FORT MYERS, Fla. — The City of Fort Myers will soon choose a family to move into a home the city paid a company to build. The problem they're running into: too many people want the house.
It's an affordable housing program where the city takes city-owned lots, hire a company to build a single-family home on it and sell it back to a qualified family.
"It is a pathway to home ownership," said Steve Belden, Community Development Director for the City of Fort Myers. "It’s making a house affordable for a family is what the goal is here."
Find out why the city cannot take more applications right now:
The price of the house is $245,000, which the family will pay back.
The city has had this idea for a while, and construction started in May 2024 on the first home. During the groundbreaking, Mayor Kevin Anderson expected a "long, long waiting list."
When the application portal opened, that's exactly what happened.
"We received nearly 400 applications the first day and a half," Belden said. "We decided we need to close the application portal at that point because we were overwhelmed with responses."
Of those 400 applicants, Belden said around 117 filled it out completely.
"It shows that there's a lot of need put there for affordable housing," he said.
Belden says it now comes down to City staff to go through the applications and see who qualifies.
"The challenge with this is getting someone qualified," he said. "I still get emails form individuals wanting to apply."
Qualified applicants need to have mortgage pre-approval and be under 120% of the Area Median Income.
With so many applicants, I asked how they're going to choose one family.
"We’re kind of just thinking about doing a lottery, that would be the fairest," Belden said. "Hopefully in a few months we can get somebody moved in so that’ll be exciting to have that happen."
This is just one house on one lot. However, the city has nine more near C Street and Delaware Avenue.
"We’re going to take two lots, and we’re going to bid those out for builders to construct homes on," Belden said. "Potentially we will have all nine of those going at the same time at various stages."
Belden says he knows this won't solve the affordable housing crisis, but it's a step to help in other ways.
"We at least wanted to have an opportunity for some people to be able to move into a single-family home," he said. "I wish we had 100 lots we could build houses on."
