Florida counties get help with low-income housing from CARES Act funds
Gov. Ron DeSantis came to Apopka on Friday with a giant check for Orange County to assist with lowincome housing using funds from the federal CARES Act.
DeSantis had said earlier he was steering $250 million of federal money to fill the gap he created when he vetoed money for a statewide low-income housing fund. He did so to deal with a state budget shortfall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
DeSantis said the Florida Housing Finance Corp. on Friday approved the first round of those repathed CARES funds to assist counties for rent and mortgage assistance in low-income housing, approving $75 million statewide including $7.26 million to Orange County, $2.5 million to Osceola County and $1.1 million to Seminole County.
“Hundreds of thousands of Floridians who may have already had difficulty making ends meet are now suffering even more losing a job, not being able to find a job, having to figure out how to pay for child care while schools were in distance learning. This has been a profound disruption to people’s lives and we have a responsibility to help meet needs in this regard,” DeSantis said
“This $250 million statewide program with CARES Act money for rental and housing relief we believe can tend to and address at least some of that uncertainty, economic anxiety and general stress that so many of our residents have felt over these many months,” he said.
On hand was Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and Apopka Mayor Brian Nelson at the Wellington Park Apartments, an affordable housing complex.
“We believe it will go a long way in this community,” Demings said.
DeSantis also gave an update on the state’s coronavirus response including his ask from the federal government for another urgent shipment of the drug Remdesivir, which has been one of the hospitals main drugs to combat COVID-19.
He said he expects the shipment could head directly to Florida’s hospitals as early as this weekend.
He also was optimistic about the growing number of positive COVID-19 cases in the last month, saying that Orange County was leveling off and that he hoped to see positivity rates start to fall back down in the next couple of weeks.
DeSantis also mentioned four new Home Depots statewide offering on-site testing including two in Leesburg and Oviedo.
Regarding community spread, DeSantis came to the defense of his decision to let gyms reopen, saying healthier people are less likely to feel the effects of COVID-19.
“That’s
not something
I’m going to close,” DeSantis said. “You talk to any physician, particularly the people that are under 50, if you’re in good shape, you have a very, very low likelihood of ending up with significant conditions as a result of the coronavirus. … taking that option away of people to be healthy just doesn’t make sense.”