John Scannell was visiting a friend at Boca Regional recently when an odd question popped into mind while observing the hospital’s staff: “Where are these people living?” As the executive director for the Boca Raton Housing Authority (BRHA), the question of housing for the community’s first responders should have had an easy answer. But nothing is easy when it comes to housing in South Florida.
“There’s no single solution,” says Scannell, who is advocating for a broader approach to addressing the housing needs of Boca by starting at the base level of defining what“affordable” even means. “Affordability isn’t what it used to be” he says. “Affordability [once] meant low-income people having a hard time paying rent. Now, people [from] all walks of life are saying things are not affordable.”
There are currently only two subsidized housing developments in Boca: Boca Island East on Southeast 11th Street, and Dixie Manor in Pearl City, which has recently been greenlit for demolition and rebuilding, including a new name—Martin Manor. Between both developments there are 146 units that are income-restricted to those making between 30 to 80 percent of the area median income (AMI) of Boca Raton, which is about $90,000. But the demand is much higher. “It’s not enough,” says Scannell. “I don’t know if it’s ever going to be enough.”
Scannell says the biggest challenge to developing more affordable housing is the one thing nobody is making more of—land. Despite Boca’s clear demand for affordable housing, there’s simply nowhere to build the supply. Scannell says there are talks of increasing the size of Martin Manor from 95 units to 180 in a later phase, but the extra units would only scratch the surface. “Especially for low-income people, I don’t see it getting easier,” says Scannell. “I actually see it getting more difficult—for everybody.”
ABOUT THE BOCA RATON HOUSING AUTHORITY
The BRHA was founded in 1978 with the mission of providing safe and affordable housing to low-income families. In the years since, it has taken on a larger role which Scannell says he hopes to see expand further by the BRHA becoming landlords. But to buy the property requires funding beyond what is provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is strictly for dispersal to income-restricted tenants.
Scannell has lived in Boca since 1977, when his father opened the now-closed K-Mart on Palmetto Park Road. He’s been with the BRHA for 14 years, serving as executive director for the past seven. In all of this time, he’s watched Boca’s housing landscape change dramatically—but never as fast as now, and with costs skyrocketing. In 2019, he decided to move back to the neighborhood he grew up in near Boca Middle School, only to find that values had nearly doubled from when he sold his parents’ former home in the area just three years before.
Scannell’s experience with buying a home in Boca is one shared by many residents struggling to find housing in the city in which they work. Beyond housing Boca’s low-income residents, there is also the matter of housing those who make more than the threshold to qualify for affordable housing but are still struggling to cover expenses. Since HUD funds can’t be used to develop workforce housing, Scannell believes a new approach is needed to provide assistance. That’s where the private sector comes in.
During a December 2022 meeting, the BRHA voted to create its own 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Scannell believes that a nonprofit can help supplement the aid already offered by the Housing Authority, but without the red tape. While the nonprofit will focus on housing efforts, he says that their causes will be “as blanketed as possible” to address the evolving needs of the community. “We came up with the foundation idea because I personally believe there are people who are passionate about housing,” says Scannell.
Scannell hopes to have everything finalized for the foundation sometime this year, and is betting big on the generosity of Boca Raton to make it a success. But seeing what private donors have been able to do at Boca Regional Hospital—which is on track to achieve its $250 million fundraising goal—this bet doesn’t seem like such a long shot. “I believe there’s a lot of support here,” says Scannell. “I believe some might even donate a building.”
The reality of the housing crisis is that it’s no longer dismissable as a problem for low-income families. An increasing number of Boca residents, including seniors, nurses and teachers, are struggling to live in the city they call home. For Scannell, finding creative new ways to address this crisis is a vital mission of the BRHA.
“I’m not ready to put my head in the sand, because I believe there are solutions,” he says. “It’s just going to take a group effort.”
This article is from the March 2023 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
