Homelessness, transitional housing, low-income housing and affordable housing are obviously big problems in the state of Arizona. There is a mixed bag of several bills in the legislature that deal with different parts of the housing problem.
Today’s video focuses on SB1471 which provides a creative funding mechanism to put up to $10 million per year in the Housing Trust Fund for homeless youth and families. There are no federal HUD funds for this population. This is one of several bills.
SB1471 sets up a process for the state of Arizona to collect capital gains taxes on sales of Arizona property owned by out of state individuals. Apparently, compliance with capital gains taxes owed by out-of-state investors is less than 30%. This bill is projected to make around $8 million of year and could go higher. If more than &10 million is collected the excess goes into the general fund.
Instead of a scatter shot approach of random bills to tackle housing and homelessness, what we need is a comprehensive approach, with adequate funding to make a difference.