TAMPA, Fla. — Depending on who you ask and where they live, financial comfort means different things to different people.

“That’s the ability to buy food, pay for your electric bills, to be able to go on a trip if you want to, and now people are having to choose which one they want to do on a monthly basis,” said Corporation to Develop Communities of Tampa CEO Ernest Coney.

What You Need To Know

  • A recent study said that a $94K salary is needed to live comfortably in Tampa Bay 

  • In Hillsborough County, the average area median income (80%) for a single person, that is $48,000, and for a family of four, that is $69,000 

  • Economist Spiros Vassilakos says some new homeowners are becoming "house poor," a term that is commonly used to describe individuals whose housing expenses exceed an specified proportion of their monthly budget

The CDC serves low- to middle-income communities. According to a recent study by Smart Asset, single adults living in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Orlando must have an average salary range of $94,000 to $100,000 to live comfortably.

“Most people in west Tampa and east Tampa make nowhere near that number,” said Coney.

Many programs by the Department of Housing and Urban Development assist households with incomes at or below 80% of the area median income.

“In Hillsborough County, the average area median income for a single person, that is $48,000, and for a family of four, that is $69,000," Coney said. "That’s half of the number that people need to survive."

For more than 30 years, the CDC of Tampa has been working to close the financial gap through their outreach programs.

“We want to focus on thriving workforce development," Coney said. "People have paychecks to be able to afford their own destiny."

The CDC of Tampa has partnered with Fifth Third Bank and others to offer affordable housing and small business loans, but Coney said that with increased inflation and cost of living, access to such funding is limited.

Spiros Vassilakos is an economist and CEO of the Athenian Private Client Group.

“Since 2021, we brought in over 400,00 new residents, so with that comes a lot of increased costs,” said Vassilakos.

Some new residents, particularly those from the north who have bought homes in middle- and upper-class Florida neighborhoods, are becoming “house poor,” he says.

The term is commonly used to describe individuals whose housing expenses exceed a reasonable portion of their monthly budget.

Coney said his group is committed to helping local residents find affordable housing that meets their needs.

“It’s being able to help a person reach that goal," he said. "To know that a single mother being able to buy a home, to know her mortgage is going to remain the same amount for the rest of her life, but her income has the ability to continue to go up.“

He said the demand for attainable, stable housing is high regardless of the neighborhood.