TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) — With the number of homeless people in the Big Bend on the rise, the Big Bend Continuum of Care brought people together today to come up with potential ideas for incentives for landlords to house people in need of shelter.
Affordable housing is something that Big Bend Continuum of Care Director Johnna Coleman said is needed now more than ever.
“With things like rental costs increasing, the need of more affordable housing for people with little to no income, the need for more variety of housing options,” Coleman said. “We have started to see more people experiencing homelessness for the first time as they are getting evicted.”
Coleman said the need for housing is extreme in the Big Bend. 800 people are currently homeless in the area. That is a 22 percent increase from this time last year.
“The way we end homelessness is providing housing and we know that the biggest factors in providing housing is our engagement with landlords,” Coleman said.
To do that, the Big Bend Continuum of Care joined together with other local agencies to brainstorm incentives to get more landlords interested in housing those who need shelter.
The city and county already offer rental mitigation programs to financially support landlords with bonuses, but Big Bend COC landlord liaison Jeff Kane said the problem is getting increasingly worse and more needs to be done.
“It was so simple. You could place somebody very easily. Now, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Kane said. “It’s become a lot more difficult.”
Some of the ideas people came up with include providing free maintenance to landlords, paying for renters insurance, hosting mixers between property owners and potential tenants and giving financial literacy lessons to each person seeking housing.
All ideas that Kane said could help build trust with landlords.
“I want to build that repore. I want to build that relationship,” Kane said. “I want them to know, hey, you are supported.”
Coleman said the COC is looking forward to implementing some of these ideas in the future.
“We are dedicated to providing them with the resources that they need, the education, helping them to mitigate and acting as a liaison between our agencies, our clients and the landlords,” Coleman said.
These ideas will be further looked at by Big Bend COC. The ones that best fit their strategic plan will be implemented in the future.
