Last month, the St. Louis County Council voted 4-3 for Councilwoman Lisa Clancy’s bill to establish a trust fund aimed at creating more affordable housing.
“We’ve got 400,000 households in St. Louis County,” said Clancy on Thursday’s St. Louis on the Air. “Over 100,000 of those households — that’s over 25% — are considered cost burdened when it comes to housing. … Cost burdened technically means you are spending over 30% of your income on housing.”
Clancy estimated that the fund will collect about $50,000 a year from the state’s sales tax on medical marijuana. She said that ideally, that figure would eventually increase to at least several million dollars.
“We definitely need to increase that amount,” she said. “Step one is identifying additional sources of funding.”
Gary Newcomer, director of operations for the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis, also joined the conversation to talk about the state of St. Louis city’s affordable housing trust fund, approved by voters in 2002.
Hear their conversation:
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by Sarah Fenske and produced by Alex Heuer, Emily Woodbury, Evie Hemphill and Lara Hamdan. The engineer is Aaron Doerr, and production assistance is provided by Charlie McDonald.
Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org.
Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio. 9(MDA3OTgyNDI4MDEzMTM0MjQzMTZlNDI0Mg004))