mother died of cancer, and was living by herself by the time she was 18.
Estranged from her father, she said, she worked as a Winn-Dixie and Kmart cashier, put herself through vocational school and rented a Port Richey apartment.
"I paid for my own rent and everything," Hallinan said.
She said she has spent much of her life running from abusive relationships and never married. She works six days a week at Ferrara's Italian Deli in Beverly Hills and earns about $20,000 a year. With that, she supports herself and her three children, Krista Neuburger, 9, Timothy Murray, 5, and Brianna.
"We leave between 7:30 and 8 every morning," Hallinan said, "and we don't get home till . . ."
"Nine o'clock," Timothy said, finishing.
Hallinan said she does not receive child support and receives about $70 a month in food stamps. Fed up with her last relationship, she began studying how SHIPP, responsible for administering state affordable housing funds, could help her buy a home.
She qualified for assistance and received $4,000 to close on a $56,000, three-bedroom, one-bathroom home on the aptly named Kindness Terrace in Homosassa.
Hallinan came up with $600 to close and pays $417 a month in payments.
"Without this help, I wouldn't have been able to get this place," Hallinan said. "I would have been running somewhere. I'd be living in a rundown three-bedroom somewhere I could barely afford."
She moved in May with little more than a 20-inch television, some clothes and a donated mattress, and slowly began accumulating furniture.
A coffee table made of coiled, bound straw with a glass top came from a friend. Her boss gave her a kitchen table and chairs, which she covered in plastic.
"I don't want them to ruin it," Hallinan said of her kids.
A friend sold her the $15 white entertainment center, which Hallinan's kids stuck stickers to. Another gave her a bedroom set. She plans to soon staple the blue carpet remnant she bought to the living room floor.
"I'll do a little at a time," Hallinan said.
When the air conditioner and the roof needed replacing shortly after she moved in, state affordable housing funds paid for it, too.
Outside, a pink bike lies in the driveway; a skateboard is flipped over in the lawn. A fading palm tree at the center of Hallinan's front yard begins to spread open again.
"My sago palm is starting to come back to life," she said.
Similarly, state affordable housing advocates are relieved the state and local housing trust fund has been resurrected. It collects 20 cents per every $100 paid on every mortgage or deed transaction in the state.
And it's been growing since the beginning of the decade because of Florida's massive growth. In 2002-2003, $249-million went toward affordable housing in the state, $1.2-million of which went directly to affordable housing in Citrus County.
But the next year, the governor appropriated only $193-million from the fund toward housing, folding the rest into a pot of general revenue, which went toward addressing all types of state needs.
For the 2004-2005 fiscal year, which begins July 1, Bush's office will be sweeping $221-million from the housing trust funds to general revenue. That will leave state affordable housing programs with $193-million, or less than half of what they could have gotten.
Bush's rationale, as stated by his policy coordinator in an April 8 letter to a Citrus County official, was that trust funds restrict the state's spending abilities. Without those restrictions, the governor believes, he can better decide how much money should go toward state needs.
"By phasing out trust funds, we can help ensure priorities like education, the environment, and affordable housing, receive the priorities they need," wrote Teresa B. Tinker, policy coordinator.
During the past two years, the Florida Housing Coalition estimates that more than $400-million has been removed from the fund and put toward other uses.
"Do more but do it with less," Joe Monroe, Citrus County housing director, said of the governor's message. "That's pretty much the mode of government."
This year, Citrus County expects to receive $947,000 from the trust fund for affordable housing, about half of the $1.8-million the county should have collected, Monroe said.
With $947,000, Monroe said, 25 homes will be repaired; 14 will get emergency repairs; 10 homes will be bought or built with local nonprofit agencies; 33 first-time home buyers will be helped; two homes will be set aside for the disabled; one home will be demolished and replaced; 16 new homeowners will get utility connection help; and $15,000 will go to help those facing foreclosure.
Comparatively, in 2002-2003, almost 35 homes were repaired; 47 first-time home buyers were helped; 36 homes received emergency repairs; and two homes were demolished and replaced.
Since 1992, 1,425 Citrus homes have been repaired, bought or built with state affordable housing trust fund help - 920 of which came during the past five years when growth has been booming in Florida.
At a time when more residents like Hallinan could be helped, Monroe said, "we're going to help a third less citizens based on what we did in the past."
- Justin George can be reached at 352 860-7309 or jgeorge@sptimes.com