Statement on Housing and COVID-19

(March 24, 2020) “The full appropriation of Sadowski Trust funds for housing could not have come at a better time.

Every SHIP program in  Florida will use these funds in response to the COVID-19 crisis.  With the Governor’s emergency declaration, the SHIP program administrators are able to activate their disaster strategies and  with guidance from the Florida Housing Finance Corporation with the Florida Housing Coalition’s assistance through the Catalyst Program, we have already been helping local communities to respond to housing emergencies, in terms of keeping families out of homelessness by staying in their rental housing and in their homes.

Housing is healthcare.  We have known this for a long time, but never more acutely than now.

Full appropriation is going to help Florida’s economy at a time when it will be critically needed.  The fiscal year 2020-21 appropriation will bring over $4.4 billion in positive economic benefit to Florida.

The  Sadowski Coalition includes Florida’s bankers, Florida’s employers, and Florida’s nonprofits, among the 32 statewide organizational members.  We will work together with the help of the Sadowski funds to meet the housing needs of Florida’s most vulnerable populations and those who will face unemployment to keep their homes so that we don’t repeat the housing crisis of 2008.”

For more information on the Sadowski Coalition, please visit SadowskiCoalition.org or follow @SadowskiFL.

– Jaimie Ross, President/CEO, Florida Housing Coalition, Facilitator, Sadowski