What to know about Myrtle Beach’s plan to house government and hospitality employees
In a city whose workforce relies heavily on hourly wages in the tourism industry, housing prices can be staggering. Myrtle Beach officials are working to change that.
Through a workforce housing program, Myrtle Beach and Habitat for Humanity Horry County have teamed up to pave a way to make housing more affordable for hospitality and government workers. Those groups make up much of Myrtle Beach’s workforce, but largely can’t afford to live within city limits.
Amber Campbell, a research and development analyst for the city, explained how the workforce housing program is part of the city’s greater master plan for the downtown area. She said there’s value in living close to work and being involved in the community.
“We want people to be able to live downtown, but a part of that is being able to afford to live downtown,” she said. “It’s not just the city’s employees that we want to live downtown but the general workforce.”
Workforce housing, by the Urban Land Institute definition, means homes affordable to households earning between 60 and 120% of the area median income. It’s not to be confused with the definition for affordable housing, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development defines as less than 30% of a household’s income. Workforce housing is more flexible and allows for the opportunity to use programs already in place, like other forms of rental assistance and housing choice vouchers, according to Jason Greene, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity Horry County.
Advantages to city living
If people can afford to live downtown through this program, Campbell said, they will spend money in the area as well, spurring the economy year-round to supplement the seasonal tourism revenue.
The program, still in its early stages, will also include a plan to give an incentive to city employees to live within city limits. More than 80% of the city’s employees currently live elsewhere, creating a problem for the city. That problem was illustrated by Hurricane Florence, which caused flooding in the Myrtle Beach area. If city employees had lived closer to work, they wouldn’t have had as many issues getting to work, Campbell said.
“[Hurricane] Florence, I believe, that flooded Conway and some surrounding areas so bad, we had a very very difficult time getting employees back into the city to respond to electric issues, downed trees, all that kind of thing that can come with a natural disaster,” she said. “By having employees able to get to those locations faster improves the service level for the city.”
The plan, including the city employee incentive, is set to go before Myrtle Beach city council on Tuesday. As the resolution on council’s agenda reads, 93% of the city’s workforce makes less than $75,000 a year. The homeownership and rental assistance programs would be funded through an established workforce housing fund.
“For the city, it’s kind of economic based, our employees right now, they take their disposable income and they spend it where they live, which is currently not in the city, and so by improving the economic base here, it improves the city so there’s a bigger reinvestment into the city’s economy,” Campbell said.
What will the housing look like?
Organizers of the program expect it to be at least two years before people can start moving in to workforce housing, and the locations depend on a number of factors, according to Greene. He said the organization’s contract with the city begins in January and his staff will analyze what the city needs to meet before selecting locations and zeroing in on a price.
The current plan is to construct or rehabilitate buildings for single- and multi-family homes, which will then be sold or rented to workers in the program. The cost of housing will be impacted by the market at the time as well as the individual’s situation, Greene said.
“[Household income] drives a lot of what is affordable and isn’t affordable for folks,” Greene said. “So those federal programs that exist … and other programs that may exist to assist in that are largely based on what they can afford and not necessarily on what the market rate is.”
The process to apply for the housing is still unclear as the program is in its infancy, Greene said. But he sees an opportunity to promote equity through the workforce housing program, and said there are benefits to a mixed-income neighborhood, which could result from the program.
“You can show that there are other ways to achieve different housing opportunities than you may currently have and I think it adds to the culture of the neighborhoods that we have as well,” he said, adding that the atmosphere of downtown Myrtle Beach will likely improve when people live and work in the same area.
How the coronavirus housing crisis fits in
The need for affordable housing across Horry County has been revealed by the pandemic, Greene said. As people lost work or slashed their hours due to the economic fallout of the coronavirus spread, they also became more interested in how to improve the housing situation, Greene said.
The wheels began turning on this project years ago, but the simultaneous timing of the pandemic and the program launching means it could have more public interest and support.
“I think more folks are very much interested in understanding how we can solve this problem and that’s a benefit that I recognize, is that more folks are curious about how they can get involved in solving a problem that’s been a bit exacerbated by the pandemic,” Greene said.
This story was originally published December 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM.
