ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando city leaders are raising concerns about a state plan intended to help ease the affordable housing crisis. 

Live Local Act was passed as a new law and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in late March. 

Orlando city commissioners worry that while the plan might incentivize more development, which could include affordable housing, it might not bring rent prices down to the affordable level they’d like to see.

The measure pumps millions more dollars into several affordable housing programs, like one that provides low-interest loans for developers who build affordable housing. But part of the new law allows eligibility for affordable housing at up to 120% of area median income, which in Central Florida, for a family of four, would be about $94,000 a year.

Orlando District 3 Commissioner Robert Stuart is skeptical if that would really help local low-income renters.

“And so, what we think is going to happen in time is that everything is going to skew toward the higher end of affordable income, and it’s not going to have a significant impact on those in the lower end of affordable housing,” Stuart said. “So, I just don’t know where the good comes from it.”

Stuart said the measure would also eliminate the requirement for public hearings for the approval process for developments if developers have at least 40% of their developments slated for affordable housing. He said that would stop residents from having a say in what goes into their neighborhoods. 

Some feel the struggle

Carolina Uchoa said after struggling to find an affordable place to live and sharing a home with seven other people for more than a year, she’s recently found an apartment in Thornton Park.

But at $1,500 per month, she still has to share a one-bedroom apartment with another woman.

“I am disabled. I do get disability, but I do work a lot just to make enough to split a room,” Uchoa said. “And I’m in my 40s — she’s a bit older — and the ideal would be to have our own places one day.”

Uchoa said she’s thankful to get work and food assistance from One Heart for Women and Children, which is the only way she can afford her current apartment.

“I’m very thankful I work here just to make ends meet,” Uchoa said.

She said rent prices would have to come down significantly for her to one day afford her own home.

“I would think it definitely needs to be lower, like I said, because the incomes are not high enough for me to be able to afford it,” Uchoa said.