With rising rents and home prices bearing down, Richland County could spend $4M for relief
Richland County Council could spend up to $4 million on buying down the costs of rent to secure affordable housing for teachers and law enforcement, and on other initiatives meant to increase the supply of affordable housing in Richland County.
More than 17,000 renters in Richland County spend more than half of their income on rent, according to a 2021 state housing needs assessment. And as more and more people move to South Carolina and Richland County, experts say the gap in available affordable housing will only increase.
Richland County has $4 million in its general fund set aside to help with the problem, and some of the proposals for how to use that money include payments to property owners to extend affordability periods for rental properties, payments to developments currently under construction to “buy down” future rent prices, vouchers for market-rate housing, and low-cost and forgivable loans for home buyers.
“Folks are really out here, there’s a real issue,” Richland County Council Chair Jesica Mackey said at a committee meeting Tuesday. “We know people are moving here more and more, and we need to make sure that we have affordable housing for our folks that are living here and that need it now.”
But the county also doesn’t want to get into the business of building or managing affordable housing, Councilman Don Weaver told The State.
“Frankly, we don’t have the experience,” he said.
Instead, the plan is to ask area nonprofits that already work in affordable housing to submit proposals for how they would use the money, and then the county would give those nonprofits money from the $4 million now set aside.
The council is still discussing the details of how the money will be allocated, but Weaver said if this first $4 million is used successfully, the county could establish a permanent fund to support affordable housing in the future.
Richland County Council discussed establishing rules for the money so that it could benefit teachers, law enforcement and other public services employees who tend to make less than their private-sector counterparts.
The council also discussed making sure the attitude around the affordable housing work didn’t reflect stereotypes about people who need rental assistance.
“Just because my job might not pay me as much as your job does doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person or a dirty person or an irresponsible person necessarily,” said Councilwoman Allison Terracio. “Just because someone does not have a certain kind of paycheck does not mean that they are a certain kind of person.”
Other South Carolina jurisdictions have taken similar approaches to bolstering housing options for residents who can’t afford market-rate options.
Charleston County previously allocated more than $20 million of federal pandemic relief dollars toward affordable housing initiatives, and now that county is looking to use taxes collected on hotel stays to create a housing trust fund to maintain affordable housing initiatives in the future, according to reporting from The Post and Courier.
A new state law makes it possible for up to 15% of accommodations taxes to be used for workforce housing initiatives until 2030.
Several members of Richland County Council said they support establishing a longer-term support system for affordable housing as well.
At the same time the county is looking to spend millions to meet the affordable housing need, the city of Columbia is also looking at its own housing challenges.
City Councilman Tyler Bailey wants the city to hire a firm to conduct a study assessing where private equity firms are purchasing the most property, while also looking at where the most people have been displaced because of rising housing costs and gentrification in Columbia neighborhoods.
Bailey said he would like to see the city consider home return programs that give displaced resident first dibs on new housing, as well as assistance to make sure they can afford it, as well as first-time home buyer programs to help residents compete with corporate property owners.
Both the county and the city proposals will require more discussion from elected officials. Any money dispersed by the county will still need to be voted on by the council, but Weaver said he anticipates hearing from interested nonprofits in the next four to six weeks.
