Monday: 10:30 a.m.

The Public Policy Plenary will focus on this key question: Is there a need for affordable housing in today's economic environment? 

The Plenary will be moderated by Mark Hendrickson with panelist: Todd Greene, Vice President in the research division at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Nicholas Johnson,Vice President for State Fiscal Policy with the D.C. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Ken Pruitt, St. Lucie County Property Appraiser and former Florida Senate President; and Len Tylka, past president Florida Home Builders Association and current Florida Housing Finance Corporation Chairman.

This panel of national and state experts will examine the state of Florida’s real property and labor markets, state fiscal policies, economics, policy and political considerations to help us understand the answer to this question. With a better understanding of why our Housing= Jobs message has not won the day for us, we intend to chart a more successful course so that housing monies will indeed be appropriated for housing in the future.

Housing = Jobs. That’s how the Sadowski Affordable Housing Act got passed in 1992. Florida’s construction industry was in a slump. Local governments needed funds to incentivize the private sector; this was the way to implement the housing element of the comprehensive plans and provide for housing everyone, including those hardest to house, such as the very lowest of the paid workforce like farmworkers and those who may no longer be able to work such as the elderly and disabled.

The Sadowski Act created a dedicated revenue source for affordable housing in Florida and over the first decade of its implementation earned acclaim as the national model for creative housing programs that stood the tests of accountability, productivity, and a 6:1 return on public sector investment. So when a Governor, House, and Senate agreed to make “Jobs, job number one” and “Get to Work,” housing advocates were justifiably optimistic that the housing trust fund monies might be appropriated for housing—putting some 15,000 Floridians to work while infusing over $1.4 billion in economic activity. But the 2011 session was the first time since the inception of the Act in 1992 that not a penny of the Sadowski Housing Trust Funds was appropriated for housing.

This is sure to be the number one policy issue for nearly all of the more than 600 housing professionals who attend the Florida Housing Coalition’s statewide annual conference. We look forward to your participation.