PENSACOLA, Fla. — The City of Pensacola is making strides in the need for affordable housing. City staff say addressing the demand is one of the top strategic initiatives for Pensacola.<\/p>\n
A newly reconstructed home is fit for the Donson family of eight. Their original home succumbed to age and poor condition.<\/p>\n
“The family came to us in need,” said Betsy McDonald, City of Pensacola’s housing director. “Their home was just not a safe place for them to be living anymore.”<\/p>\n
McDonald says the facelift comes in part to the \u201cState Housing Initiatives Partnership,” also known as “SHIP.”<\/p>\n
The program aims to help low and moderate income families with affordable homeownership and repair. The initiative can cover up to $45,000 in assistance.<\/p>\n
“City of Pensacola has completed 12 State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) rehabilitation projects, from Fiscal Year 24 to date in FY26, in the amount of $634,890,” according to the city. “We have a few projects currently underway, but they are not complete.”<\/p>\n
Current year allocation (2025-2026): $385,966Anticipated allocation (2026-2027): $384,628The allocations have a three year spend out<\/p>\n
“This is one of our strategic initiatives for a reason because we know that our community needs affordable, attainable housing for all,” McDonald said. <\/p>\n
SHIP is a statewide program, resulting from the “William E. Sadowski Affordable Housing Act” of 1992.<\/p>\n
Pensacola started receiving SHIP allocations in the early 90’s. The city is also working on larger affordable communities. One is on West Cervantes Street.<\/p>\n
The city has been dealing with the former Motor Lodge property for years. In April, the city approved the demolition to aid in the sale of the land.<\/p>\n
“They’re still kind of working out all the details,” said Cliff Collins, City of Pensacola’s associate city administrator. “And obviously, once that’s done, the intent is to commit to some sort of affordable housing.”<\/p>\n
Paces Preservation Partners is the company negotiating for the property. Its proposal to the city is to convert the land into 72 affordable apartment units.<\/p>\n
Collins says he\u2019s hopeful the city will close on the property between now and September. Paces is the same developer behind the new buildings outside the old Baptist hospital.<\/p>\n
Crews are putting up two affordable apartment complexes just on the outskirts of the campus. As for the old hospital, city staff members say they’re ready to hear from the community for suggestions.<\/p>\n
“This important second piece is the feasibility of what we can mirroring that input again,” said David Stafford, Pensacola’s city administrator. “What’s realistic moving forward.”<\/p>\n
The city is hosting a public forum on Aug. 6 at 5:30 p.m. at the Lakeview Activity Center.<\/p>\n
Staff members are urging everyone to come out and share your ideas for what should replace the old Baptist hospital.<\/p>\n
Stafford says no ideas are off the table at the moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PENSACOLA, Fla. — The City of Pensacola is making strides in the need for affordable housing. City staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-356725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356725","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=356725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}