The City of Gainesville’s vision for housing is a city where renters and owners, at every income and ability level, stage of life, race and ethnicity, have access to safe and affordable housing now and into the future.
Housing is a commodity, but it is also a basic human need. Without access to safe housing that they can afford, people struggle to find and maintain consistent employment, children do worse in school, and overall health declines. Without a strong supply of affordable housing, employers have trouble finding employees, essential jobs go unfilled, and the whole community struggles to grow.
In Nov. 2023, the City of Gainesville launched a new online tool for the public to visualize previously unavailable housing information in neighborhoods across the community. The interactive Affordable Housing Resources Map is designed as a quick and simple way to keep an eye on the city’s housing data in real time.
This application was developed in response to a request from the Gainesville City Commission for a central clearinghouse where neighbors and policymakers can gain a nuanced understanding of Gainesville’s housing situation. By accessing a user-friendly dashboard, visitors can review information collected from projects with start dates going back two years through the present day. The map provides a dynamic, changing view of current developments, funded housing programs, and other resources that play a pivotal role in Gainesville’s housing market.
Through a combination of geographic points and navigation menus, users can click on specific locations or select fields that overlay new elements such as ongoing construction, public schools, City Commission districts, Regional Transit System (RTS) routes and grocery stores.
To remain timely, the map will continue to grow and evolve as the city’s housing inventory changes.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there is a shortage of more than 7 million affordable homes for our nation’s 10.8 million extremely low-income families. Every state and every community is impacted, and this issue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) January 2021 Comprehensive Market Analysis indicated that homeownership in the Gainesville area is increasingly expensive, and the affordability of buying a home has trended downward since the early 2010s as home prices have increased at a much faster rate than income has increased. Development priorities and decisions that were made more than a half-century ago for Gainesville have resulted in spatially-segregated development patterns, which have led to issues with housing access, affordability, gentrification and displacement.
Through local regulations such as:
Housing Initiatives Funding for FY22
|
| GCRA |
$5,111,891 |
| ConnectFree |
$2,963,118 |
| CDBG |
$1,824,175 |
| HOME |
$1,013,574 |
| ARPA |
$1,000,000 |
| SHIP |
$902,521 |
| General Fund |
$1,033,798 |
| Total for FY22 |
$13,849,077 |
Through working with partner organizations:
Contact Corey Harris, senior housing strategist, at 352-393-8314 or harriscj@gainesvillefl.gov.