Interview: Jerome Ryans

with Invest:. “We see an opportunity with increased numbers of founders and entrepreneurs relocating to Florida from the Northeast and the West Coast. This is important to our region from a growth and talent perspective. While we are focused on growing tech companies locally, our partners are working to attract tech companies or their operations from outside our region to Tampa Bay. This influx forces us to reinvent ourselves and our programs to stay current with what the entrepreneurs and founders need. The biggest opportunity for us is to evaluate the type of programs that are being provided and identify those that are going to be more helpful to our community.”

To that end, education also continues to make strides due in part to investments from private companies. In April, multiple education institutions received a total of $653,000 in 23 grants for STEM programs from Duke Energy, aiming to support the talent pipeline. ( ) Jerome Ryans

President & CEO Tampa Housing Authority

What has been the community impact of the $440 million dedicated to housing assistance?

Thousands of families are impacted by our investments in this community. The budget represents our relationship with our not-for-profits, too. The mayor has embraced the whole issue of affordable housing, as has every mayor before her for at least the last 20 years. The vast majority of our budget dollars contribute to payments for residents living outside of public housing itself, living in other units around the city. In our latest estimates, we have about 10,000 families on the waiting list. We’re housing anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 families across the board. The major issue is the lack of enough affordable housing units for our community. The needs in the community far exceed the dollars allocated to address affordable housing. We were fortunate enough to acquire a statewide contract and a partnership with another agency so we could do those kinds of things. We branched out from our housing authority role to encompass and consolidate more of an economic development arm for the city itself. We’ve also been successful in partnering with some private developers.

What is the Tampa Housing Authority’s near-term outlook?

One of the things that is unique about the Tampa community is the leadership on both the political and business fronts. People here tend to work together as a team as opposed to running in all different directions.

Our top priorities include the West River, Encore and Robles Park. We have been fortunate to work with some incredible developers, such as The Related Group, and the Bank of America community development component. They both have been instrumental in partnering with the Tampa Housing Authority to develop affordable housing in the Tampa/Hillsborough community.

One of our earliest goals was to become the premiere provider of affordable housing in this community; our future is brighter because we are moving in that direction.