Alachua County Commission moves forward with programs to educate tenants and possibly add “Housing Navigators”

BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a Special Policy Meeting today, the Alachua County Commission discussed ways to enforce minimum living standards and energy efficiency standards in rental housing, given the state preemption that forced the County to repeal its landlord program.
Assistant County Manager Missy Daniels said the County’s living standards code is enforced on a complaint basis; the County receives an average of 4-5 complaints a month. Daniels said that when a code officer arrives at a property to investigate the complaint, “nine times out of ten, whatever they called about, that code officer is going to walk in and see something else, as well.”
Staff recommended that the Board consider increased education for both landlords and tenants and a dedicated Minimum Housing Code Enforcement Staff, with an estimated cost for the first year of $128,804 for a new officer. Daniels said staff has met with GACAR (Gainesville-Alachua County Association of Realtors) and the Alachua County Labor Coalition as potential partners in educating residents on their rights as tenants and landlords on their responsibilities. Staff also recommended voluntary certification programs for landlords in which the County would certify that their rental properties are energy-efficient, for example.
Cornell: “No landlord wants an Alachua County person to walk into their unit unless invited.”
Commissioner Ken Cornell supported the recommendation for education of landlords, “as long as there’s not a huge cost associated with that… That’s secondary, though, to really educating. If we really educate the tenants and they know who to call if there’s a concern, and we send out a County code inspector person–that will solve the issue with the landlord, I guarantee you, because no landlord wants an Alachua County person to walk into their unit unless invited.”
“Housing Navigators”: Hiring people who have experienced housing issues to help others
Chair Anna Prizzia said she was “excited about the idea of having a dedicated code enforcement officer for minimum housing standards, living standards, whatever we call them… And so, as we educate and more come in, we’re already prepared and more proactive in terms of being able to respond to those things, because I think it will increase the calls. So I definitely think those two things need to be paired together.” She said she saw the dedicated code officer and the education coordinator as separate positions and added that “housing navigators” would be “another opportunity… that’s been successful in many communities around the country.”
Prizzia mentioned that the County is currently piloting a Community Health Worker (CHW) program, and “I think some of those Community Health Workers could also be Housing Navigators. And/or we could have a parallel type program that would be about hiring people who are in these lived experiences in the communities, being able to have conversations and do some of that education.” She said an Education Coordinator could oversee the education materials and make sure the messages being communicated are accurate and also do landlord coordination and connect with organizations like the Labor Coalition, “but we could also have potentially a Navigator program and people kind of on the ground… having dialogue with people… and maintaining affordable housing and maintaining people in housing, as well as thinking about the minimum standards.” She said the program could be a pilot program.
Prizzia said she didn’t have the program fully fleshed out, but “what I envision is that individuals that have experienced housing insecurity, who have experienced tenancy in places that struggle with minimum housing standards, people who have lived impacted lives around these issues of housing and affordability, would be hired to help have conversations with other people in those same communities about their rights, their responsibilities, and the resources available to them… and hopefully eventually help them move in a direction toward being able to afford housing.”
“And I’m saying we have all these community resources, we have all these people in our community who need employment, who understand the issues, who have lived the experiences, who know how to reach community, who know how to speak to people in ways that they can understand. And we can leverage that to be able to build a team for this education coordinator.” – Chair Anna Prizzia
Commissioner Mary Alford said she “really, really” liked the idea. Prizzia added that she didn’t want to just hire one person and say, “That person’s job is to do education… They have to do this whole big thing. And I’m saying we have all these community resources, we have all these people in our community who need employment, who understand the issues, who have lived the experiences, who know how to reach community, who know how to speak to people in ways that they can understand. And we can leverage that to be able to build a team for this education coordinator… Then we can expand on it if it works.” Prizzia said she wanted staff to work on the idea in the next few months and then bring it back as part of the FY25 budget discussions.
Complaints are required to initiate a codes enforcement case
Prizzia asked whether there was any way for inspectors to “do drop-in inspections on sites that have had violations in the past.” Daniels said they have “the ability to do proactive code enforcement, but you don’t really have the staff right now.” She said, however, that it’s different with rental housing because someone has to allow access to the property.
Senior Assistant County Attorney Diana Johnson said that under Florida law, a code officer cannot initiate a case unless a complaint is made, and they cannot accept anonymous complaints. She said the only exception would be in cases where there is an imminent threat of public health and safety and welfare.
Prizzia said that if they did an energy-efficiency certification program for landlords, “I do think that it’s going to cost us money… [We should have] a map and a dashboard that showcases them… So I’m not opposed to it, but I would definitely want a lot more information and make sure that [the standards] are the highest and best standards.”
Motion: Proactive education program, housing navigators, consider best practices for FY25 budget
Cornell made a motion “for staff to evaluate a proactive education program considering dedicated minimum housing staffing needs and consider incorporating the idea of housing navigators and our community partners, as well as consider other statewide best practices and return with the 2025 budget proposal.”
During public comment, Bobby Mermer from the Alachua County Labor Coalition suggested putting some of the standards that were recently repealed into the business code, “but not applying them to situations where a landlord-tenant relationship or a residential tenancy exists. Legally speaking, there is no residential tenancy and there is no landlord-tenant relationship when a unit is unoccupied or when a unit becomes vacant.”
Alford asked whether Code Enforcement has multilingual employees; Daniels said she has several that speak Spanish.
Prizzia: “So I feel like if we’re going to talk about best practices… we have to get outside the state of Florida.”
Prizzia said she was interested in Mermer’s idea about the business code and vacant units. Cornell suggested looking into whether other counties in Florida are doing anything similar, and Prizzia responded, “I think we have to get outside of Florida sometimes because… by and large, we have a largely rural state. And we have a largely conservative state that’s very focused more on business as usual than it is on protections for vulnerable populations. So I feel like if we’re going to talk about best practices, when it comes to stuff like this, we have to get outside the state of Florida to find best practices around housing protections. I just don’t think we’re going to find it in Florida all that much. I mean, maybe Miami-Dade, maybe in Pinellas County, maybe in Orlando, Orange County, Hillsborough. Yeah, maybe a little bit in Leon.”
The motion passed 4-0, with Commissioner Chuck Chestnut absent.
During the next agenda item, Equity and Community Outreach Manager Deidre Houchens said she had something to add to the previous discussion: “Often I’m finding, too, that Florida is not where I can go for best practices. As a matter of fact, I think we might be the only Office of Equity and Community Engagement in the state. So when I’m looking at the kinds of place… it’s certainly not Florida where I’m getting best practices; where I’m getting best practices are the Northwest. The reason for that is because that’s where GARE was founded, the Government Association for Race and Equity. So all of those municipalities in that northwest area, they’re doing some really, really neat things related to equity and community engagement. And they’re far further than we are. So we were blessed to hire an expert from that area, who’s on the ground doing some of those things with the County, in departments from water management to climate action.”
Maybe teach renters how to pay their rent on time.
Is this new program going to be funded without budget cuts elsewhere in the county budget to offset it’s cost?
Houchens: “Often I’m finding, too, that Florida is not where I can go for best practices.”
You might find some great deals out on the West Coast in areas people are leaving to move to, uh, Florida.
I find myself constantly wondering why these people don’t just move to the liberal utopias of San Fransisco, Portland, Baltimore, etc.
They are so committed to the “15 minute city” concept (where all freedom of movement is tightly controlled, like North Korea), that they have convinced themselves that they can’t just pack up and leave.
i’m a good affordable living landlord…after reading this article, I’m gonna raise the rents on 4 tenants $150 each/month starting Jan 1st, 2024. The city & county need to mind their own biz…they need to focus on police, fire, parks, & roads…can they keep the panhandlers out of the roads? Just so you know…any extra BS government clunks on me gets passed on to the tenants!
Oh, the labor coalition? They’re a bunch on Marxist commies.—Thanks for making the cost of living go up for renters! The unintended consequences of government intervention.
Led by a weirdo with a Napoleon Complex.
When the BoCC say they want to help…RUN!
The BoCC and ACLC does not have a problem with rising rents (or high taxes); it fits into their grand scheme.
This once blue-collar county has been hijacked by a bunch of neo-liberal wannabes who have created a shameful non-profit industrial complex that they’re trying to gas-light us in to believing is the the envy of the state.
The military-industrial complex thrives on world conflicts, the non-profit industrial complex thrives on human hardship and suffering.
Please don’t help me!
Sounds to me like we have another group of local politicians looking to circumvent state laws again.
“Everybody just needs a personal social working with them 24/7.” You can’t just live anywhere, anyhow you find it. You must get approval from bureaucrats who make your life “easier”. 👹🤡👹🤡🍦🍦🍦D
Well there went the hiring freeze. After lease renewal time my affordable housing has gone up over 50% due to local, state and federal government interference. During covid there were no car payment freezes or credit card payment freezes only housing freezes. That must be where the easy votes are. If you (local government) want to do something productive build your own housing to regulate.
Sad part is, it takes an act of God to get some delinquent renters to pay their rent or be evicted but let the same renters complain about a window seal or drippy faucet and this group wants to issue the landlord a citation.
Something is definitely wrong and it’s not just the drippy faucet.
Since when is it the job of government to teach renters and landlords “their rights”?
Make sure your energy standards do not exceed the building code.
Of course, the unintended consequence of this government intrusion will be even higher rents for the people on the bottom of the quality of life, as the government forces landlords to spend even more money to meet these dogooder government standards. You know, insulation, A/C, screen doors, “energy efficient” toilets and showers; things like this.
Don’t forget this means bigger government, more overpaid and under qualified bureaucrats, more taxes.
Completely agreed! Our local elected officials apparently don’t understand what their role is. The fact that what Gainesville and Alachua County are doing does not compare to other Florida cities tells us the whole story.
Rogers and Ed, the County government does such a great job with education so let’s give them more to fail at. GARE is just another euphemism for ‘affirmation action’ and preferential treatment based on race by government.
The more they try to cloak their racist policies with politically driven ambiguous phrases and titles, the more, even they know, how their racially driven initiatives appear.
Reading minutes of Alachua county commission meetings has become even more depressing than reading minutes of Gainesville city commission sessions. There’s no sign of interest in representing the will of their constituents, rather these clowns are energized at the thought of imposing Portlandian craziness on us.
They are representing the will of their constituents imo. The majority of the county voters have shown that they are in favor of these types of policies.
I think if we could get some of the ‘navigators’ and ‘disruptors’ together to show these and the city clowns the way out of town, the societal conditions would show a remarkable improvement.
I wish I could call code enforcement on some of the county roads.
I would put money on the line that the reason things in renters apartments are not working properly is because a majority of the renters don’t care for the place they are renting. Just because you don’t own it doesn’t mean you don’t clean or keep your yard clean. It also means that if you break something you come forward and admit it. If people would just acknowledge that they broke something then I would think that they could work out a deal with the landlord. When I first moved into Gainesville I lived in the same apartment for 7 years. By the end of my time in that apartment I had never been late on rent and always allowed the maintenance folks in to my place. At the end of the 7 years I got my entire deposit back even though the carpets were a bit beat up and I had nailed stuff into the walls. I would hate to be a landlord in this town. And people wonder why it is so hard to find “affordable” housing in the Gainesville area. Heck if I was a landlord here in Gainesville I would make sure to have my rates high enough to not attract undergrad students and section 8. I would guarantee those are the top 2 reasons for destroyed rentals in this area.
This govt interference is why I sold the only rental property I had in Gville. Which meant a very sweet, elderly lady that was getting a hell of a deal on my place for over 4 yrs, that was no where near a slum, had to move into a smaller place for more money. These so called leaders, are over over stepping their boundaries and making things worse for those they think they’re helping.
This is crazy.
Thanks to excessive government oversight and the endless need for more revenue to run same, affordable housing cannot be built and rents are having to be increased to pay for all the extra costs and fees and tax increases associated with same. Infill will need to be 20 story high government housing cesspools of crime and drugs. You’re not making things better for anyone.
Why is the BOCC so obsessed with rental properties? And why is the Alachua Co Labor Coalition so involved in all of these political issues, instead of issues that have to do with labor?
Is it The Alford Syndrome who does not know where she resides?
Maybe Cornell is trying to drive up real estate prices and sales/commissions for his other employer by making it difficult to have a normal life as a renter, different from a normal city where it’s cheaper and you won’t have weirdo inspectors going through your home. If somebody wants to rent a cheap place that’s a little run down, that’s their business.
Prizzia really showing her fascist side here. She’s oh so eager for the government to be able to do random property inspections, not based on any kind of complaint, in order to fish for violations.
The only thing these County Commissioners are going to do is raise rental rates. You can yell at Prizzia until the bleached hair falls off her head, but she will never understand.
Any additional cost levied on landlords will be immediately and sharply passed on to their tenants.
The state has jurisdiction on 5 units or more…I sold 2 houses I was renting
For $400/mo and when the GNVCC did that landlord permit for 4 units or
Less, I sold them because didn’t want
To deal with their aggravation …the new owner rents it for $2,500/mo…
And then their commi scheme got reversed…
Their dark money campaign donors demand we take in illegal alien economic and terrorist border crossers — to take jobs from our native residents, jack up our auto insurance rates and rents, and spread mayhem in sleeper cells — to drive down wages and make lawyers more money,. Only the legit landlords stand in their way. So, let’s start a multilingual program to get them housed.
Economic refugees must use visas, not hiking boots and backpacks. Yes, the world economy is in turmoil due to globalist Covid and Ukraine. More chaos just to increase gumment jobs and lawyers’ wallets.
estimated cost for the first year of $128,804.
I accept & will be at office on Monday ASAP.