- May 6, 2024
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State elections officials have received more than 50,000 valid petition signatures for a ballot initiative that seeks to ensure money for affordable housing. As of midday Friday, Aug. 27, the number of petition signatures submitted had reached 50,046, according to the state Division of Elections website.
The political committee Floridians for Housing is trying to get the proposed constitutional amendment on the November 2022 ballot. It comes after years of frustration in the real-estate industry and among other groups about decisions by lawmakers to use money from a state affordable-housing trust fund, known as the Sadowski trust fund, for other purposes.
If approved by 60 percent of voters, the proposed ballot measure would establish in the Florida Constitution the State Housing Trust Fund and the Local Government Housing Trust Fund. It would require that the trust funds receive at least 25 percent of the revenue from documentary-stamp taxes -- which are collected on real-estate transactions -- and would detail how the money could be used to address affordable housing.
As of July 31, Floridians for Housing had raised $13 million for the ballot initiative, with the money coming from the group Florida Realtors and the National Association of Realtors. To get the measure on the ballot, the committee will need to submit 891,589 valid petition signatures by a Feb. 1 deadline. As a preliminary step, the committee needs to submit 222,898 signatures to trigger a crucial Florida Supreme Court review of the proposed ballot wording.
