Coastal Workforce Housing & Homeownership Act
The people who serve our communities should be able to afford to live in them.
If elected to the Georgia State House, I will work to introduce the Coastal Workforce Housing & Homeownership Act—a practical plan to help working families afford safe, stable housing in the communities where they live and work.
In Coastal Georgia, too many teachers, nurses, first responders, veterans, childcare workers, service workers, young families, and local employees are being priced out of the very communities they help keep running.
A strong community cannot thrive when the people who teach our children, care for our families, respond to emergencies, serve our local businesses, and protect our neighborhoods cannot afford a place to call home.
A home should be within reach for the people who keep Coastal Georgia moving.
Why This Bill Is Needed
Housing is the foundation of family stability. When rent, mortgage payments, insurance, repairs, and utility costs rise faster than wages, working families are forced to make impossible choices.
Families may have to move farther away from work, spend too much of their income on housing, delay buying a first home, live in homes that need repairs they cannot afford, or leave the community altogether.
This is not only a housing problem. It is a workforce problem, an education problem, a health-care problem, a public-safety problem, and an economic-development problem.
When teachers, nurses, deputies, firefighters, childcare providers, public servants, veterans, hospitality workers, and young professionals cannot afford to live nearby, local employers struggle to retain workers and communities lose the people who make them stronger.
If people can work full time in a community but cannot afford to live there, that community has a housing problem.
What the Plan Would Do
The Coastal Workforce Housing & Homeownership Act would build on existing housing efforts while creating stronger protections for working families, local communities, and taxpayers. It would support safe housing, responsible homeownership, repairs, and long-term affordability—not short-term projects that disappear after public money is spent.
1. Support Housing for Working Families
The proposal would create or strengthen state partnership grants for local governments, housing authorities, nonprofit organizations, and responsible private developers that build or rehabilitate workforce housing. Workforce housing means housing affordable to people who work in the community but may earn too much for traditional assistance and too little to afford rising market prices. The program would prioritize communities with documented shortages of housing for local workers.
2. Put Essential Workers First
State-supported housing opportunities would give priority consideration to income-qualified workers who provide essential services in the community, including:
- Teachers and school employees
- Nurses, health-care workers, and behavioral-health professionals
- First responders, law-enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency personnel
- Veterans and military-connected families
- Childcare workers and early-childhood educators
- Local government employees
- Skilled-trades workers, service workers, and other local workforce employees
The goal is not to exclude anyone. The goal is to make sure the people who keep our communities functioning have a real opportunity to remain part of them.
3. Make Homeownership More Reachable
The bill would expand support for qualified first-time homebuyers and working families through down-payment assistance, closing-cost assistance, financial-counseling partnerships, and homebuyer education. It would also encourage responsible lending, protect families from predatory practices, and help residents understand the true long-term costs of ownership—including insurance, taxes, maintenance, and repairs. Homeownership should be a realistic path for working people, not only for those who already have wealth or family resources.
4. Keep Families Safely Housed
Building new homes is important, but Georgia must also preserve the homes people already live in. The proposal would support home-repair and rehabilitation assistance for income-qualified homeowners, veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, and families living in aging homes. Eligible repairs could include roofs, accessibility improvements, electrical and plumbing repairs, heating and cooling, storm protection, drainage, and other health-and-safety needs. Helping a family repair an existing home can prevent displacement, protect property values, and keep neighborhoods stable.
5. Protect Affordability for the Long Term
Public dollars should create lasting public benefit. Any project receiving state workforce-housing support should include clear affordability requirements for a defined period, transparent income standards, and public reporting on the households served. The bill would discourage projects that use public money to create so-called "affordable" housing for only a short time and then convert it to unaffordable market-rate housing. Long-term affordability protects both families and taxpayers.
6. Give Local Communities a Real Voice
Housing policy should not be imposed on communities without local input. The bill would require public transparency for state-supported housing projects, including plain-language project summaries, local public meetings, clear eligibility standards, and annual reporting on results. Local governments, housing authorities, residents, employers, and community organizations should have a seat at the table when state housing resources are used in their community.
How the Program Would Work
The Coastal Workforce Housing & Homeownership Act is designed to use state resources responsibly and bring local partners together. It would not force one community to use a one-size-fits-all model.
Step 1: Identify Local Need
Communities would document their workforce-housing needs using local data such as rent levels, home prices, wages, workforce shortages, commuting patterns, housing-condition needs, and employer demand.
Step 2: Build Local Partnerships
Cities, counties, housing authorities, nonprofit organizations, employers, and responsible developers could work together to submit proposals tailored to local conditions.
Step 3: Use State Support Responsibly
Eligible projects could receive state matching grants, low-interest financing support, infrastructure assistance, rehabilitation funding, or homeownership-assistance resources, depending on the final legislative design.
Step 4: Protect Residents and Taxpayers
Projects receiving public support would be required to meet affordability, transparency, quality, and reporting standards. State funds should support safe homes, real results, and responsible stewardship.
Step 5: Report Results Publicly
The public should be able to see what was built or repaired, who was served, how long affordability lasts, how much public funding was used, and whether the project met its goals.
Local communities should have flexibility—but public dollars must always come with transparency and measurable results.
Protecting Homeowners and Renters
A complete housing plan must support both the family trying to buy a first home and the family trying to stay safely housed as a renter.
This proposal would encourage practical protections that help families avoid displacement and give them a fair chance to build stability.
Support down-payment and closing-cost assistance for qualified working families.
Expand home-repair and accessibility programs for seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, and low-income homeowners.
Promote transparent rental practices and clear disclosure of fees in state-supported housing.
Encourage responsible property maintenance and safe living conditions.
Support financial counseling and housing-navigation services for families facing eviction risk, foreclosure risk, or housing instability.
Require public reporting on state-supported projects so families know what resources are available and how to apply.
Housing policy should help families stay rooted—not push them farther away from work, school, health care, and opportunity.
Keeping Public Investment Focused on Families
Public housing funds should help people build stable lives—not fuel speculative deals that leave local families behind.
The Coastal Workforce Housing & Homeownership Act would require accountability when state resources are used. It would explore safeguards against abusive bulk purchasing and require transparency when investors receive public incentives connected to housing.
The goal is not to punish responsible investment. The goal is to make sure public support creates homes for people—not just higher returns for outside investors.
Require clear public disclosure when a state-supported housing project involves major corporate ownership, investor subsidies, or public incentives.
Tie public housing support to measurable benefits such as long-term affordability, local hiring, safe conditions, and housing access for working families.
Require projects that receive state assistance to report results and repay or lose incentives if they fail to meet their affordability commitments.
What This Means for House District 180
House District 180 needs housing solutions that match the reality of Coastal Georgia.
Families in our community include military-connected households, veterans, teachers, nurses, first responders, public employees, shipyard and logistics workers, tourism and service workers, childcare providers, small-business employees, and young people trying to build a future close to home.
When housing becomes too expensive or unavailable, families are pushed farther from jobs, children change schools, employers lose trained workers, and communities become less stable.
This proposal would help communities in District 180 compete for resources to build and preserve housing that working people can actually afford. It would support homeownership, help families repair aging homes, and make sure public investment creates lasting local benefit.
A teacher, nurse, deputy, veteran, childcare worker, or young family should not have to leave Coastal Georgia just to afford a place to live.
Responsible Use of Public Dollars
This proposal will be built with accountability from the beginning. State resources should be targeted to documented local housing needs, used through transparent partnerships, and measured by results.
Before creating or expanding any major funding program, I will support fiscal analysis, public review, and clear rules for how funds are awarded, monitored, and protected.
Require clear eligibility rules and competitive application standards.
Use matching funds and local partnerships whenever possible.
Prioritize projects with measurable workforce-housing need.
Require long-term affordability agreements for publicly supported projects.
Publish annual reports showing project costs, housing units created or preserved, households served, and affordability outcomes.
Include audit requirements, fraud safeguards, and consequences for misuse of funds.
Protect local control and require community input before major state-supported projects move forward.
Public dollars should build lasting opportunity—not temporary headlines.
My Commitment
If elected, I will work with local governments, housing authorities, community organizations, employers, veterans, first responders, teachers, health-care workers, builders, renters, homeowners, and working families to introduce and strengthen the Coastal Workforce Housing & Homeownership Act.
This is not about empty promises or one-size-fits-all development. It is about practical solutions that help people live near the jobs they work, keep families rooted in their communities, and make homeownership more reachable for the next generation.
Coastal Georgia deserves housing policy that works for the people who call it home.