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16 for 2016: No. 14: Finding affordable housing

Bill Boulware stands with his wife Kristi for a portrat on the back porch of his mother's house the morning of Sept. 22, 2015, in Port Royal.
Bill Boulware stands with his wife Kristi for a portrat on the back porch of his mother's house the morning of Sept. 22, 2015, in Port Royal. Bill and Kristi, who are both legally blind, were residents at Bluffton House for 17 years and used Section 8 housing vouchers to help pay their rent. They recently had to move from their apartment into Bill's mother's home because when their lease ended in May their rent was to be raised by $200, which they cannot afford. dearley@islandpacket.com

Finding an affordable place to live likely will get harder this year, a trend that could spell trouble for our area, which is dependent on a low and middle-income workforce to staff restaurants, hotels, golf courses and spas.

Bluffton has been the most aggressive town locally in addressing the problem, establishing an Affordable Housing Committee, building the Wharf Street development, creating a program to provide builders with low-cost modular home designs and discussing the overhaul of town code to add incentives aimed at encouraging the construction of more affordable housing.

Meanwhile, most of the other headlines surround several "luxury" multifamily-unit developments in the works as developers cash in on a booming retirement population and the explosion of high-end apartments on a national scale.

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This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 10:34 AM with the headline "16 for 2016: No. 14: Finding affordable housing."

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