How the Delray CRA Supports Affordable Housing
Whether you’re a resident or a visitor, it’s easy to see that Delray Beach is a bustling city full of non-stop happenings, opportunity and growth. For all of us at the CRA, this means that it’s more important than ever to ensure that all community members have necessary access to be able to grow with the City. One way we do this is to offer affordable housing options to help keep our community members – and their businesses! – in the city they love so much.
“Having quality housing is extremely important to the sustainability of a community,” said Renee Jadusingh, CRA Executive Director. “In order for our society to continue functioning, we need to be able to go to school and go to work to keep life progressing. But it makes it that much harder when you don’t have a comfortable place to rest your head at night and take care of your family.”
This is where the CRA helps out! In addition to selling lots at a discounted rate to organizations that then provide affordable housing, we have created numerous alternative ways to help our community members find an affordable place to call home.
Objectives of the CRA’s Affordable/Workforce Housing Program is to provide decent, affordable/workforce housing for residents who are of very low to moderate income level.
Recent examples of affordable housing projects by the Delray CRA include:
- Community Land Trust Partnership – Corey Jones Isle Workforce Housing
- Homeownership Partnership – Carver Square Workforce Housing
- CRA-owned Rental Properties
- 4% Tax Credit Partnership – Island Cove Affordable Housing
“There are many ways to support affordable housing,” Jadusingh said. “We try to be as creative as possible. The availability and access to affordable and attainable housing is a long-standing issue, which requires using many different strategies to try to remedy the situation. We have worked with several community partners and started our own initiatives to address affordable housing.”
Our redevelopment plan discusses other initiatives that date back to the early 1990s. This includes even purchasing small multifamily housing units that the CRA owns and rents for affordable and senior housing.
In addition to projects where we have assisted in building new affordable homes, there is also a program to assist existing homeowners who need repairs to their homes. This Curb Appeal program has been in existence since 2007. The program provides financial assistance for exterior minor improvements to properties in the Northwest and Southwest neighborhoods, including fresh paint, landscaping driveways, and fencing. These improvements have a significant impact on the appearance of the home and the surrounding neighborhood.
We have also worked with the City on the Rock the Block program since the 1990s. This fun community building program has volunteers paint homes and does minor landscaping for homes in the Northwest/Southwest neighborhood. Each year the CRA team selects up to 10 homes, which are all painted in one day. This year’s Rock the Block is held April 29 in the Northwest Neighborhood. Partners include the City of Delray Beach, Delray Beach CRA, and Habitat for Humanity for Humanity of Greater Palm Beach County.
“Chapter 163 of the Florida statutes considers part of community redevelopment as the elimination and prevention of the development and spread of slum and blight, or for the provision of affordable housing whether for sale, or rent to residence of low or moderate income, including elderly,” Jadusingh said. “Recently, the state statute that governs CRAs now requires CRA to list the amount of funding spent on affordable housing in our annual reports because it is that important.”
It’s so important to the CRA to help our community members thrive with their community, which is what makes our affordable housing work so important and meaningful!
