Leasing an apartment in Miami for $3,000 a month could soon come with a new benefit: county rent relief.
Under a proposed $10 million program by Miami-Dade County, landlords would receive about $167 a month toward lowering rents for about 4,500 apartments rented to middle-class residents.
Backers of the effort say it’s designed to help teachers, police officers and other middle-class workers who earn too much to qualify for most government housing aid but still are hurt by rising rents in one of the country’s least affordable housing markets.
“They’re being priced out,” said Commissioner Kionne McGhee, the sponsor of legislation that formed the model for the proposed program funded in part by property-tax dollars. “That is the workforce component that has suffered silently.”
Detractors call the proposal flawed for spending county funds on apartments priced too high to be considered affordable housing for the typical Miami-Dade worker.
“I think it’s really problematic,” said Annie Lord, executive director of the Miami Homes for All, a nonprofit that advocates for more affordable housing. “And very unlikely to produce the kind of affordability — or protection of affordability — that is truly needed.”
At the center of the controversy is the question of who should get government help paying for housing costs. Miami-Dade already offers subsidies for some tenants through its Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which is funded through federal COVID dollars and is restricted to families earning less than the median income in Miami-Dade.
That income restriction limits aid to a family of four earning less than $78,000 a year. Under the proposed workforce rental program, the same family could earn $136,000 and still trigger county rental aid.
The difference comes from a higher income cap — from 80% of the median income under current rules, to 140% of the median income under the proposed rules. For a family of four, that’s a $58,000 swing.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava made the workforce program a centerpiece of the housing strategy in her 2023 budget proposal, a $10 billion spending plan that will go to the County Commission for a final vote on Sept. 20.
Some commissioners want Levine Cava to scale back proposed spending increases to allow for a larger cut in tax rates than the 1% reduction the mayor wants.
That debate could be crucial for the survival of the proposed Workforce Housing Incentive Program, which would launch in the fall if it’s funded in the 2023 budget. Miami-Dade would advertise the program so landlords could apply, and likely post lists of available apartments subsidized from the program. About half of the money comes from remaining federal COVID dollars, and half from county property taxes and other local funds.
Large apartment operators and builders helped design the new subsidy program, and joined Levine Cava at an Aug. 29 press conference promoting it as part of her $86 million “HOMES” housing initiative that’s also part of her budget plan.
“We actually helped draft the legislation,” Ana VeigaMilton said before joining Levine Cava at the podium. The Milton family owns United Property Management, one of the largest residential landlords in Miami-Dade.
“It was a completely collaborative effort between the public sector and the private sector,” VeigaMilton said.
Rules for the proposed program announced this week by the Levine Cava administration include:
—Landlords will qualify for three years of funding, for a total of $6,000 per unit, paid out at the end of the program if all rules are followed. The program would depend on commissioners approving $10 million funding annually for the second and third years.
—Rents cannot increase in subsidized units, and landlords cannot displace existing tenants to qualify for the subsidies. Landlords will have to prove both the rent amounts and income limits of tenants to comply with county rules.
—Half of the $10 million will be reserved for tenants earning no more than 110% of the median income, which is about $107,000 for a family of four.
—Miami-Dade will first accept qualified applications for rental units occupied by certain occupations. Those are listed as: law enforcement officers, firefighters, educators, healthcare professionals, childcare employees, staff of the Public Defenders’ and State Attorneys’ offices, and active military or veterans.
—Landlords must lower rents to qualify for the subsidies. Apartments under the rental caps already aren’t eligible for the subsidies.
“The idea is to bring the prices down,” Levine Cava said in an interview last week.
She said that while the workforce program targets middle-class renters, it’s just one part of her $86 million HOMES plan in the 2023 budget that has housing help for a larger swath of Miami-Dade residents.
That includes:
—$25 million in assistance for middle-class home owners, who would qualify for grants up to $1,500 if behind on loans, insurance or utility bills
—$5 million in rental subsidies solely for low-income renters already using federal Section 8 rent vouchers
—$25 million in grants for building new affordable-housing projects and residences for people experiencing homelessness
“We’ve seen an unprecedented affordability crisis as our community has become one of the most unaffordable in the entire country,” Levine Cava said when she introduced the HOMES plan. “We’re making historic investments in solutions to the housing crisis.”
With a limit set at 80% of median income, a two-bedroom apartment’s rent is capped at $1,756. But with the limit at 140% of median income, rent maxes out for the same apartment at just over $3,000 a month.
That’s more than the typical apartment in Miami-Dade, according to data from apartmentlist.com, a rental site. While apartments rent for much higher in wealthier neighborhoods, the median two-bedroom apartment advertised in Miami-Dade this summer rented for about $2,100, according to the site’s August report.
Anne Ray, a researcher at the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida, called the county’s $3,000 rental cap “a lot” compared to typical affordability targets that focus on people earning less than the median income.
She analyzed Census data in Miami-Dade to determine which group of tenants are struggling from housing costs, defined as spending more than about a third of their income on a place to live.
Only about a third of families earning more than 80% of the median income are considered “cost burdened” by their rent payments. For families below that income level, 90% are considered cost burdened by rent.
This week, a group of nonprofits urged Levine Cava to lower the workforce program’s income limits to target two-bedroom apartments that rent for less than $1,800 a month. That’s considered affordable for a family of four earning about $78,000 a year.
“We are concerned that the [workforce] program targets a very large amount of funds to an incentive concept that is unproven anywhere in the country,” stated the letter to Levine Cava from the Greater Miami Housing Alliance, which includes Miami Homes For All.
