{"id":341463,"date":"2026-07-15T23:11:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T23:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/341463\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T23:11:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T23:11:21","slug":"catholic-charities-expands-affordable-housing-in-tampa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/341463\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Charities expands affordable housing in Tampa"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Saint Petersburg<\/a> and the city of Tampa have cut the ribbon on Mercy Oaks II. It’s a new 17-unit affordable housing community on North Florida Avenue for people who were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.<\/p>\n

The apartments were built in a former office space as Catholic Charities expanded its housing program. The new community is next to Mercy Oaks I, which opened in 2022.<\/p>\n

Mercy Oaks II was built by the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Saint Petersburg with additional funding from Tampa.<\/p>\n

Alvin Williams, one of the new residents, moved into Mercy Oaks II a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Williams said he previously worked with a Tampa nonprofit to help veterans coming out of prison find housing, but he said his own economic challenges later left him without a home.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever in a million years would I’ve thought that I would be homeless. I advocated against it for so long myself,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

He was in and out of shelters for six months. Catholic Charities initially provided him with a tent before helping him move into more stable housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other alternative was either a car or sleep on a park bench,\u201d Williams said. \u201cSo, I was grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams joined Mayor Jane Castor and Catholic Charities leaders for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new housing community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just so thankful, and I\u2019m thankful for Catholic Charities helping me through this rough time in my life,\u201d Williams said. “I know without a doubt I\u2019m going to get through this one as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maggie Rogers, executive director of Catholic Charities, said the new apartments are intended to help people who are struggling with rising housing costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the average one-bedroom apartment is over $1,700 a month, having the opportunity to rent something that is less than a thousand a month means everything to someone who is struggling, living paycheck to paycheck,\u201d Rogers said.<\/p>\n

Williams said he hopes more affordable housing is built for others facing a housing crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to do better. We can do better. Nobody should be without a home,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Williams has worked in the housing industry and started his own business specializing in 3D-printed homes. He said that method could make housing more affordable for many people.<\/p>\n

Catholic Charities said it currently has under 2,000 housing units across the Tampa Bay area and hopes to expand its inventory to more than 2,000 units in the next several years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Saint Petersburg and the city of Tampa have cut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16022,274,276,1644,115,135,137,136,278,1374,835],"class_list":["post-341463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-housing","tag-app-top-stories","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-housing","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-tyler-oneill","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341463","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=341463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}