- March 11, 2026
Some 36% of households in Flagler and Volusia Counties face financial hardships, according to data from a research database on affordability.
ALICE — an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — measures financial insecurity in households, taking into consideration factors like regional costs of living. According to data in the 2025 report, a family of four needs to bring in a salary of $86,688 to meet the basic household requirements in Florida, from food, utilities and housing to child care, taxes and health care.
That’s the state average. In Flagler County, that same family would need to make $92,604 and in Volusia County $90,948. Childcare alone averages $1,500 monthly for two children in Flagler County and $1,600 in Volusia County.
But most essential workers are not making that amount of money. In Volusia County, the average median household income is $66,273 while in Flagler County it is $71,682, according to the ALICE report.
Based on that median income, to be considered affordable — where rent or mortgage payments are 30% or less of the household income — housing costs should not be more than $1,600-$1,800 a month.
Meanwhile, the costs of rent and home prices have skyrocketed, pricing out many essential and frontline workers from living in the communities they work in.
The average sale price of single family homes in the Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach areas has more than doubled from 2016 to 2025. An average home in 2016 sold for $205,000 while in 2025, it would sell for $426,000, according to data from Adams, Cameron & Co. Realtors.
But why have homes increased in cost so much?
Tony Amaral Jr., owner of Amaral Homes & Pools, is a local builder in Flagler County and is a candidate for the Palm Coast City Council. In his experience, housing costs pre-covid had a natural cycle of ups and down and because of inflation and from seasonal demands on goods.
Post-covid, he said, is a different story. Lumber prices alone keep climbing because of the increased costs to ship the load of wood, between tariffs and, now, the United States’ war with Iran and the disruption to oil and shipping supply chains. Other materials also change frequently enough, he said, that some buyers have to adjust their budget while the home is being built.
“It’s just not stable,” Amaral said.
Not only have material costs increased, he said, the number of tests required to be performed during the building process, plus other involved fees, have increased. Labor shortage is also a factor. All these little things together, he said, add into the price of a home.
Amaral said he looks for ways to keep the price of his homes down, even swallowing some of the cost increases for a lower profit margin. But that is difficult to do when the costs have jumped 15-20%.
According to ALICE data, a two-person home, without children, would need to make $52,100 a year to meet their needs, assuming a $1,200 rent. In Volusia County for the same couple, its $50,700, assuming a rent of $1,188.
But there are no apartments to rent for $1,200, said Affordable Housing Advisory Committee Chairwoman Valerie Clymer and a mortgage broker. And there’s no mortgage for that rate, either.
The reality is the average person in Flagler County cannot afford to buy a home on their own income, she said.
“Typically, you have to have two incomes,” she said. The gap in the system, she said, is that there are not enough resources available for affordable housing.
The municipalities need to incorporate more affordable housing initiatives, she said, like pushing more for the Live Local Act with developments.
Amaral said the larger and national companies of developers may have a better chance of being able to build affordable, price-restricted housing than local builders like himself. Clymer said there are multiple pieces to the puzzle in obtaining more affordable housing, from rent control, working with banks that will lend money for affordable housing projects, grant opportunities, and more.
“If we don't do something,” Clymer said. “What do we do five to 10 years from now? Who's going to serve us at a restaurant? Who's going to be a cashier, if they've got no place to live.
In unincorporated Volusia County just outside of Daytona Beach city limits, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Volusia County has begun construction on its first-ever development, a neighborhood of affordable, Habitat for Humanity homes.
These homes are sold to Habitat for Humanity program participants at an affordable mortgage rate that is 30% of their income, interest-free for a fixed 30-year period.
CEO Lori Gillooly said this regional Habitat for Humanity has built 200 homes over the last 40 years. The recipients fall in an income bracket between 40-80% of the median income.
While the people Habitat for Humanity builds homes for are in a lower income bracket, it isn’t just one kind of demographic. Most first responder households would exceed the income requirement, she said, but people in all other kinds of industries apply and need help becoming homeowners.
Bus drivers, phlebotomists, manufacturers, cashiers: all these people are essential workers, too, Gillooly said, and deserve the chance to become homeowners.
“The homeowners that we work with are also people doing very essential jobs in this community, and they work very hard,” Gillooly said. “It's just that the income level that they have would not allow them to walk into a bank and to be approved for a conventional mortgage.”
FAITH Volusia is a nonprofit in Daytona Beach that is working toward affordable housing in Volusia County. In 2025, the Daytona Beach City Commission approved a linkage fee with new commercial development projects that will go into a Housing Trust Fund. That fund will be used exclusively for affordable housing initiatives.
“It took us six years to get that going,” FAITH member Patty Santopadre said. The fund has already raised $150,000 in three months.
So far, Santopadre said, $150,000 has been raised through the linkage fee in just a few months.
“It's very important that they can be able to afford where they live, especially when they work here. We don't want them to have to live somewhere else,” she said.
Faith Volusia’s next project is to get a similar program to the linkage fee in operation with Volusia County’s Community Redevelopment Agency money. There are not many other options available for help with affordable housing in Volusia County, she said, and people need help.
Santopadre said she has watched young families, veterans and the elderly struggle and be priced out of their rentals. People are working multiple jobs just to afford rent.
More and more people, whether renting or attempting to buy homes, need help, she said.
“That makes me feel like something needs to be done,” she said. “We need to do something to stabilize this before people become homeless.”
