Where’s our affordable housing help?

While they howl at the Florida Legislature for failing to address the affordable housing crisis, South Florida governments are neglecting to use the hammers they hold to ensure people of modest means can find a place to live.

Broward County and other local governments regularly let developers buy their way out of affordable housing requirements, which are meant to ensure “workforce” housing is included in large, new developments.

Given how often developers would rather write a check than include affordable homes in their projects, it’s clear local governments need to make the pinch harder.

And what’s happening with the dollars they do get? Too often, the answer is nothing.

Since 2007, developers have agreed to pay nearly $16 million for affordable housing buyouts in Broward, though much of that money hasn’t been collected because it’s not due until work begins on their projects.

So in 10 years, the county has collected about $1.2 million from buyouts for developments in the unincorporated areas, as well as in those cities where it handles affordable housing efforts.

And what’s been built with that $1.2 million? Nothing, so far as anyone can say.

As for the remaining $16 million, county housing and budget officials say they don’t know how much has been collected by cities where the deals were struck. Though the County Commission signs off on those arrangements, it doesn’t keep tabs on how it all works out.

Broward isn’t alone in failing to turn developer buyouts into housing for lowand moderate-income people.

In Miami-Dade, the county’s decade-old affordable housing fund grew to nearly $6 million last year, but has yet to be tapped to build actual homes, the Miami Herald reported in December.

The same is true in Palm Beach County, which collected about $1 million in buyouts from 2012 to 2017. Again, it appears developers would rather write a check than build houses affordable to average workers.

Why aren’t these county funds being put to use? Officials say the pot needs to be bigger to fund projects that make a difference.

A better solution, in our opinion, would be to make it more painful for developers to write a check than build some belowmarket-price homes in their communities. For these checks have become the cost of doing business and are not addressing the problem of available affordable housing.

Besides, local government doesn’t belong in the home-building business.

That said, local officials keep missing their chance to up the ante.

Since 2007, Broward County has approved about 43,300 more homes than planning rules envisioned. As part of those deals, developers agreed to set aside about 2,700 homes for affordable housing.

How many of those price-controlled homes were actually built? County officials say “ask the cities” because they aren’t keeping track.

That lack of transparency and accountability in local affordable housing programs makes it hard to know whether cities and the county are making progress in addressing a crisis that is squeezing families and retirees.

When people spend half their paychecks on rent or a mortgage, they struggle to pay for groceries, keep the lights on, go to the doctor and cover other basic living expenses.

Spending more than 30 percent of household income on rents or mortgages is considered too much. By that standard, Broward County’s median home price of about $340,000 in December was unaffordable to 80 percent of Broward’s households, according to Florida International University’s Metropolitan Center.

Likewise, 77 percent of Palm Beach County’s households and 85 percent of Miami-Dade’s would have found December’s median home prices unaffordable, according to FIU professor Edward Murray’s comparison of home prices and median household income.

Talk to local officials about the biggest challenges facing South Florida and they’ll rank sky-high rents and exploding home prices near the top.

To track any progress in addressing this challenge, local governments need a better dashboard. And if developers are reluctant to build moderately priced homes in highend communities, make them write a bigger check.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.