Sarasota Habitat for Humanity building a neighborhood of 40 homes

By Chris Wille

Residents will be families now stuck in overcrowded or substandard living conditions

SARASOTA — As heavy equipment carves out trenches, construction workers plant pipes in the ground, and household infrastructure connections rise out of the earth, the anticipation of 40 families stuck in overcrowded or substandard living conditions also builds.

This neighborhood’s different for Habitat for Humanity Sarasota, something beyond the usual one-house-at-a-time construction project. The philanthropic nonprofit — built on ecumenical Christian principles that bring people together to build homes and hope — will fulfill its mission on a larger scale than ever before with a planned community called Hammock Place.

The $7 million project has been designed to look like a market-rate community. The 40 single-family homes will have 1,200 to 1,600 square feet of space with three or four bedrooms and a two-car garage. The community’s gated entry will sit off 17th Street across from the Bobby Jones Golf Course. Habitat has raised 55 percent of the total project cost.

“The goal for this community is to build affordable homes in a sustainable neighborhood that will provide the security of a permanent housing solution,” said Renee Snyder, Habitat Sarasota’s executive director.

Deed restrictions and a homeowners association are geared to preserve property values and maintain the appeal of the homes.

“Years ago we did a community,” Snyder said. “It wasn’t a planned community.”

Manatee County Habitat for Humanity and Habitat for Humanity South Sarasota County also have built affordable housing communities.

Manatee completed an 18-home neighborhood called Hope Landing in Ellenton in 2015. Prior projects include the 34-home Village of the Palms and 12-home Washington Park, both in Palmetto. A fourth, on a 3-acre tract in West Samoset that was once home to a tomato farm, is in the planning stage. The $2.5 million neighborhood will be named Poling Gardens after the family that farmed the property.

South Sarasota County finished an 18-unit condo community called Garden Park in Nokomis in 2011 and a six-home community called Laurel Gardens in a cul-de-sac in Nokomis.

“There are benefits to building communities,” said Dee Danmeyer, executive director of Habitat for Humanity South Sarasota County, citing construction sites with tools and materials in one location, cost-effectiveness and the ability to use larger volunteer groups building multiple homes.

“The biggest benefit is that the homeowners are all doing their sweat equity and homeowner education classes together and they’ve already formed bonds so they already have that sense of community,” Danmeyer said. “When we build on in-fill lots, the families may be living miles from each other.”

Synder agreed about the importance of bonding. “I think that’s going to be one of the positives that we’re going to find from the Hammock Place community.”

Hammock Place

Infrastructure installation started in February and home construction will begin in November. “We’re going to have an official groundbreaking when our first house goes vertical,” Synder said.

Buildout is expected to take two to two and a half years. The then-vacant property was acquired in June 2017, thanks to a donation from the developer The Kolter Group.

Per Habitat’s successful business model, future homeowners put in several hundred hours of sweat equity to help build a house that’s affordable for their income level. Applicant families must fall within 30 percent to 80 percent of the area’s median income, which is $62,300 for all family sizes, according to 2015 figures from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For a Sarasota household earning less than half that median income, the maximum affordable rent or mortgage is $780 a month, according to HUD.

The average mortgage payment in a Sarasota Habitat house is around $750 a month, including taxes and insurance, Snyder said. Mortgages are interest-free.

“It never exceeds 30 percent of their gross annual income,” said Rhonda Leiberick, Sarasota Habitat’s program director, “so their payments are based on what they can afford.”

Households that spend more than 30 percent of their monthly income on housing are considered cost-burdened, and four out of 10 Sarasota families are in that category, according to the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida.

Many Habitat applicants work two jobs, but they earn more than the minimum wage — at the $13 to $15 an hour level, Snyder said. “Many work in the service industry, which is the backbone of this community.

“But we find that our homeowners don’t live beyond their means,” she said. “Because they stay within their means, they live in really bad housing conditions or very overcrowded housing conditions.

“There are some that are extremely rent burdened and we find that those families have circumstances that they can’t live in.”

Leiberick cited one extreme example. “After a single mom with two children closed on her Habitat home, she ended up saving $700 a month on a mortgage payment with us versus her rent,” she said. “She was working three jobs to pay for that much more in rent.

“Sitting across from the table after closing and seeing how exhausted she was, there was relief that she could get rid of at least one of those jobs and be able to sleep.”

Synder added: “That type of lifestyle is not sustainable. You can’t keep doing that.”

Bigger homes, lower expenses

But Habitat focuses on families trapped in substandard or overcrowded living conditions, not onerous rent costs.

Laura Westcoot’s family of seven is squeezed into a two-bedroom, one-bath house with monthly rent of $960. “It was the only thing we could afford at the time,” she said.

She holds down one job and her husband two, and they do not receive any government or other assistance.

Next month, they will be closing on a Habitat house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,550 square feet of space. “It has a big, beautiful backyard,” the 36-year-old said.

“I’m very, very happy.”

Their rent is substantially more than the mortgage payments they will have, Leiberick said. “So they’re going to be saving going into a four-bedroom, brand-new-construction home,” she said.

Besides affordable mortgages, green, sustainable construction slashes electric and water bills.

The national Habitat for Humanity organization sets guidelines for sustainable, safe and healthy housing that affiliates follow. Hammock Place will be Sarasota Habitat’s first.

Hope Landing was Manatee Habitat’s first sustainable neighborhood. Galvanized metal roofs, Hardiepanel siding on the exterior and walls made of Insulated Concrete Form block are some of the sustainable features.

“We try to create efficiencies on energy,” executive director Diana Shoemaker said.

“Sustainable ― or ‘green’ ― building means designing and constructing houses that are efficient and durable, that use less resources, are healthy to live in and are affordable,” according to the national association’s website.

Downpayment a must

The average cost to build a home in Hammock Place rounds out to $135,000, but that doesn’t include the land cost and site work, which puts the total price at $195,000.

Buyers must provide $3,000 of the downpayment, some of which goes toward closing costs. That figure also includes the first year of homeowners insurance and two months of property taxes, since Habitat escrows monthly payments.

“We believe that it’s important that our families are vested,” Leiberick said. “You look at something differently if you have some skin in the game.”

The state, though, does provide some help. “We partner with the Florida Housing Financing Agency in Tallahassee for downpayment assistance for our families, which is huge for us and our families,” Synder said. “And a huge contributing factor in how our payments will be affordable.

“Home funds are critical for us going into Hammock Place.”

While families select floor plans from a stock set with standardized specifications, some modifications can be accommodated. This allows pricing for “affordability efficiencies so we can serve the most families,” Synder said.

“We pay a lot of attention to detail,” she said, so a Habitat home doesn’t look like a low-income house.

“We pay particular attention to making the home being a home they can live in the rest of their lives,” Synder said. “That’s why we pair families with the correct household size house.”

Flipping unthinkable

Habitat homeowners are not restricted from selling their home. They can sell at any time. “But there is a sweat-equity mortgage, which is the difference between the amount the homeowner can afford to pay and the actual appraised value,” Snyder said. “That goes away after 30 years. They would have to pay that back if they sold it before 30 years.

“They don’t look at their homes as a commodity to flip and sell because they know that this gift — a permanent, affordable home — is not ever going to come their way again. Our families don’t move just to move.

“The sweat equity is the homeowners’ investment and the gift of many volunteers that helps make our homes affordable.”

Besides, Synder said, “They’re building equity every single month when they pay that mortgage payment. We like to say they are building wealth, they’re building their financial future.”

Manatee Habitat does have families who have paid off their mortgages. “We recently had a family whose daughter was brought up in Habitat home who just went off to medical school,” she said.

Besides performing sweat equity, clients have to go through an eight-hour first-time homebuyer class taught by a HUD-certified agency, attend classes on financial literacy taught by a bank, learn how to maintain their homes and take a one-night class in how to cook a healthy meal through a partnership with the Publix Apron school. That adds up to about 20 hours of education along with the sweat equity requirement.

Talk of the Apron class raised another food issue.

“A couple weeks ago, someone said something that stuck in my head: ‘It’s expensive to be low income,’” Synder said.

“It’s expensive because they work three jobs. When you work three jobs, you don’t necessarily take the time to go to the grocery store. It’s easier to go through the drive-in at McDonald’s and grab a to-go dinner.”

A community effort

Habitat’s business model relies on the generosity of the community in which it operates.

“We have a lot of partnerships that reduce costs,” Synder said. That includes a volunteer corps of tradesmen from electricians and carpenters to plumbers and painters, “plus folks we’ve trained over the years,” she said.

The contributions from the building industry are especially key, providing materials, workers and more. Other businesses and community foundations have joined the ranks to improve lives.

The Kolter Group LLC and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County have jointly committed $3 million to the Hammock Place project.