FHEA final

Fair Housing Equity Assessment

Outreach Strategy and Recommendations

James Carras, Carras Community Investment, Inc.

Principal

June 11, 2014

Seven 50 - Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Fair Housing and Equity

Assessment (FHEA)• Understand the historical, current and future context for opportunity (i.e. economic prosperity) in the region and the data and evidence that demonstrates those dynamics

• Engage regional leaders and stakeholders on findings and implications of analysis

• Integrate knowledge developed through the Regional FHEA and inform/integrate into the Regional Plan (e.g., priority setting and decision making)

Carras Community Investment, Inc. 2

Measuring Opportunity and Equity

OPPORTUNITY

DEMOGRAPHIC

Race / Ethnicit

y

Linguisti

c Isolation


Key Findings• Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach have 90% of region’s

residents and vast majority of low- and very-low opportunity

communities

• Racial divide between Whites and African-Africans and

Hispanics re: poverty – over 850,000 live in poverty - 12% of

the region

• Racial/ethnic living concentrations – Whites – higher

opportunity communities; Minorities – lower opportunity

communities

• Housing costs are high leading to large gaps in affordability

and cost-burdened households

• Strongest areas along the coast and suburban western

fringes

• Weakest areas in Miami-Dade County, central Broward and

west Palm Beach County

• Significant portions of Region are considered “moderate

opportunity”


Minority and Poverty Concentrations


Cost-burdened Households


Race and Cost-burdened Households


A disproportionat

e number of renters are minorities

Renters are more-cost burdened

than homeowners

Thus, a disproportio

nate number of minorities are cost-burdened

Opportunity – Northern Three Counties


Opportunity – Palm Beach


Opportunity – Broward County


Opportunity – Miami-Dade County


Opportunity - Monroe County

FHEA Outreach Strategy

• Outreach to regional and local partners

• Numerous regional and local meetings (over 25 and 1,500 participants)

• Opportunity in the Region full day session May 2013


Outreach Strategy

• Project outreach continued with contacts to 31 CDBG Entitlement communities to discuss their Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing reports.


Outreach Strategy• Engaged Seven50 Executive Committee and working committees to be a sounding board for the report.

• Worked with other regional partners to conduct outreach meetings and discussions including regional partners

• The South Florida Community Development

Coalition

• The Broward Alliance for Neighborhood

Development

• The South Florida Regional Planning Council

• Regional Transportation Working Group

• Florida Funders Network

• HOPE, Inc.


Outreach Strategy

• The FHEA process has been fortunate to

receive feedback from other SCI grantees and

Policy Link throughout the FHEA process

including Policy Link’s national meetings in

Detroit and Baltimore as well as their Equity

Profile for the region.


Creating the Regional Opportunity Network

• FHEA serves as the foundation for

implementation of recommendations by the

Regional Opportunity Network

• FHEA will provide the initial benchmark for a

periodic update to understanding progress on

the indicators identified as well as new

indicators that will be identified by the

Network


Strategies and Recommendations• Approaches and strategies that public sector

as well as private sector and community interests should undertake to solve the challenges presented by segregation and disinvestment.


Strategies and Recommendations

• Analysis indicates that the region is making slow progress -multifamily, rental, and affordable housing concentrated primarily in older, more urban communities.

• Seven50 envisions that “more housing and

workplace choices are made available in

response to emerging trends.”

• These choices include affordable housing that is

accessible to quality jobs and supportive

services such as education, training, healthcare,

healthy foods and transportation.


Strategies and Recommendations• African Americans and Hispanics remain largely

segregated particularly in Miami-Dade County,

Broward County and pockets of Palm Beach

County.

• Region needs to create strategies and policies

that welcome residents of all races and incomes

to reside in communities with high quality

schools, transit, jobs, and supporting assets

that create a quality of life for all.

• These assets must also be improved in low

opportunity and disinvested communities. Carras Community Investment, Inc. 20

Strategies and Recommendations• An initial step should be for local governments

(counties and municipalities) to use the findings of

this report to reexamine their own impediments to

fair housing choice.

• In the long run, it will be beneficial for counties and

the region including private and alternative sector

entities to focus planning, policy tools, and public

and private resources on the specific areas identified

on maps in previous chapters of this report as areas

of opportunity.


Strategies and Recommendations

The FHEA provides three major recommendations

that focuses on long-term, sustainable

approaches and strategies to achieve fair and just

inclusion in a more equitable South Florida region:

–Fair Housing Equity

–Greater Access to Opportunity

–Affordable Housing


Fair Housing Equity

• Increase public, private, community staff capacity to better integrate issues of equity and opportunity into their policies, programs, and plans.

• Agencies should utilize data collection methods and adapt training resources to support integration of fair housing into planning and funding decisions.

• Strengthen fair housing assessment and enforcement (e.g. HOPE, Inc.).


Fair Housing Equity

• Vigorous, region-wide enforcement of fair housing and civil rights obligations, including not only the rooting out of discrimination, but also the duty to further the purposes of Title VIII.

• Adopt regional fair housing goals and monitor outcomes through the coordination of entitlement jurisdictions (i.e. Community Development Block Grant recipients) and housing and equity stakeholders in creating a HUD-recognized Regional Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing that leads to regional goals and outcomes and monitors success.

• Promote diversity and prevent discrimination by supporting and expanding fair housing educational efforts.


Greater Access to Opportunity• Create sustainable connections that link people and

places in ways that achieve equity. Public, private and

alternative organizations must create structural

connections between people and places that advance

equity.

• Utilize this FHEA’s opportunity mapping analysis to

prioritize housing, infrastructure and community

development investments.

• Make investments in people and places from a regional

perspective, and in a balanced manner that promotes

opportunity and reverses conditions of disparity in

both distressed locations and in communities that are

exclusionary. Carras Community Investment, Inc. 25

Greater Access to Opportunity

• Encourage affordable housing development and preservation in areas with high access to opportunity by establishing regional goals and targeting pubic and private resources.

• Increased transit-oriented development through the creation of opportunity corridors that include mixed-income housing by amending and promoting these uses in local and county comprehensive and land use plans.

• Improve public transportation with sufficient investments to provide for the mobility of transit dependent populations, particularly between areas of low and high access to opportunity.


Greater Access to Opportunity• Strengthen leadership from low opportunity

communities particularly low-income and minority residents to participate in regional economic development and fair housing planning and implementation.

• Encourage county and regional economic development organizations and authorities to increase participation of low opportunity community representatives and leaders particularly those who are low-income and minority.

• Encourage cross collaboration of all economic development organizations to promote programs in areas of low opportunity through the use of tax incentives and other tools to encourage development.


Greater Access to Opportunity• Promote and implement regional economic

development goals of providing access to living wage employment for all residents, especially those residing in low-opportunity communities and low-income and minority households.

• Advocate and urge regulated financial institutions in the region to affirmatively lend and invest in low opportunity communities and in assets in higher opportunity communities that serve low opportunity and low-income and minority persons.

• Maintain county-wide school systems across the region so quality schools are accessible to all. Increase funding for arts education, early childhood education and lifelong learning for adults.Carras Community Investment, Inc. 28

Affordable Housing

• Monitor land use and zoning regulations that may result in the exclusion of the full range of affordable housing including homeownership and rental projects as well as group homes for special needs populations and homeless shelters.

• Manage foreclosed homes to best serve areas of low and high access to opportunity respectively through the creation of a system with lenders and non-profit affordable housing developers.

• Greatly expand initiatives to provide opportunities of affordable and decent housing throughout the region to meet the region’s growing housing needs by creating more housing choices through rehabilitation and new development.


Affordable Housing• Create local and regional housing trust funds

through local documentary stamp taxes similar to Miami-Dade County

• Create a transit-oriented development property acquisition fund in conjunction with private investors (e.g. financial institutions) and charitable resources (e.g. foundations).

• Develop appropriate incentives to encourage the development and preservation of affordable housing such as zoning bonus programs, impact fee waivers, school fee exemptions, expedited permitting, and tax abatement programs to encourage affordable housing development and preservation. Carras Community Investment, Inc. 30

Thank You

For further information, contact:

James Carras |954.415.2022 |

[email protected]

Presentations & Public Speaking

FHEA final