A Place to Call Home: Why Attainable Housing Is Everyone's Business in St. Johns County
The numbers tell part of the story. A teacher in St. Johns County earns roughly $48,000 a year. That is less than half the income needed to afford a median-priced home here. Only 3 percent of the county's rental market is attainable for much of the local workforce.
But at a breakfast hosted by the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce's Tourism and Hospitality Council and Historic St. Augustine Area Council, the conversation went beyond statistics. It centered on the people behind them, and on the partnerships working to keep our workforce living in the community it serves.
Held at the AC Hotel in downtown St. Augustine, the program brought together a Habitat for Humanity homeowner, two of the county's leading housing nonprofit directors and a room full of business owners ready to engage.
A Seventh-Generation Resident's Path Home
Katelynn Quarrels is a seventh-generation St. Johns County resident, a mother of two and, as of September, a homeowner through Habitat for Humanity.
Her story put a face on the affordability gap. In 2012, she rented an apartment on Cordova Street with a view of the Castillo de San Marcos for $600 a month. By 2021, she was a newly single mother working overnight shifts at a rehabilitation center, then heading straight to a second job. That year, her rent was $850. By the time she moved out in 2025, it had climbed to $1,600. Her income had not doubled.
"I wasn't failing to work hard enough. I was working constantly," she told the crowd. "The challenge wasn't effort. It was affordability."
Even with down payment assistance through the county's SHIP program, Quarrels said she could not find a single home on the open market that worked for her family. Habitat for Humanity was the only path. Now she owns something she can pass down to her children, in a county where generations of her family have lived, worked and are buried.
Her advice to employers in the room: spread the word. The Habitat application sat on her desk for six months before she worked up the courage to apply. "The worst thing they could tell me is no."
Habitat for Humanity: Not a Giveaway, a Partnership
Melinda Everson, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of St. Augustine/St. Johns County, opened by busting the biggest myth about her organization. Habitat does not give away homes. Every homeowner works, completes sweat equity hours, takes financial education classes and carries a mortgage. Homes are sold at appraised value.
"My favorite day is when we get to close and I get to hand over the keys. There's a lot of joy in that," Everson said.
The local affiliate has built 190 homes since 1992 and recently scaled up from five homes a year to 18 to 20, with a goal of reaching 30. Homes in the Volusia Woods neighborhood are priced at $248,000 to $278,000, well below the county's median home price of more than $500,000.
Eligibility has expanded, too. Habitat now serves households earning up to 120 percent of area median income, which means teachers, firefighters and nurses qualify. A single applicant can earn up to about $91,000 a year.
What's next: Cypress Village, a 17-home neighborhood near Murray Middle School, plus a newly purchased 32-acre parcel adjacent to the Solomon Calhoun Center that will hold approximately 75 homes.
One board member offered a blunt takeaway. The constraint on selling more homes isn't demand. It's awareness. Several homes are available right now, and a qualified applicant could close in six to eight weeks.
"Housing Is a Math Problem"
Bill Lazar, founder and executive director of the St. Johns Housing Partnership, has spent 28 years helping residents stay in their homes. His organization repairs about 200 homes a year, manages 80 scattered-site rentals and builds new affordable units when the numbers allow.
The numbers, he stressed, rarely allow it on their own. "The free market cannot build affordable housing without partnerships," Lazar said. "It is impossible."
He pointed to University of Florida Shimberg Center data showing 13,000 families in St. Johns County pay more than half their income for rent. Impact fees that once raised alarms at $2,000 now sit at $14,000. And a lot his organization recently bought in West Augustine cost $60,000. Twenty years ago, he was paying $5,000 for lots.
Lazar's prescriptions were practical. Government should invest in infrastructure, the single biggest lever for keeping homes affordable. Employers should consider employer-assisted housing, a model already quietly working here. He cited restaurant owners helping key staff with rent and a former Baptist Hospital program that offered nurses $5,000 in forgivable down payment assistance to cut turnover costs.
His challenge to every business in the room: "There are people in every office where y'all work that have no idea they could buy a home."
Keep the Conversation Going
Sponsor Scott Rock of RockIT Solutions put the stakes in business terms. "Housing is infrastructure," he said. If the people who teach our kids, serve our guests, care for our parents and staff our restaurants can't afford to live here, he argued, "we don't have a housing problem over there. We have a business problem right here."
The event was made possible by presenting sponsor Purciarele Group and gold sponsors Ameris Bank St. Augustine, Community Hospice & Palliative Care, Compass Self Storage - Nocatee, RockIT Solutions, LLC and the St. Augustine Airport, with the AC Hotel St. Augustine donating the venue.
Take action: Read the Chamber's 2025 Attainable Housing report and add your name or your business to the Attainable Housing Coalition at sjcchamber.com/attainable-housing. By signing on, you're telling our community's decision-makers that attainable housing is essential to running your business and sustaining our local economy.