By Wilkine Brutus
April 26, 2024
The construction of three cottage-style houses in the small, quirky city of Lake Worth Beach may sound insignificant in today’s expensive, low-inventory housing market. But for first-time homebuyers like Shameka Foster, a single mother with a bright-eyed young daughter, owning and walking into their new living room is the kind of comfort they’ve dreamt about.
“I can give my daughter a home that I never had,” Foster told WLRN. “I’m just very happy now that they could do something like this for us single parents.”
As dignitaries and community members held a ribbon cutting ceremony in front of the homes this week, county officials said it was part of an ongoing effort to address the area’s housing crisis.
The nearly million-dollar affordable housing project completed by the Community Land Trust of Palm Beach County — the county’s nonprofit arm — brought a sense of relief and joy to Foster, who helped cut the ribbon with her daughter.
Foster applied over a year ago and was the first applicant to get approved for her home. “It is very important for a child to have a stable home,” Foster added. “No parent wants to be moving around every single year, not sure where they’re going to be living.”
The subsidized homeownership program is partly financed through the Federal American Rescue Plan. Foster put down north of $14,000, less than half of what she would have had to pay without the county’s support.
