STATEMENT ON INTERFAITH HOUSING COALITIONS-JOURNEY PROJECT
Saturday June 13, 2009, Pensacola
On June 5, the Board of Directors of the Interfaith Housing Coalition (IHC) voted to suspend the Journey project, a 250 unit mixed income planned community on 26 acres in the Englewood Community of West Pensacola. The board came to this decision based on three factors, the current economic environment in Escambia County and the State of Florida, reduced access to credit by developers and home buyers, and, despite our best efforts, the inability to generate sufficient funding for continued IHC operations.
IHC membership consists of churches and synagogues who invested countless hours and a great deal of their own resources to keep the dream of community transformation through affordable housing alive. However, after four years of struggle we have reluctantly concluded that because of the housing downturn, resulting in the surplus of vacant houses and significant loss in housing value, the houses envisioned in Journey would be more expensive to build than many of the homes already on the market in Escambia County. In addition, the churches and synagogues, faced with their own economic challenges, are unable at this time to engender the support necessary for the project.
Although the Journey project has been suspended and no longer has a full time staff, IHC will continue to explore creative ways to make this dream of affordable housing a reality in Escambia County.