ADDRESSING A4DABILITY COVERAGE<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s less than one percent, about half a percent of the overall budget for the city, but it\u2019s a good start,\u201d Viau said, pointing to other cities that have made larger long-term commitments.<\/p>\n
City officials say funding is critical to supporting affordable housing development. Joshua Hicks, Jacksonville\u2019s affordable housing director, said such investments help close financing gaps that often prevent projects from moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s vital, especially in today\u2019s market. Affordable housing typically generates lower rents than market-rate units, so there\u2019s a gap that has to be filled,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cThe city\u2019s responsibility, and what we try to do through our federal dollars, our state dollars, through some of the public-private partnerships we\u2019re working on, is we cover that gap. And oftentimes, it\u2019s as a loan. You know, it\u2019s money that we\u2019ll get back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks said a dedicated trust fund could support a range of programs, including down payment assistance, home repair initiatives, rental assistance and efforts to prevent evictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cICARE asked for $10 million, and she was not able to commit to 10 million because we won\u2019t know what the budget is going to look like for another month, month and a half,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cI imagine the mayor will put something into the trust fund during her budget process, but right now the amount is just to be determined because we don\u2019t know the numbers yet.”<\/p>\n
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, the area median income in Jacksonville is $71,277. Someone earning about half that, roughly $35,000, can spend more than 65% of their income on housing, highlighting the strain many households face.<\/p>\n
Without additional government investment, advocates say the situation is unlikely to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to know that this trust fund can change lives,\u201d Viau said. \u201cIt\u2019s from seniors to kids getting out of college to working people. For us, our heart lies with people who are really very low income and low income. We want the trust fund to benefit those people, and we want to hold feet to the fire for that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The renewed push follows City Council\u2019s Finance Committee decision to remove a $10 million housing fund from the previous year\u2019s budget. The Deegan administration has said that the program could have leveraged a matching $30 million in private investment and supported up to $120 million in housing development.<\/p>\n
The proposed trust fund is expected to be included in the mayor\u2019s upcoming budget proposal, though the amount has not yet been determined.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Advocates are renewing their push for a $10 million affordable housing trust fund in Jacksonville,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1571,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-234746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-affordable-housing","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}