Mayor Deegan, Jacksonville City Council look for solutions to affordable housing crisis

After Mayor Donna Deegan and a gaggle of reporters had gone, April Sizemore stood in her cramped apartment that still smelled of mold and suffered all the problems that had caused her to speak out in the first place: the roaches, the rats, the holes in the wall, the water leaks.

Barely able to pay the $800 monthly rent, she grimaced at the water flowing from the bathtub tab that a malfunctioning faucet wouldn’t turn off. To Sizemore, it was the sound of money draining from her household finances because she’ll end up paying for the wasted water on her utility bill.

“We can’t live like this, and no, I can’t afford anywhere else or otherwise I’d be gone,” Sizemore said. “But as a single mother of two children, I just can’t leave like that.”

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Deegan toured Sizemore’s apartment complex on the heels of a WJXT-TV news report exposing the living conditions at the apartment complex off Kings Road, but her options to proceed were limited given the building is privately owned. Her administration and members of City Council, however, have been meeting to discuss overarching solutions to address both the affordability of Jacksonville rentals and the safety of tenants.

Deegan’s affordable housing subcommittee began meeting last month with the goal of creating actionable items in the short and long term to address the housing crisis, Joshua Hicks, a former candidate for City Council and chair of the committee, told the Times-Union.

Separately, the City Council special committee to address critical quality of life issues stopped meeting regularly in December, but chair Michael Boylan held a meeting to explain the report and ongoing efforts to new members July 25 – just hours before Deegan’s tour of Sizemore’s apartment.

Deegan included $7 million in her first budget to address the topics of the City Council committee – housing, homelessness and healthcare – as well as an additional $25 million for the recommendations from her seven transition committees, which will be finalized in September.

Boylan advised patience for people in the city looking for systematic change but also said he aimed to see action between the two groups.

“I am very encouraged by the alignment with administration and some of its priorities,” Boylan said. “My largest concern is making certain that we don't, as you heard, create yet another report.”

What has the City Council already done?

The committee’s final report of recommendations, of which not all have been turned into legislation, won an award in June from the Florida chapter of the American Planning Commission for best practices.

The results of the report, however, came with mixed reviews.

The report itself represents a multi-pronged approach for the city to take, with solutions to choose from across the political spectrum, David Jaffee said at Tuesday’s meeting. Jaffee is a sociology professor at the University of North Florida who studies the rental crisis, the co-chair of the affordable housing committee and the creator of the Jacksonville Tenants Union.

Jaffee thought the city could still do more to follow the report – or to follow the city’s comprehensive plan’s guide to housing.

“We get into a cycle of committee meetings, drafting a report, having recommendations and no follow-through,” Jaffee said at the committee meeting Tuesday. “There’s a long pattern of this, and it’s not unique to Jacksonville, but it seems to be happening quite often here.”

Though the process takes time, Boylan gave examples of how the city has acted so far.

Aligning with recommendations, City Council approved $50,000 in February to commission a housing study from the Florida Housing Commission as one of its strategic priorities – plans brought forth for funding from individual council members. They also approved $1 million for rental assistance and $1 million in additional funding for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.

Separately, council passed a law in June codifying tax exemptions for developers with 50 or more multi-family units that use 20% for affordable housing. They also sought to identify a list of city-owned property that could be used for affordable housing.

The new council will also hear bills in the coming months seeking to add development options for in-fill lots and townhouses.

What options are still on the table from the City Council report?

The state preempted some of the recommendations from the City Council report by passing the “Live Local Act.” The law codified the limits of what landlords can consider “affordable” and allowed for state funds to be used locally, but it also stripped the right of local municipalities to create laws dictating relationships between tenants and landlords – such as passing a Tenant’s Bill of Rights.

Still, a number of recommendations could be used from the report. At the Tuesday meeting, Jaffee advised the rest of the committee to continue toward creating an “office of the tenant advocate” and expanding zoning laws in Jacksonville to allow for more multi-family units.

Jaffee, along with local groups like Florida Rising, have long pushed for a tenant advocacy office within city government, but Boylan said the council instead may push to expand Jacksonville Area Legal Aid to have more capacity to help both tenants and landlords.

“I think JALA is better served to address those concerns and represent them,” Boylan said. “I don't know how we can make it work any other way.”

Boylan also thought JALA could help with Jaffee’s suggestion to create a landlord registry where tenants could go to learn about the groups or people who own their rentals.

“A registry is not an unreasonable request,” Boylan said. “So we know who owns what property and so that we can, and maybe JALA can help with that as well, because there obviously was being referenced now as these things happen, so we’ll see where that goes.”

Tenants hope for action

During Deegan’s visit to the Cascade Apartments, Deegan’s team directly asked Sizemore’s landlord to inspect every unit and give the administration a plan to remove all hazards. But other tenants across the city would not receive as much press or attention, Jaffee said.

He urged the city to find and consolidate more resources for tenants in those apartments , as well as follow-through on code enforcement for incidents they already know.

“This is not an isolated case,” Jaffee said. “We do interviews with tenants all the time. We get this report, these reports [sic] on a regular basis.”

In the past, the city has worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development  to crack down on landlords who receive federal Section 8 contracts that subsidize rents. But the Cascade Apartments do not have a Section 8 contract for federal subsidies, taking away a pressure point the city and the federal government could apply.

Deegan did not immediately order city inspections of the apartment complex, which was built in 1965. She said she wants to give the owner, Cascade Residential Inc. based in Hollywood, the opportunity to voluntarily raise the living conditions. She cited mold as an alarming problem for health reasons.

City Council member Ju'Coby Pittman, who joined Deegan for a meeting with the apartment complex's representatives and then a walk through the complex, said the owner told them his monthly revenue from rent is $77,000.

“With the conditions of this complex, I don’t think $77,000 is enough to go back in and renovate it to the quality of life that people deserve in this complex,” Pittman said.

“That’s the issue for him,” Deegan said. “We’re just starting to get our arms around it, but what we can tell you is we’re not going to allow conditions like this to continue. We’ll figure out where we can bring in the help and we’ll make sure we get it for these folks.”

She said the owner assured her and Pittman that the work on the complex won’t result in rent increases that make it financially impossible for tenants to keep living at Cascade.

Sizemore remained skeptical. She said she hoped the city’s attention helped, but she was not counting on it.

“To be honest, I see them having to shut this place down, and that might be what needs to be done,” she said. “Is it going to hurt some people who can’t afford somewhere else? Yes, sir, it is. It’s going to kill me because I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville City Council aims to help affordable housing crisis