Leroy Moore, Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Tampa Housing Authority
Invest: spoke with Leroy Moore, SVP & COO of the Tampa Housing Authority, to learn about its programs and developments to provide affordable housing products to those in need and maximize quality of life for residents. Moore also discussed the challenges of affordable housing in Tampa Bay. “We expect to see opportunities out of the federal government to continue to develop affordable housing as it relates to what our local families need,” he said.
How would you describe the current state of affordable and public housing in Tampa Bay?
It’s challenging. Migration growth in Tampa Bay means that demand far outpaces the actual supply. Production can’t keep up and that’s creating a pinch for people who need affordable housing. Incomes haven’t kept pace with rising costs of living either. We’re seeing a bigger divide between what people can afford and what they earn.
Tampa Housing Authority is mitigating some of those challenges by embracing density and large-scale development in the urban core to produce more supply on the same footprint. Creating greater density, we will bring in retail and other mixed-use development. In that way, we can create jobs, minimize transportation costs and provide accessible employment opportunities for the local community.
What specific neighborhoods around Tampa Bay have you seen a larger demand for affordable housing?
We are focused on the urban core, just 2 miles outside our central business district, where there are greater employment opportunities. We have a number of assets in our downtown core, namely Encore Tampa, which is a 28-acre site with 12 city blocks in development, 700 built residential units, and another 700 under construction. Encore is in a mixed-use neighborhood, so we have grocery stores and hotels under construction, as well as many available residential units for both rental and ownership. Just across the Hillsborough River is West River: a 17-phase development, 44-acre community. We broke ground on that project in 2018 and seven years later, we now have 1,100 units occupied on site, 400 units under construction, and two hotels we are about to close on. These developments are multi-phase, mixed-use, sustainable, and walking distance to shops, restaurants, public transit, and community spaces — designed to create a vibrant, connected, and thriving neighborhood. Proximity to the urban core means we can both minimize automobile costs for residents — which is a huge economic burden for low income families — and maximize the ability to live affordably.
What are some programs you’re engaging in to promote self-sufficiency and financial stability through education?
All of our redevelopments come with intensive case management services from the moment we start talking about re-demolishing sites and relocating families to re-populating the community. We provide a full umbrella of case management services through our staff. We identify educational, familial, or job skills deficiencies, and provide support mechanisms for families to make them more self-sufficient. One example is that we pay for job and career development institutes, offer stipends to families, and help them obtain their GED.
Additionally, we partner with a number of agencies for job placement. We have our own job training community and public school, which offers call center and computer programming education. We also collaborate with agencies for business development training. We just implemented the BOSS initiative (Business Opportunities toward Self-Sufficiency) to teach aspiring business owners on how to market, brand, build, and grow their businesses. We essentially equip them with the ability to create their own jobs.
What are your top priorities in the near-term?
The change of administration has disrupted our plans for the time being. While we cannot ask for subsidies right now, we expect to have greater government support in the next thirty days. Systems will be operating as expected then and we want to continue to push rental payments for thousands of landlords who can’t go without a monthly check. That’s our immediate concern. In the long-term, though, we expect to see opportunities out of the federal government to continue to develop affordable housing as it relates to what our local families need. We have a good feel for incentive-based programs, and we expect to see more of those kinds of creative and innovative infusions. Another huge piece of our strategic goal for the next five years is to accommodate more homeless housing into the permanent developments that we are building. We intend to set aside 5% of units built for formerly unhoused individuals.
Additionally, the redevelopment of Robles Park Village is in progress. Residents have been relocated and demolition should start in the next few weeks. Community input has been key in the process of redeveloping Robles Park Village. THA held weekly meetings with residents sharing plans, listening to their concerns and feedback. Our rezoning request was approved by the City of Tampa, this will enable the development of approximately 1,800 new units, from which 1,300 are planned as affordable and workforce housing. Previously, 400 families lived in Robles Park Village, showing the impact of this redevelopment in multiplying options for accessible housing. Replicating the Encore and West River models, Robles Park Village will feature vibrant retail and outdoor amenities to enrich the community, alongside a 30,000 sq ft community hub positioned to offer referrals to vital health services, day care, job placement services, career development training, fitness and wellness programs, computer and financial literacy classes to area residents.
Overall, our vision for the next 10 years is optimistic as we hope to get more public support and grow our existing partnerships.
