Affordable Housing
Background
BUILD won the creation of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2014 with $2 Million in annual funding. Since then, the fund has leveraged over $352,000,000 and created 3080 affordable units.
In 2020, when we began working on this campaign for the second time in our BUILD history, our research showed that more than 14,000 families still pay over half their income in rent and face unimaginable decisions each month between rent and groceries or rent and medicine. Data can be found in the 2020 Consolidated Plan
Our Solution
Through the pandemic, we've seen that the affordable housing fund doesn't go far enough. Our research has shown that a city the size of Lexington needs $10,000,000 in annual funding to even make a dent in the crisis.
We are pushing our council members to establish a dedicated funding source that will generate at least $10,000,000 a year.
Where We Are
At our 2023 Nehemiah Action, we won the following commitments:
- Council members James Brown, Chuck Ellinger, Tayna Fogle, Shayla Lynch, Jennifer Reynolds, and Dave Sevigny agreed to vote yes on Council member Brown's ordinance linking the affordable housing fund to 1% of the previous year's revenue, which will generate around $5,000,000 a year and grow as the budget grows.
- In June of 2023, council voted unanimously to adopt the 1% ordinance. It will go into effect starting in the 2025 budget.