>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives, I'm David Dumke.

Housing is an issu that affects the entire globe, especially with rising prices, energy and oil and other components.

Supply chain issues and other things we've seen that have accelerated since the Covid epidemic.

The United Nations estimate that 2.8 billion people worldwid have affordable housing issues.

Today, we're joined by someone who is a leader in the field of providing affordable housing in Central Florida and throughout the state of Florida.

Jonathan Wolf, who is the founder and CEO of Wendover Housing Partners.

Welcome to the show.

>>David, thank you for having me.

It's a delight to be here with you.

>>So I want to start, Jonathan, with how did you get into this field of affordable housing?

You you came you studied at Georgetown, you went into finance, and no you're doing affordable housing.

You've don it successfully for some time.

>>Well, it certainly wasn't ordained and the pathway wasn't straight.

And I would say it looks like a bad EKG, but I was looking to do something in the world of housing that would have an ancillary impact.

I saw a need, saw families struggling and said, what could we be doing?

Both individually and as a company in bringing a solution path to this problem.

And so we started, actually in the early 90s here in Central Florida, working on housing.

And then as we moved along, i morphed into affordable housing.

>>So this Florida especially is a state that obviously tourism is is a is a huge, huge component of the economy.

You also have a large service industry.

Workers need housing.

But you've seen, you know, housing stocks are, in short supply.

Housing costs are rising.

So what are governments doing to address this?

What's the private sector doing to address this issue?

>>Well, I like to say that there's many false starts.

And folks, enjoy admiring the problem.

As opposed to getting in and trying to find the solves to the issue.

And it's reall it's not just Central Florida.

I mean as I travel around the country, the topic of affordable housing is forefront.

Now, we have a unique position here in Central Florida.

Of being the most cost and rent burdened city and region in the country.

We sometimes fight with Las Vegas to have that trophy.

But we really do have a crisis here in Central Florida.

I mean, almost 50% of the population is what we consider household or rent burden.

And whether they're rentin a home or trying to buy a home, the economics simply don't work.

And so it's an issue that we say, let's move on from admiring the problem to finding a solution path, to dealing with this.

>>So when you when you're saying admiring the problem and that's, that's that's that's a that's a quote you used in other talks, you've given that I, that that I've heard, you have leaders who say, of course, you know, we want our work.

We want a workforce that's able to afford to live around job.

But that's easier said than done, of course.

>>It is indeed.

And and the workforce, it could be.

It's not just tourism, it's health care.

It's education.

It's the airport.

Almost any major employer is having these issues, and it's an issue of attracting employees and retaining employees.

You know, people always say to me, so what are the three basi precepts that you find that are in every situation, no matter what city, even within countries around the world?

Well, it starts off with finance.

You've got to establish a financial base that makes this work.

And that really needs to start from the government.

And as well the a bit from the private sector.

So putting those partnerships together.

The second element, is the political weak knee.

You know, the politicia will say I'm absolutely for it.

And you get to a meeting and 300 people come in and say, it's great, just can we do it a where we know another area of town that, yo know-- >>Not in my neighborhood.

>>Yeah we'll support it somewhere else.

But just don't bring it nex to me.

But but I believe in it.

And so I call that the political weak knees and having the strength to say, look, we all need to be part of this solution path and doing it.

And then there's the regulatory burden, which just keeps growing.

And it grows at the federal level.

It grows at the state level.

It grows at the local level.

And the regulations can be as simple as there's a program no going on in Congress called BABA a strange name Buy America, Build America, which sounds terrific.

We were trying to-- >>Create supply chain.

>>It's supply chain issues.

We were buying some, dishwashers from a very well known American company.

5,000 employees in Louisville, Kentucky.

They had one component that was on a ship running through the Suez Canal.

The canal got blocked.

They had to shut the factory down for a month.

And 5,000 people out of work because they couldn't get that one component.

So those type of issues keep layering on, which makes it more difficult and more expensive to bring the housing.

And so a fresh look at it.

And this is something that we deal with every day.

And we go back to permitting agencies.

We go back to the local government.

I spent a lot of tim in Washington talking to folks, both in Congress and in various departments, saying, let's strip this out.

It will help us get to where we need to be.

On getting that housing out.

>>So so I want to step back a second and look at housing programs.

When, when when politicians started focusing on solutions to this obviously, because you look now at this at this, at the issue of affordable housing, you have tax breaks, you have voucher programs, you're straight up federally run and state and locally run housing projects.

What is seemed to work best and what has seemed to work least of those?

>>Well, it's interesting, the most successful housing program for rental housing in the United States actually started with with Ronald Reagan, back in 1986, he and the Secretary of Housing, Jack Kemp, put in a tax break that was given to the private sector and bringing the private sector in and allowing them to do the financing that has created millions of affordable homes in the most successful, successful program while just simply trying to expand that program.

Now, we were able to do tha in the big, beautiful tax bill.

Two years ago, we worked for 18 years to try to get a small piece of that.

So things moved glacially.

But we need more of that.

In Tallahassee we know that there are hundreds of millions of dollar that are locked up in programs, that the legislators regularly take portions of that money and move it into general revenue.

And we say, leave that because we can leverage those monies.

For every dollar that the government puts out we can go to the private sector and go back to Wall Stree and bring in ten more dollars.

So by working with the government we can bring the private sector and private financing and move this.

But once they start, they've got to stop and leav those funds there and or expand those monies because, just demographically, growing and even in a single famil home, you know, we talk about, rental housing, where 50% of the folks are what we call rent burdened.

They're paying more than 30% of their income for housing, which means-- >>And that number is shot up.

>>And it's it just keeps going up.

Well, if you're if you're payin that number for your basic rent, there isn't much left for food, for health care, for transportation, for education.

So you get at the end of the month and an average family in Central Florid that may be making 40 to $60,000 after paying their basic rent, is left with about $300 to cover all these other elements.

Well, it's simply not enough.

>>So so there's this statistic I read in Florida which, which which which wa surprising to me for an average two bedroom apartment rental cost $1,950, which is the equivalent of working 90 hours a week at that minimum wage.

>>Yeah.

And the numbers simply don't add up, right?

And even if you hav a two household, family going.

The numbers still, the math just simply doesn't work.

And so that's what we're faced with.

And then if you take a young couple that's trying to buy a home, the old axiom used to be that you could buy a home that was 2 to 3 times your income.

Well, today that number is 5 to 6 times the numbers have.

So exponentially risen, that an individual trying to find a down payment, tryin to just buy a basic first home.

And then you look at whateve education bills they may have, car payments, health care bills, and it keeps them from from buying a home, which means they're renters for a longer period of time.

>>You know, is how important and critically important is flexibility in looking at project as you've done done affordable housing projects throughout the state for example, one municipality is different than another in terms of job market prices, I imagine.

>>Well, they're different but they share the same ethos, which is add to the bureaucracy of it.

So, you know, I like to hear from people, they say this is the most difficult place to, to, to put a program on.

You know, when we start and we go to the political body and say, look, we we've found an area there i an a definite demographic need.

Let's work together.

And the political body will start off by saying yes.

And then we'll go to their staff and say, how do we work together to get this, program moved along?

You know, because it's time and money and more just adds more cost.

So whereas when I first started working, here in Orange County, we could permit an multifamily community in three months.

Today, that same communit takes us upwards of 15 months.

So that's time and money.

And a lot of it's redundancy, on going through and, so they're the political body and the administrative staff could come in to help streamline a lot of those elements.

And so it's, everywhere in the state and, you know, we work everywhere from the panhandle down to the keys.

And but the same thing is in Georgia, the same thing is in Texas, where we are, we find the identical issues and pathways of resistance, exist.

And the conversation of the politicians and people remains the same.

>>Before I get into, you know, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on the show is talk about a new model that you're working on, right in here in Orlando.

But before I do I want to talk about the kinds of housing you provide, because there's there's there's been a stigma both among political leaders, which you referred to earlier, of not wanting affordable housing in our immediate vicinity.

Right.

So it's grea to put it out in the farm field, but that's not near where the jobs are.

So, so that's that's one issue.

But then there's also an issue of the people are so desperate for housing.

There's, as I understand it, for every one person who is eligible for for affordable housing, who's in the program, there's four others waiting to get into, you know, programs itself that desperation for them to get housing.

Will they take anything?

I know you try to provide quality.

What do yo what do you want to provide for?

>>Well, the first thing that we have a mantr within the company which says, would you live here?

Would your family live here?

I mean, and then that's the basic tenant.

And the housing that we're putting in.

The rent may be $1,200, but the equivalency of the housing runs to something that is $3,000.

So there isn't a difference.

And when you look at the, the housing, and what's provided from amenities and finishes, you know, I often say that when we open a community and we have people coming in, they're standing crying.

And so of course, that just tears at your heart.

And, and these folks, I never thought I could have a home like this that I could afford, and we weren't.

These are folks that are working, and they're working probably more than 40 hours a week to afford just basic life skills.

The other demographic that we serve, our seniors, 30% of our populatio in our communities, are seniors.

These are folk that have worked their lifetime.

They may not have a pension.

They're living on social Security.

And when you look at 15 to $18,000, that's not going very far.

>>And fixed It comes with inflation.

>>And it doesn't carry it.

So we have so many seniors, but remember, these are folks that have worke their entire life in a career.

They're simply retiring, with little money and the recession in '08 whatever savings they may have had, a lot of that got wiped out and they haven't been able to restore that.

So both from a famil that's working and from a senior that's retired.

We have two demographics that are working or have worked, but are facing just a limited economic base.

But the housing that we're providing.

There's no difference between this and something that costs three times as much.

And that's the standard that we try to present.

You know, again, would you put your family here.

Would you would you be comfortable moving into this home?

>>So how do you measure success?

And I know first of all, there's you have some stories of individuals that that actually are individually successful.

But if you're, you're also defendin affordable housing as a program and you're running it as a business, how do you measure success?

>>Yeah, it's a great it's a great question.

And I think success is is on several layers.

I got a letter from, a senior.

The other day saying I've bee at your community for ten years.

Thank you.

You've changed my life.

I never thought I would be able to retire and live like this.

Well that's one element of success.

Having a family.

Say you've brought us this home that I'm comfortable bringing my friends to, that my children are comfortable bringing their friends to.

We had one community where the grandmother had her daughter and granddaughter living with them, and it wasn't going well.

So there was dysfunction within the family because of the housing issue.

Well the daughter and granddaughter moved into one of our communities.

Daughter went back to school to get her degree.

Granddaughter was in some of our after school children programs, could walk to her elementary school, could walk to the library.

That's another element of success because we're seeing a family being able to move on and progress both in their careers and their family life.

And so I had multiple generations coming up to me.

Grandma, the daughter, grandchild, all saying, you know what?

Our life has improved just because of living in this community.

That's success.

Now, as a company, we're growing, and people are reaching out to us, from around the southeast and and saying, please com bring us one of the communities we desperately needed.

That' another element of of success.

The frustration of course, is not having enough financial resources in a particular region to be able to satisfy it.

So success is watching families grow.

I think that's the measurement.

>>So you're involved in a very innovative project here, here in Orlando which which it it combines a lot of the different elements you're talking about in one massive, new project is going to house up to a thousand families, I believe.

>>Yes.

>>It's going to provide transportation, education, a number of things.

Tell us a little about catch lake crossings.

>>Yeah.

So it it's the first in the natio working with a major employer.

Universal and Comcast came out and they had some land next to the, Orange County Convention Center.

They said, we're opening another park.

We employ up to 85,000 people, within Central Florida.

We need to be part of the solution for housing.

Work with us to do it.

That's not something.

We were great at building parks and bringing entertainment and running movies.

But housing is not our thing.

So come with us and and help develop this.

So we set up what is really the first in the nation where we're bringin a thousand homes within a sector that has 100,000 people coming into work every day, spending as much as an hour and a half of commute time.

But we did more.

We said housing and a communit is more than walls and a roof.

It needs to have what I call a day in the life.

And what does that mean?

So we brought in a preschool so mom can drop the kids off, before going to work.

We brought in a full health care center.

So if a child wakes up and is ill that day, they can just walk down stairs to a health care center and not have to take a full day of work.

And then we went to UCF, right here.

And we said, hey, you know what?

We're going to give you classrooms.

You can do continuing education and certificate courses so someone can come home, cook dinner, get the kids starting their homework, and just walk down the hallway and start taking classes.

And then as well, we pu an intermodal transport center.

There' nothing like it in the country, but we would think it is not only a local model, it's a state model.

It's a national model of wha can be done to solve the issue, not just of affordable housing, but of a lifestyle.

A day in the life.

So it's big applause to Universal for stepping out because they were the engine that made this work.

And they made a large financial commitment.

We actually have over 12 layers of financing.

And that was part of the magic of it, of going up to Wall Street.

>>So how do you how do you finance a project that has so many different players involved?

>>That that's one of the toughest pieces, you know, is the old axiom used to be that locatio was the most important aspect.

And I say today, no it's finance, finance, finance.

And in this case, we ran up to Wall Street.

We had to get various, pension fund monies, retirement fund, accounts, hedge fund moneys.

We also have federal tax credits here.

We went to the state and we said we've got a gap.

X millions of dollars.

And we helped write what is known no as the live local, legislation which put in over $25 million into it.

And Orange County participated as well.

And major financial institution JP Morgan Chase was a leader in providing some of the financing.

So this is a hal $1 billion endeavor to do this.

With 12 layers of financing.

So keepin that straight was part of the, you know, piece of the puzzle that has to be straightened out.

And that' one of the critical components on getting affordable our workforce housing.

>>This, this this catc light project, of course, is it garnered quite a bit of attention.

There's been profiles and news stories on it.

So a lot of people are watching this.

Are there any doubters in the model?

>>Well, there's always doubters.

And and folks say, you know, where.

So our question was, why not?

Of course And where else can we do this?

So we went to major employers in the region.

To the health care centers.

And they are looking for an appropriate piece of land.

We went to the Board of Education both here and in Hillsborough and they said, hey, help us out.

And we wrote some legislation in this past, legislative cycle which would allow for that one that we're still trying is the airport where they have over 33,000 people working, commuting in and an extremely high turnover rate.

Why?

Lower wage.

Further from their job placement.

And after a few years, i just gets to be too difficult.

The airport has excess land.

And we said with thi many workers in the excess land, we should do it.

Airport director was in favor.

The board was in favor.

The local politicians were in favor.

But the FAA said, you know, we think there are issues.

So we're going to put a halt to it.

So that's one we're trying to fight because we've got airports around the country that have a similar situation.

We think it's an ideal location and employee base that we ought to be doing this.

So again, it's one of those admire the problem.

And the airport administrators admire the problem.

Now we've got to bring them over the fence and say, come on, let's do something for your workers here.

>>In admiring the problem, as you say.

Because, because, because almost everyone you know, Republican and Democrat alike acknowledge we need housing that' affordable for workers, right?

Everyone, everywhere-- >>Yes, it's, you know, we always say this is not a Democrat or Republican or independent issue.

This is politically agnostic.

This is a human problem.

So the political party is definitely not the issue.

>>What are some of the solutions, though, that some of the politicians have proposed that actually could have the reverse of what they, they anticipate when they propose a policy?

>>Well, when the politicians are coming up and it becomes, you know, again, goes back to financing.

So that's the first piece.

Simply putting more funds into it.

But it can be done innovatively through tax incentives, things that won't hit the budget because it' bringing in the private sector.

You know, we keep saying that the public private partnerships are a critical aspect of it.

You know, in this case, the money that's going in that half billion dollars into the catch light crossings program.

80% of that money.

That's private money.

It's institutional money.

It's not government funds.

So that's the first piece.

>>Which is a vast difference from, say, in the 60s, kind of some of the Great Society programs were based on, and just subsidies, outright subsidies.

>>Not only subsidies, but funds running out of it.

So, you know, the government was coming in and providing all the funding for it.

And I think everyone recognized it didn't work.

You know, you didn't have the private sector in there was developing it.

You didn't have the privat sector, and that was funding it.

You know, once the private sector comes in.

The oversight and the thoroughness and the upkeep and the maintenance, all of these elements, because they're looking at it as institutional property that has to withstand over 5 years in the case of Universal.

We signed an agreement for 99 years, on this.

So it really is in perpetuity.

But the second piece, apart from funding, is is what I called back that regulatory environment.

And it's not loosening up so that you're harming the product or the process.

It's streamlining the process so that you can get this to the marketplace faster.

And the government, both at the federal level, the state level, the local level, all of them could reexamin some of their policies and say, you know what?

When it comes to housing, we're going to eliminate these things and we're going to clear the pathway and let you get on the highway to getting this housing provided.

>>So has there been a kind o a reaction to just throw money at a problem like, like in many, like housing is problem.

Here's money for it.

>>I wis that would be the case, right?

Right.

It's you know, it's not of course we haven't had that luxury on it.

You know, the folks are still pretty stingy, on it.

And they'll loosen it again and they'll provide a bit.

But what we're saying is it's a good start, but it's not the finish.

Because, you know, the issue and the demographic is growing so rapidly that the amount of funds needed dramatically rise.

You know, when I started off building here in Central Florida, we could build an apartment one apartment for about $60,000.

Today that's $240,000.

And that's why, you know, a hom that you may be your first home.

Well, I think there was a time we all remember for 90 to $100,000, you could buy a home in Central Florida.

We were the place of affordability, and now we're just the opposite.

Well, that pretty much same home today is $400,000.

So the costs have so exponentially risen that even when you're providing the funding to do it, you need so much more.

>>So so let's just say so catch light is successful.

You know, you you need another, you know, 100 catch lights though there to to meet up with the problem because you have the this problem's growing because-- >>Yes.

>>Workers workers incomes aren't as paying as much of their rent.

Yeah.

As robust as they used to be.

So it's it's it's a growing problem, not a lesser one.

So you you see models like catch light.

>>I think it could-- >>Say catching again.

But catching on.

>>Yeah.

So you know you know you know sometimes people say can you catch the flu and then go and I say catch the flu on this one.

And, and let's see where we can bring this about.

Not only in Central Florida or throughout Florida, but this really is a model that should be established.

There's so many companies and so many different activities.

Again, whether it's education, health care, federal employment, places where this could b the model, where it could work.

Again the private public partnership is a critical, critical ingredient.

So I do think this is something that could be replicated many times over.

>>So we just have time for for one more question, I kind of want to you know, we've been talking a lot about the local and Florida problems, but this is of course national and international problem.

And you travel quite, quite extensively.

Do you see parallels with this in other places?

You travel, you travel to Egypt and Europe quite, quite often you see the same kinds of problems?

>>And I and I meet with people, you know, both academically and politically.

And the first thing they say to me is, could you describe the program that you're doing in the States now?

How can we do it here?

And, there isn't a location, I don't think anywhere in the world where this isn't an issue.

Western Europe is desperately tryin to work on issues of doing this.

And they're trying to say, do you know, do we tax more?

Well, that's going to have a push back.

Do we provide simply more of, the state moneys to do this?

But how do we bring in the local entrepreneur as well as other type of private financing to do this?

So the issue is the same, whether it's, in the Great Britain, whether it's in Germany, whether it's in Egypt, you know, throughout Africa, whether it's in Singapore or Hong Kong, no one does not have this issue of affordable housing.

So it's a worldwide issue.

Yes.

So we need to be focus on.

>>Well, Jonathan Wolf thank you for joining us today and explaining about the, exciting Catch Light Crossings project and the rest of your work.

>>Well, David, thank you so much for what you're doing and having me here today.

It's been a delight.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.