I manage to sit down with Bernie Mazyck before an invitation-only panel discussion with CEOs and financiers begins.
In about 20 minutes, this room will buzz and talk will turn to the realities of South Carolina's affordable housing picture.
For the record, it's not the best.
"Household balance sheets look all right," Carrie Cooke will say. She's vice president of community development at the Richmond Fed. "But we have to remember that about 40% of that spending is coming from upper-income households, which may be propping up the entire pie. We're starting to see signs of deterioration, especially for a lower-income households."
This is translating into increasing credit card debt, auto debt, and student loan debt, Cook will say.
In a few moments, Jonathan Nazeer, an organizer of this event, will shake his head with a mix of disbelief and disgust. "People," he will say, in reference to more families putting groceries on their credit cards, "are paying interest on food."
But all that is in the future. For now, I am sitting with Mazyck, president of the South Carolina Association of Community Economic Development (SCACED), just before the organization's annual conference — Opportunity SC — kicks off.
And knowing what lies ahead in panel discussions and conversations, it's almost as if Mazyck sees the future. It's an illusion. What he really sees is an ecosystem.
" If you do not have workforce, with housing close to where they live, employers cannot attract, good talent," he says. "If you do not have financial institutions that have products that can meet the needs of a broad spectrum of society, you also hinder prosperity overall."
And if you don't have business buy-in, the persistent, growing problem with affordability among workers with the most common jobs in South Carolina — hospitality, tourism, nonprofit, to name three main ones — goes nowhere.
"All of these elements are interconnected and I often call them an ecosystem," Mazyck says. "And more and more now, we are seeing the business community recognize the importance of workforce housing."
So where and how does Florida enter this conversation?
Well, in another day, on another floor of this hotel, Mazyck will turn to a longtime friend of his — Marilyn Drayton, who, now a retired executive with Wells Fargo, sits on the board of the Florida Housing Coalition.
And Mazyck will talk again about this ecosystem; how it malingers in the silos different entities work inside of. Bankers bank. Builders build. Advocates advocate. Data wonks wonk.
But they don't talk to each other.
In this room, the one with Marilyn Drayton and Jennifer McAdams — executive director of the Affordable Housing Coalition of South Carolina — Mazyck will have groups of advocates, housing developers, financiers, and frontline community service workers brainstorm ideas to address policy issues, funding needs, and technical assistance so that they can get South Carolina to where Florida is on affordable housing.
Florida, he says, is a perfect model, — it's in the Southeast and is as at least as politically conservative as South Carolina. And yet, he says, Florida has managed to take a massive leap forward in the conversation about affordability.
Mainly because they've had one.
Drayton — a native of Sumter — consulted on the Florida Housing Coalition’s Blueprint for affordable housing, published this past summer.
The Blueprint is an unabashedly optimistic look at where affordability is going in Florida, based on input housing — and, importantly, non-housing — experts gathered from town halls; on the development of affordability/sustainability scoring tools; and on multiple conversations between lawmakers and community leaders to drive the conversation forward.
A key component, Drayton says, is that Florida's legislators made a conscious effort to help organizations with proverbial boots on the ground do the kinds of work they do under a unified message.
" Florida invests in capacity building for nonprofits," Drayton says. " Florida does a great job with convening and integrating all players and entities that touch housing development from beginning to end — banks, Realtors, counselors, state, local government, the gamut. They do a phenomenal job with rallying all of the stakeholders proactively and staying connected to them throughout both public policy and advocacy."
This kind of government/public/private initiative doesn't exist in South Carolina. Which, Drayton says, gives the state the chance to pull together on an issue that unites left and right in the Statehouse.
"South Carolina has an opportunity to enhance collaboration," she says. "From all parties, all stakeholders in the housing industry."
And this is where Jennifer McAdams, still new in her role leading, wants to steer the allies in this room. Her aim is to rejuvenate the the state Affordable Housing Coalition's efforts to address housing affordability, with more than a little inspiration from Florida.
She admits it's a long road. But she also knows it starts somewhere.
"Coalitions like ours only work when we have stakeholders from across the industry joining together with a united voice," McAdams says. "And so I feel like this is a first step in identifying what that united voice is."
These housing leaders say it’s workforce housing that they are trying hardest to make more affordable – for teachers and first responders, yes, but also for grocery workers, tourism workers, and hospitality workers.
These are the workers who, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, make around $15 per hour in South Carolina.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition calculates the minimum household income needed to afford two-bedroom housing in South Carolina is $26 an hour.
It's this lost/missing middle that's getting increasingly squeezed by sale and rental prices that spiked during the Covid pandemic and have not deflated at nearly the same rate, SCACED leaders say.
According to Zillow, average rent statewide in October is $1,800; the average home costs $300,000.
