Bay County shares updates on two affordable housing projects

BAY COUNTY, Fla. ( WMBB ) – Bay County spent the last of the $28 million they received in a federal grant after Hurricane Michael. They funded two affordable housing projects.

The first is called Sovereign at North Shore in Panama City. It is a multi-family development with 144 units, 20 of which will be affordable housing units that will be monitored by the county for the next 50 years.

The county said this project is just one part of a bigger effort to help fight the affordable housing crisis.

“We assessed the needs of our community and home ownership and rental we’re 50/50 so and us realizing that we’re making an important investment in rental properties as well as helping families find single-family homes and helping to build new single-family homes,” Housing Program Manager Tammy Harris said.

The second project is a special needs group home that is being developed by the Arc of the Bay in Lynn Haven. It will house up to 6 individuals and will assist with a variety of special needs.

“I’ve personally worked in two other counties in Florida, and we also supported group home projects for adults with any kind of special needs which can be developmental disabilities, foster care, domestic violence, aging out of foster care, just an array of different things that would fall into the special needs categories,” Harris said.

Individuals for the home will be chosen from a statewide waiting list. In addition to these projects, the hurricane relief funds also helped with the hurricane housing recovery program grant which closed last month.

Harris said they were able to help over 300 families afford housing while bringing in revenue and jobs for the county.

“We generated $66.5 million and home sales generated that in the sale of homes in Bay County over the past two and a half years. So what a shot in the arm to the economy that is that our $17 million generate did $60 million and that captures you know a lot of people busy probably created some new jobs and stabilized a lot of jobs,” Harris added.

Construction on Sovereign at the North Shore should be finished in about a year. The Arc of the Bay group home hopes to open by the end of this year.

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