Escambia County’s use of the State Housing Initiatives Partnership Program (SHIP) is under scrutiny after county staff announced there is no longer any funding available for down payment assistance through the SHIP program. Now some are questioning why the county is spending so much of the state dollars, used jointly by the city of Pensacola and Escambia County, on other programs including building brand new homes and rebuilding others, and it’s not really clear who is getting these homes or how recipients are selected.
The county is sitting on 14 homes that were built to help meet the need for affordable housing in the community. Some $600,000 in SHIP funding was used to build three of them at a cost of about $200,00 each. The rest are being funded with a combination of state and federal funds. The houses are in various stages of construction, and many are finished or close to being finished.
However, there are no immediate plans to list the houses for sale because county staff say they are still working to find a partner organization to help sell them because it’s illegal for the county to do it as a government entity…