New Sarasota-Manatee housing collaborative may offer immediate help to struggling renters

With an affordable housing crisis pricing out long-time residents, area leaders in Sarasota and Manatee counties have come together for a project that could possibly help hundreds of families in a matter of months.

Funded by local foundations and philanthropists, the Suncoast Housing Collaborative is set to officially launch in mid-September, said Chris Johnson, chief executive officer of the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, the nonprofit overseeing the initiative.

The housing collaborative, closely modeled after a successful Nashville project, will be an alliance between social service agencies and private property owners, who will receive incentives in exchange for lowering or removing rental barriers often encountered by low-income and working families. Those barriers could include income requirements, previous evictions, poor credit or a non-violent criminal history, Johnson said.

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In exchange, the property owners will receive a number of incentives from the collaborative to mitigate their risk, including $1,000 on top of the deposit should the unit sustain damage; a $2,000 sign-up bonus for the first five units leased through the collaborative; and a $500 bonus for every tenant signed up after that.

What’s more, with all leases through the collaborative running for one year, should the tenant leave abruptly the collaborative will pay that month’s rent and find a new tenant for the unit.

But the incentives go beyond money, Johnson added.

Property owners can count on a large pool of potential applicants; an online database to share information with the collaborative’s member nonprofits; access to community mediation, if needed, to avoid evictions; and wraparound case management for tenants provided by the nonprofits.

“It’s been fantastic to see the group that has come together to do this,” Johnson said.

A wake-up call

This spring, as the lead agency on the area’s continuum of care on homelessness, Johnson’s nonprofit reached out to Nashville about its innovative rapid rehousing model called the Low Barrier Housing Collective – inviting its architect, Lizzie Goddard, to online meetings with local leaders.

Goddard impressed this area’s housing advocates and service providers with the results from Nashville, which, like Sarasota and Manatee counties, had been experiencing skyrocketing rents.

In just six months, from September to March, the Nashville collective expanded the number of private rental units available to help nonprofits find housing for homeless or distressed renters by almost 68 % – or an increase of 6,700 additional units.

Now Goddard has been hired by the Suncoast Housing Collaborative to help with its launch, Johnson said.

Unlike Nashville’s model – which was funded by a combination of federal pandemic relief money, rental assistance funds and private donations – the local collaborative has been funded solely by private philanthropy, he said. Those funders will be revealed next month.

It’s a recognition of the scale of the problem that has been escalating the last 30 years, he added – one for which major area employers like schools, hospitals and manufacturing companies are seeking help.

“As horrible as our affordable housing crisis is right now,” Johnson said, “I’m grateful that it woke up the community on a large scale to the need.”

Landlords are part of the solution

After the idea of replicating Nashville’s model was announced this spring, some critics said it would amount to rewarding greedy landlords, as Sarasota-Manatee rents were increasing faster than anywhere else in the nation.

But Johnson said he envisions a different type of property owner participating – the small- to medium-sized landlords who took a financial hit during pandemic rent moratoriums, those who fear exposing themselves to additional risk. He believes with the support offered through the collaboration, they’ll be willing to join.

“There are a lot of landlords out there I think who want to help and be part of the solution,” he said. “We’re trying to lower those barriers for the landlords as well.”

If the collaborative can help landlords and the landlords can help struggling renters, he said, everyone wins.

This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New program works with Sarasota and Manatee landlords to help renters