Maxwell: Orlando and Vegas lead nation's housing shortage. Let's fix that.

Once again, Orlando has found itself in a harsh spotlight, ranking as the worst metro region in America for affordable housing.

For every 100 low-income families that need affordable housing, only 13 units are available, according to the annual report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Only one other city in America ranks this poorly, and it's a familiar one: Las Vegas. The two cities were in a dead heat for dead last.

This is the not-so-sunny reality of tourism economies. Hotel housekeepers and fast-food workers struggle to keep roofs over their heads. And Central Florida has about 55,000 of them - a population the size of Sarasota.

When you have that many people living on the edge of a financial cliff, some will topple over. That’s why communities like ours also struggle with homelessness.

"Research consistently shows that a challenged housing market will drive up numbers of people experiencing homelessness," said Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida.

That's the bad news. Some good news, however, can be found in a couple of other stories penned by the Orlando Sentinel recently.

One was this story: "Pine Hills pastor's $75M project would bring affordable housing to church land." The piece described how the pastor and congregation at Fellowship Baptist Church of Pine Hills hope to build more than 300 housing units where they're desperately needed in northwest Orlando. It's about serving the church’s community beyond the church’s walls.

Pine Hills pastor's $75M project would bring affordable housing to church land

Then there was another story from the other side of town: "Positive start for proposed new homeless shelter in east Orange County." There, the county is working to provide a new shelter and service center meant to help struggling residents find permanent housing.

Both stories are, at their roots, about the same thing - providing more places for people to sleep. And while that might sound obvious, it's also crucial.

In fact, more housing is the main point of a book called "Homelessness is a Housing Problem." Are and her Homeless Services Network invited one of the book’s authors to Orlando a few years ago. And one of the anecdotes author Gregg Colburn shared has stuck with me ever since.

Colburn asked Orlando leaders to think of housing like a game of musical chairs where 10 people are walking around a circle of eight chairs. When the music stops, two people - one who’s physically disabled and one who’s struggling with mental health problems - are left standing. Colburn then asked the audience why those two were left out.

Most people instinctively say: Because those two had obvious problems.

No, Colburn said. Those two were left out because there weren't enough chairs.

Well, that's what we lack - except, instead of chairs that were removed, we’re talking about housing units that were never even built.

Yes, we also direly need better wages. But we also don't have nearly enough housing units, especially affordable ones.

That's why this community should celebrate all kinds of efforts to build more affordable housing units - whether the efforts are coming from a church in Pine Hills, another nonprofit or a for-profit corporation. We need relaxed zoning restrictions and sometimes even subsidies.

Keep in mind: This community already gives subsidies, but not always in meaningful ways.

Just two years ago, the Orlando City Council inked a deal that gave the Orlando Magic and its development partners more than $40 million worth of tax breaks and incentives to build a hotel, office and apartment complex.

Yet, in exchange for the public money, the city only required the 273-unit housing complex to include 10 units of "attainable" housing. That's 3.7%. And it's pathetic.

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The community also needs to support what the county is trying to do in east Orange by serving a homeless population that’s already there.

What's not helpful are nattering nabobs of negativism.

Another recent Sentinel story featured State Rep. Susan Plasencia, R-Orlando, threatening to withhold state money from a nonprofit-run service center that serves those who are homeless and struggling in east Orange County, because some people were complaining about those being served. That's pretty rich, coming from a legislator who joined her Republican peers in voting to make it a crime to sleep in public.

We live in a state run by politicians who threaten to imprison people who sleep on the streets and then threaten the groups trying to prevent that from happening - a group whose stated mission is “helping our neighbors take the next step toward stability and self-sufficiency.”

This community needs solutions, not threats.

DeSantis signs bill banning homeless from sleeping in public places

Obviously, housing is just half of the equation. The other half is wages. Las Vegas and Orlando rank dead last and second-to-last, respectively, among major metros when it comes to wages.

While most communities spend time and money trying to cultivate jobs that offer good salaires, Central Florida has spent billions of tax dollars trying to create more low-wage ones. So we’re constantly expanding a class of full-time workers who don't make enough to make ends meet. As I’ve written many times before, I think we should aim higher and do better.

But we still need more housing. So it seems pretty clear that all the groups and leaders trying to make that happen deserve our support.

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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 2:27 PM.