St. Johns County Affordable Housing Update
At the December 20 Board of County Commissioners meeting, the annual update from the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee (AHAC) for St. Johns County was presented.
I’ve heard from many in our county that there is no issue with affordable housing in St. Johns County. The AHAC report provided to the Commissioners provides real data demostrating this to be a fallacy.
What is Affordable Housing?
That depends. It depends on the size of the household. A single person with no dependents making $60,000 a year is in a good place for renting an apartment. It’s a different story when that person making $60,000 a year has 2 or 3 children to support and no other income.
The AHAC is all about Affordable Housing. They are primarily focused on workers making $48,000 or below. These are the folks who keep this county running, the workers we depend on day-in and day-out to provide for basic needs in the county. Are we providing for THEIR basic needs?
Let’s dig into the numbers
With a goal of 30% of gross income going towards housing, a person making $60,000 a year can spend about $1500 on rent or a mortgage payment.
How realistic is that in St. Johns County? Not very.
Fair Market Rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in St. Johns County, (if you can find one,) is $1542. That’s a 39% increase over 2021 rates. To afford that rent, an individual needs to be making $22.45 an hour, or $48,000 a year.
The median home prices in St. Johns County is $490,000. To afford to buy a home in this county, a household income of over $165,000 is required. That means that even if you have a dual income household with each adult making $48,000 a year, they still can’t afford to buy a home in St. Johns County.
Even though there are around 500 building permits issued every month, the average value for those homes is $265,000. Only about 5% of those homes would be considered “workforce” housing.
Employment
What type of employees earn less than $48,000, not enough to rent an apartment or buy a home in St. Johns County?
- Restaurant workers – four restaurants closed in the last quarter because of staffing difficulties.
- Hospitality workers – our hotels run with these workers
- Arts, Entertainment and Recreation workers – who staff our museums and theaters?
- Retail workers – complained lately about lack of service in the stores?
- Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting – when we clamor to save our farmland, are we considering where those farm workers can afford to live?
- Educational Services – starting salary for a teacher in St. Johns County? What about the administrative staff in the schools?
- Trade, Transportation and Utilities workers
76,000 employees in St. Johns County earn less than $22.85 an hour. That’s 76,000 people who cannot afford to rent or buy in this county.
Over 10,000 families in St. Johns County spend more than 50% of their income on housing. These are people already here – many of whom were born and raised here. They can no longer afford to live here.
Recommendations
The AHAC has recommendations.
- Impact and utility fee connection relief
- Where possible, build near transportation hubs
- Incentivize flexible density strategies (duplexes, apartments, townhomes)
- Make use of the inventory of SJC properties available for affordable housing
Proposed Solutions?
There is a great need for public/private partnerships to address the need for more workforce housing in the county. The county needs more options for rental and home ownership for our workforce.
We need programs to provide financial literacy to help prepare residents for home ownership.
Workforce Housing
Last Tuesday’s report focused just on Affordable Housing. That report didn’t touch on the next income level. That is the next tier, those employees in our county making between $48,000 and $60,000 a year.
These are our teachers, deputies, firefighters, factory workers, nurses, healthcare workers, and other trades people.
They can’t afford to live here either.
Going back to our Median Home price of $490,000, even a working couple at the top end of our median workforce, making $60,000 each, cannot afford to buy a home in St. Johns County. Remember, you need a household income of $165,000 to afford to buy a home in St. Johns County.
We need solutions for Workforce Housing, as well. Not just Affordable Housing. And the answer isn’t to just pay people more. Salary increases for our public service workers like first responders will need to be funded by us – and we know that residents don’t want increased taxes. Salary increases for our private sector employees mean increased prices – and we already have complaints about the high cost of healthcare and goods.
We need to work together to find better solutions.
What are your solutions?
Beth Tate 