By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

“I was embarrassed and ashamed,” said Tammie Hoy, executive director of the Lowcountry Housing Trust, which provides affordable housing in Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties.

Hoy’s emotions turned sunnier when the General Assembly overrode Sanford’s veto. On May 9, the House voted 100-5 to override the veto. The Senate followed suit May 15, slamming Sanford’s veto by a 38-1 vote.

Local governments now have funding guidelines for creating housing trusts that can subsidize the construction of homes for people of modest means.

“We’re elated,” said Robert Thomas, president of the Columbia-based Affordable Housing Coalition of South Carolina. “More resources can be brought to the table to provide affordable housing.”

The Lowcountry Housing Trust, a nonprofit corporation using state and federal grants along with private donations to fund the production and preservation of affordable housing, is the model on which the bill is based, Hoy said, adding that her organization is South Carolina’s only housing trust.

The organization serves families earning between 80% and 120% of the area median income of $56,375.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development considers housing affordable if a family spends no more than 30% of its annual income on housing costs.

In March, mayors from across the state gathered in Columbia to promote the creation of affordable housing trusts. Rep. Harold Mitchell Jr., D-Spartanburg, and state Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms, attended the event, as did North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey and Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.

The consensus was that municipalities across the state could address the shortage of affordable housing by setting up housing trusts similar to the Lowcountry Housing Trust.

By this time, the local housing trust fund bill had already been filed. Mitchell sponsored the bill in the House, Campsen sponsored the bill in the Senate.

In his veto message, Sanford called the bill “redundant.”

“Though I admire the intent of those who have worked on this legislation, local governments area already able to create and operate these funds by simply enacting a local ordinance, which renders this legislation duplicative and as a consequence unnecessary,” Sanford said.

“While the spirit of this bill is to help low-income families across the state…it is confusing at best to tell local governments that we believe in Home Rule while continuing to pass down redundant legislation from Columbia.”

Even though municipal leaders already had the authority to create housing trusts, what they lacked was the know-how. The bill addresses that concern by serving as a template for the creation of housing trusts, Campsen said.

Many municipal leaders were wary about creating housing trusts because they were unclear about how the trusts were to be funded. The bill provides funding guidelines, Hoy said.

Local governments may fund housing trusts through donations, bond proceeds, and grants and loans from federal, state and private sources. The trusts cannot be funded through taxes, according to the bill.

Now that the bill has become law, local governments can create strategies for starting and funding housing trusts. The Affordable Housing Coalition and the Lowcountry Housing Trust will help them, most likely through a series of workshops around the state, Hoy said.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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