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At least 160 Jacksonville homeowners this year have participated in what officials are calling a “predatory” home-improvement loan program. But this week, the Jacksonville City Council took steps to stop that loan program from doing any further business in the city. Officials also are making strides to help the property owners who have already taken out the loans that, in some cases, threaten to raise the homeowner’s tax bill by 1,000% and possibly risk their homeownership. The Property Assessed Clean Energy loan program — also known as PACE — began in Florida in the city of Kissimmee and Flagler County as a way to allow property owners to make upgrades to their house for zero down payment and full financing. The Florida PACE Funding Agency — special districts created under state law to administer the program — is in charge of the loans. But the program is exempt from the federal Truth in Lending Act, which requires lenders to make sure borrowers can knowledgably pay back loans. The program also is a tangle of public and private entities, third-party firms, contractors and salespeople, according to a Tampa Bay Times report on the lack of oversight.

Since June, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has inspected at least 1,200 HUD-subsidized properties, agency data shows. But thousands of inspections are overdue, despite agency goals to eliminate the backlog in spring of this year. For public housing owned by housing authorities and privately owned multifamily housing that receives HUD funding, the agency relies on inspections to hold landlords accountable for unaddressed safety hazards. Last month, Streetlight reported that longstanding problems with the inspection program and HUD’s oversight place renters’ lives at risk. Since then, HUD’s inspections and oversight of the properties it subsidizes have drawn attention from Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who urged HUD to ensure gas leak repairs were made at a Florida apartment complex at the beginning of August.

You're invited! FREE Homeownership 'House Party' Saturday, August 26th 9am-5pm Learn how you can achieve your dreams of owning a home!! REGISTER HERE - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-hud-homeownership-house-party-tickets-687448967367?aff=oddtdtcreator Date and time Saturday, August 26 · 9am - 5pm EDT Location Edward Waters University 1859 Kings Road (EWU Gymnasium) Jacksonville, FL 32209 The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development along with the City of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Housing Counseling Agencies and Housing Industry Partners is hosting a FREE Homeownership 'House Party' Saturday, August 26, 2023, from 9am-5pm on the campus of Edward Waters University (Gymnasium)

After Mayor Donna Deegan and a gaggle of reporters had gone, April Sizemore stood in her cramped apartment that still smelled of mold and suffered all the problems that had caused her to speak out in the first place: the roaches, the rats, the holes in the wall, the water leaks. Barely able to pay the $800 monthly rent, she grimaced at the water flowing from the bathtub tab that a malfunctioning faucet wouldn’t turn off. To Sizemore, it was the sound of money draining from her household finances because she’ll end up paying for the wasted water on her utility bill. “We can’t live like this, and no, I can’t afford anywhere else or otherwise I’d be gone,” Sizemore said. “But as a single mother of two children, I just can’t leave like that.”