Affordable Housing

Pinellas County is in a housing crisis. Working families are living in hotel rooms or living in their cars because they can’t afford the high cost of housing in Pinellas County.   During our listening process over the last few years, members shared that they are often paying so much for their housing that they have to choose between eating or paying for their medications.  No one should ever have to make that kind of decision. According to Shimberg Center data, in 2021 there were 60,000 families making 80% AMI or less ($59,000 for a family of four) who paid more than half their income on rent. This means they’re one missed paycheck away from losing their housing.

Last year, rent in Tampa Bay increased 24%, more than any other area in the nation. This means the average rent went up $315!  In a meeting with St. Pete staff members in January 2022, they told us that in 2021, 90% of home sales in St. Pete were all cash offers.  In the third quarter of 2021, 37% of homes bought in the zip code 33712 were purchased by investment companies.

Every day, working families have been pushed out of their own community because they can’t afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash for a place to live.  Non-profit developers such as Catholic Charities, Boley Centers, and Family Promise tell us that their biggest hurdle to getting a family or individual into stable housing is the scarcity of affordable housing options in Pinellas County.

So we began to fight for affordable housing.  Four years ago, we asked our County Commissioners to spend 4.15% of the overall Penny for Pinellas tax money on affordable housing.  We have worked hard to get these verbal commitments and to specifically get them in writing.  This finally happened in 2019 in the form of a resolution stating that 4.15% of the Penny for Pinellas sales tax will be spent on affordable housing.  This resolution also stated that the money would be spent mainly on families making 80% of Area Median Income or less.

While making progress with the County, we also chose to work directly with the City of St. Petersburg.  In 2018 at the Action we asked the St. Petersburg City Council to use a percentage of the City's Penny tax money on affordable housing. Though initially resistant, we were able to change their minds and get them to commit to use $15 million for affordable housing! The money is officially in the city's budget for Penny for Pinellas and was approved unanimously by all city council members.  We were also able to get a resolution in the City of St. Petersburg that states that 75% of this $15 million will be spent on families making 80% of the Area Median Income.

To date, we have won from the County and City of St. Petersburg a combined $100 million for affordable housing.  This money will be used over the course of the ten years between 2020 and 2030.  So far, over 700 units of housing have been completed or are under construction. 

We will continue to work on this issue to ensure that the Penny for Pinellas dollars are being spent on affordable housing for those who need it most.  Additionally, we continue to research new and better solutions to help fix the housing crisis in Pinellas County.

For a map of all the housing projects that have been built with the money we've gotten committed, click here. 

Criminal Justice- Civil Citations, Adults

In house meetings over the course of the last few years, we have heard story after story of people who have been branded for life with arrest records for committing misdemeanors. Sometimes, these arrests are for minor mistakes, like having expired car tags, or trespassing in a public park after dark. Other times, people are arrested simply because they don’t have the money to pay fees and fines. If you have court fees or tickets you can’t pay, for example, your license can be suspended.

If your license is suspended, many find that they still have to go to work to pay off those fees.  They find themselves faced with an impossible decision: continue driving to work (on a suspended license) so that they can pay off their fees and pay for food and housing and their family’s medical bills – or – stop driving completely and lose their job (which happens to 50% of people whose licenses are suspended.)  Once the choice is made, and a person decides to continue driving to work, they can then be arrested for driving on a suspended license. This results in a cycle of poverty that is incredibly difficult to stop, all the while branding people with lifelong criminal records.

In Pinellas County, for example, there are over 106,000 drivers with suspended licenses, and 75% of these licenses were suspended for unpaid fees and fines and not for driving offenses.  (see https://finesandfeesjusticecenter.org)

 The good news is that Pinellas County does have an Adult Pre-Arrest Diversion (APAD) program that gives people second chances instead of arrest records. The problem is, however, that driving related offenses are not currently included in this program.  In fact, there are only 11 offenses included in the qualifications for APAD’s diversion program.   This means that in 2019, of the 12,000 people arrested, only a little more than 1000 got access to the program. 

 At the Action in 2021, we won commitments from various Criminal Justice stakeholders across the County to expand the diversion program to include more misdemeanors. At this time, we are following up with those stakeholders and more to ensure that access to this program is indeed expanded and that more adults will have the opportunity to forego an unnecessary arrest and lifelong criminal record for a minor, and often unknown, mistake. It is crucial that approved offenses to the APAD program are not only expanded, but that they do include driving related offenses such as “Driving With License Suspended.”  This will help to ensure that people who are poor and low income are not criminalized for being unable to pay fees and fines. 

Water Quality & Flooding Update

 Through hundreds of house meetings last fall, we heard story after story of the impact of poor water quality and flooding on families and children.

These stories covered a range of issues, some causing health problems via Red Tide,  others related to flooding issues during heavy rains due to poor infrastructure.  We even heard stories of sewage being dumped into neighborhood waterways and polluting community areas.   And at our Annual Assembly in 2021, we voted to work on this problem of “Water Quality and Flooding.”

 The Water Quality and Flooding Committee has been engaged in vigorous research on this issue, and has met with a number of stakeholders, scientists and experts.  Throughout this process, many startling facts have been laid bare.  For instance, FAST has learned that eating more than one fish from Tampa Bay per week is dangerous to our health because of the mercury released from power plants.  And that the Piney Point leak has contributed to the severity of Red Tide now and in the Summer of 2021,  even as the company behind the phosphate plant considers plans to build more phosphate mines, predominantly in low-income areas.

There are still many more research meetings to come to continue gaining understanding  around these problems and their impact on our water.    No matter what we end up focusing on, our task at the Nehemiah Action this year will be to push our local governments to take action on long-term solutions that prioritize the health of our people and our waterways over the profit of corporations.