SARASOTA, Fla. — The city of Sarasota has teamed up with some local nonprofits to help tackle and find solutions to its affordable housing crisis. They plan to build affordable apartment homes specifically for veterans facing housing challenges.
Last week the city donated two land plots on the 1500 block of 25th street in Newtown to the non-profit, St. Vincent De Paul CARES.
The nonprofit would build 10 single and multi-room apartment units. The Gulf Coast Community Foundation is providing $1.1 million for the construction of the units.
According to a spokesperson, the city is also contributing $200,000 per plot of land from the City/County Affordable Housing Initiative fund for the development of the rental units on these sites. The funds would go toward engineering, surveying and construction expenses.
"The city commission is affording the land at no cost so that enables us to save the money to provide more housing for more veterans," Jon Thaxton of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation said.
Thaxton said the units will be permanently affordable to serve veterans in the community who are facing housing crises.
"Thank you, but too bad it didn't happen sooner but I'm a positive guy and I think it is great," formerly homeless veteran Aaron Todd said. "It's going to mean finally taking a hot shower, having a meal in peace and being able to say 'I'm safe' and I can look around in my own place and say 'I'm not on the street.'"
Todd, who was a Marine, suffered a brain injury and was forced into civilian life. He found work in the medical field before the misfortune of a job loss sent him into homelessness.
"If a person is going to take an Oath of Enlistment or a commission to defend us, the least we can do as a nation is to show some gratitude and get them off the streets," Todd said.
Todd said he spent one year living in tents and shelters and met so many veterans in the same situation or worse off than he was.
"I was connecting with those other vets and I made the best of it," he said. "Honestly it sucked. I was homeless and I was living at a Salvation Army homeless shelter."
Finding affordable housing was a challenge for him but after much struggle, Todd eventually was able to get a place through a Veterans Housing Program run by the Veterans Affairs Office. He said many of the homeless Veterans he encountered were struggling with mental health issues, substance abuse or financial challenges that have contributed to setting them back. He said many of them could not afford their own places without getting assistance.
"Once a homeless veteran is no longer homeless and they are housed, then they can start thinking of all the other things they can do," Todd said.
Advocates have called for more affordable housing units to support more than 50,000 struggling low-income families.
The plots allocated for the future units are among 30 city-owned properties approved for affordable housing.
"Before there were no units, so 10 is better than none and when it comes to affordable housing, just across the board, that's an issue that's plaguing the nation," Vice Mayor of the City of Sarasota Kyle Battie, who represents District One, said.
"We have a number of veterans in our area between Newtown and Bayou Oaks, Park East," Battie said. "There have been a number of veterans who have had issues with trying to find affordable housing in that area so to have it on the corridor of Newtown, I couldn't think of a better place for it."
Todd urged that the efforts to get veterans off the streets should not stop at just housing but should extend to mandatory mental health programs.