Collier County businesses and prospective employees, as well as developers searching for land or tenants for affordable housing, now will have a one-stop shop that provides the information they need.  

Michael Puchalla

Collier County Land Trust and Housing, Education, Lending Programs, or HELP, rolled out The Housing Alliance on March 28, a clearinghouse that will gather and disperse information about affordable housing opportunities countywide.   

The nonprofit, a partnership with the Community Foundation of Collier County, will work with residents, employers, developers and other nonprofit partners, including the county Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and Habitat for Humanity, to bring more affordable housing projects to the county and link residents with needed housing.  

The news comes as the median price for a home in Collier County reached $600,000 and the county led the nation with 50% rent increases over the past two years, according to the county’s affordable housing fact sheet.  

“We’re working to modify some of those housing policies, to do the necessary changes in zoning and development requirements, particularly exacerbated by the new Live Local Act … and to come up with incentive strategies to incentivize developers and investors in creating more affordable units within our community,” Steve Hruby, chairman of The Housing Alliance’s board, said at a press conference March 28.  

“We work with developers directly, helping with land acquisition … putting land into trust to take the cost of land out of the equation of development,” Hruby said, referring to his position as president of the Collier County Land Trust’s board of directors. “… Developing affordable housing is an expensive process.”  

Hruby, who co-founded Architects Unlimited, an architectural, urban design and town-planning firm, in 1982, is nationally recognized for his affordable housing work. He’s also chairman of the county’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.   

The alliance is working with local, state and federal funders to help renters with resources, and is seeking grant opportunities, working with banks, federal and state agencies and the philanthropic community. “The philanthropic community … is very interested in assisting and taking a role in solving this problem,” he said of the foundation’s new Collier Housing Impact Investment Fund.  

The 2023 Collier County Community Needs Assessment, sponsored by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation and the Collier Community Foundation, showed that 65% of the 6,072 residents and business owners who responded to the survey cited affordable and workforce housing as the county’s No. 1 priority, up from 45% five years earlier. 

Last month, Michael Puchalla, who heads the Housing Development Corp. of SW Florida Inc. and the Collier County Community Land Trust, was selected from numerous applicants as The Housing Alliance’s executive director and CEO. He has more than 17 years of mortgage lending, financial counseling education and nonprofit, affordable housing management experience.  

Puchalla’s work through HELP and the Land Trust has mostly been behind the scenes.  

“This is an opportunity to amplify the work of those two organizations and to also provide more community connection,” Puchalla said. “… There are so many people that are asking, ‘How can we get involved?’ So we hope to be that connector.”  

Last week, he said, key stakeholders, including builders and developers, met privately at a workshop to tell county growth management staff what challenges they’ve had trying to utilize the 2023 Live Local Act, which provides developers with incentives to build affordable housing.  

“The legislation is there, its intentions are great, but there’s still a little bit of ambiguity about the implementation and various interpretations of the law, so I think the conversations at the local level are extremely important,” Puchalla said.  

Stephen Hruby

Since 2017, more than 4,500 affordable units have been committed to be built in Collier County, about 23.7% of all developments, and 734 of those approved since 2018 are already open, according to the county’s affordable housing fact sheet.  

The alliance’s Housing Navigator program will help employers, workforce employees, residents and prospective employees navigate through the income verification process to find housing or rentals that match their income level and needs.  

State Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, who sponsored the legislation, couldn’t attend the press conference but said in a statement that Floridians want to live local, spend less time commuting and more time building their lives and raising families in their communities.

“The Housing Alliance is going to help bridge that gap, improving options for both homeownership and affordable rental units right here in Collier County,” Passidomo said.  

The rollout came a day after the Collier County Public Schools, the county’s largest employer, announced the results of a survey sent to its 5,000 employees last month. Of 3,500 who responded, 64% feared the cost of housing would force them to move elsewhere for employment and nearly 50% have second jobs.   

“Our school board has charged us to look at different ways that we can support potential housing projects,” Deputy District Superintendent Darren Burkett said after the press conference. “One of the first things we’ve done … is we’ve assessed the needs of our employees. … It gave us a pretty good data set to begin the process of figuring out how we can, maybe, potentially work with the alliance, utilize community resources, bring folks together and support our employees.”  

Although the district offered the second-highest starting salary in Florida last year and provided teachers with three bonuses, it began the school year with 170 vacancies, and nearly 40% of teachers lived outside Collier County.  

Kristina Park, president of the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce, whose 1,100 members represent more than 50,000 employees, wasn’t at the conference but said affordable housing is the chamber’s priority.  

“This is easily the top public policy issue for our members, so we are working to align the data collection through our major employers to quantify this issue,” Park said. “The establishment of this newly formed alliance will serve to unite residents, developers, policy makers and funders to educate and affect access to attainable housing. We are excited to partner with The Housing Alliance to bring additional insights, resources, and coordination toward our shared goal of positive outcomes in this space as we work to enhance economic opportunity for all across Collier County.”  

At 9 a.m. April 6, NABOR will host a free HELP Housing Expo for residents, Realtors and others at its office on 1455 Pine Ridge Road, Naples.