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BUSINESS OBSERVER | JULY 15 – JULY 21, 2022
BusinessObserverFL.com
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
MARK WEMPLE
MICHAEL MORINA is the executive director and VANESSA JOSEY is chief operating officer of Florida Home Partnership, a nonprofit that develops affordable housing in rural communities.
BRICK BY BRICK Nonprofit that builds affordable housing in rural areas through unique USDA program sees a pointed increase in demand. ‘There’s just there’s been an explosion’ in need, says one official.
BOTTOM LINE KEY TAKEAWAY: Florida Home Partnership is a nonprofit developer that helps build affordable housing in rural areas by teaching buyers how to become self sufficient, helping them to get qualified for home loans and to build the homes themselves. CORE CHALLENGE: As housing prices continue to rise, the need for affordable housing is getting greater for people across far more economic groups. While there is a major focus on urban and suburban areas, rural communities are facing similar headwinds. WHAT’S NEXT: Officials at Florida Home are already looking at buying properties for more housing as the number of applications for the program continues to grow.
BY LOUIS LLOVIO COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE EDITOR
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bout 10 days before the groundbreaking, Michael Morina and Vanessa Josey are still working on getting the collateral materials together. They’re waiting for final renderings; there is a mad dash for a site a map. And then, of course, there is the matter of getting the word out. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve never talked to somebody with so little to show them,” Morina tells a visitor. Alas these are the travails and stresses of a developer as the clock — rapidly — counts down to the moment when years of work and preparation are finally rewarded with an unveiling of plans and a ceremonial toss of dirt. But Morina, 66, and Josey, 41. aren’t your typical developers. And their reward for all
the work leading to that point isn’t monetary. Their reward is knowing people who may never have otherwise been able to buy a home will now get a place to call their own. The pair run Florida Home Partnership, a Ruskin nonprofit working to build affordable housing and to get people living in rural Hillsborough County qualified to buy a home. The organization’s latest project, the one the pair was preparing for groundbreaking that day in mid-June, is a 38-home development in Wimauma. Florida Home Partnership began in 1993 and, to date, it has helped about 1,000 families and individuals buy homes. It had $10.47 million in assets in its most recent fiscal year, public filings show. In this rural chunk of the county and state, a good number of the people Florida Homeworks with are farm workers, but as prices have gone up and owning a home has become tougher, the pool of those in need is growing. “We have teachers, we have people in the medical field, we
have police officers. It’s not, you know, the people that you think of,” says Morina, the organization’s executive director. “We’ve done surveys and people (think) affordable housing is for Section 8 people, people on food stamps. That’s not true. I mean, we have receptionists, we have people from all walks of life. These are people that are working every day but can’t afford to live anywhere else. “There’s just there’s been an explosion, you know. It’s unbelievable what’s happened.” THE PROGRAM While miles, and a world, away from the city centers of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Bradenton, residents in this rural corner of Hillsborough grapple with the same issues as their city brethren. Prices for homes and land have risen steeply as newcomers arrived and squeezed locals out, making it harder for people already hard-pressed to buy a home. Florida Home’s job, says Morina, is to help match those who need help buying a home with the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s Self-Help Housing Program. In its role, the organization’s work mirrors that of a typical developer. It buys land, comes up with the plans for the property, gets the development approved and finds buyers. The big difference between it and the traditional developer is who the buyers are and their responsibilities once they’ve been approved. While many traditional developers work on affordable housing projects, Florida Home looks for and attracts low-income workers who need help understanding what it takes to buy a home and how to get qualified. This may include how to find down payment assistance, credit repair and lessons on budgeting. It’s not uncommon that they work with a buyer for a couple of years before that person can actually qualify. At minimum, it interviews and starts working with 10 people per week, about eight of who have credit or income is-
See HOMES page 13