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A way to make homes more affordable

With property selling at a premium and little open land left on which to build, it is tough to find anyone willing to build housing for poor people in Pinellas.

However, a townhome project is being proposed in Dunedin that would offer shelter to those who can no longer afford Pinellas' high-cost housing.

The Dunedin Housing Authority is working on a deal to sell 2.6 acres of land it owns on Howell Street to Habitat for Humanity. Habitat would then build three-bedroom, two-bath townhomes that would be sold for around $82,000. That is a more reachable price for low-income families than the $150,000 or $160,000 price tags on "affordable" single-family homes elsewhere in the county.

Those who wonder why the Housing Authority doesn't just build the housing itself may not understand that times have changed for housing authorities in the United States.

Housing authorities used to be the safety net for those least able to afford shelter, and they routinely built and oversaw large rental housing communities occupied entirely by poor people.

Today, those kinds of massive rental complexes have fallen out of favor. Furthermore, the stream of money once funneled from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to local housing authorities has almost dried up. Housing authorities are as strapped for cash as the clients they seek to serve, forced to sell land they own or build market-price housing on which they can make a profit to boost their sagging bottom lines.

The Dunedin Housing Authority has owned 5.5 acres on Howell Street for decades. Highlander Village, a complex with more than 50 apartments, long occupied the property and provided homes for people who, if not for a federal rent subsidy, would have been living on the streets.

However, Highlander Village became dilapidated and undesirable and was closed. The Dunedin Housing Authority got a grant to pay for demolition of the old complex, but it had no money to build new housing.

Enter Habitat for Humanity. Though the organization often builds its homes on donated land, Pinellas Habitat offered to pay $350,000 for 2.6 acres of the property. And for the first time, Pinellas Habitat wants to build townhomes instead of single-family homes, in an effort to provide more housing on less land.

Habitat for Humanity has done great work to provide low-cost single-family homes that offer the dream of home ownership to people who otherwise would be permanent renters. It is encouraging to see that the organization is flexible enough to meet the challenges of serving low-income people in a market where the cost of land is skyrocketing and it seems every developer is building high-end housing.

There is no date yet for construction. Because this is a new venture, Habitat will take some time to design the project and get permits. The city of Dunedin has promised to work closely with Habitat to expedite approvals for the project.

Speed is important. With mobile home parks and aging apartment complexes being sold and redeveloped into condominiums throughout the county, people of limited means are desperate to find replacement housing they can afford.

[Last modified September 30, 2005, 01:35:17]