The 2006 Florida Legislature passed HB 1363, a housing bill focused on addressing some of the affordable housing challenges the State currently faces. Florida Housing will continue to work with state and local governments, the affordable housing stakeholder community and others who are part of the state’s affordable housing delivery system to meet the goals outlined in the bill.

In addition to HB 1363, the legislature also appropriated $243 million for Florida Housing’s Affordable Housing Programs.  This is a 26% increase over program funding in 2005.

• $108 million for Hurricane Housing Recovery Programs
  • This includes $93 million for the Rental Recovery Loan Program and $15 million for farmworker and special needs housing.

• $30 million for Extremely Low Income (ELI)

The bill provides $30 million to help create affordable rental housing targeted to extremely low income households — residents with incomes at or below 30% of area median income. To ensure that minimum-wage persons are not excluded from ELI units, a series of changes have been made to state and local housing programs to provide incentives for the development of this housing. Specifically, the bill allows forgiveness of loans for ELI units, provides relief from leveraging requirements for ELI units, provides relief from loan to ratio requirements for ELI units, provides that rents for ELI units are restricted to corresponding levels in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program, and other incentives.

• $50 million for the Community Workforce Housing Innovation Pilot Program (CWHIP)

CWHIP will provide forgivable loans and incentives to affordable rental and home ownership projects for essential service personnel affected by the high cost of housing. The $50 million dollar appropriation is intended to promote local public-private partnerships and leverage government and private resources.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has provided the State with $83 million in Community Development Block Grant funds to be used toward housing and other local community development priorities.

HB 1363 also does the following:

• requires local governments to prepare an inventory list of surplus land that could be used for the development of affordable housing;

• allows state surplus land to be used for the development of affordable housing;

• authorizes school boards to provide housing and housing assistance to its teachers and other instructional personnel;

• makes renovations of elderly housing more affordable by reducing match requirements;

• provides a homestead tax deferral for low income seniors.