Orlando Sentinel49%
Low-income apartments in Orange County bring relief to struggling renters 43%
By Michael Cuglietta60%
7/20/2026, 10:00:40 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Appeal to Emotion, and Optimism Bias, with Halo Effect as the most egregious example at 18.5% saturation with 192 hits. Analysis detected 1,611 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,037 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 46.8% and a BS Rank of 43% (12,111 of 21,180 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 57.20% of the article peer group.
For 14 years, Alice Martinez and her husband lived in a leaky Orlando apartment, with water from the units above pooling in their ceiling and causing mold.
“All the walls started to get black, even in the bedroom,” said Martinez, 65.
“I have a lot of asthma, and I could not live in those conditions.”
But the couple could not afford a better place, so they were stuck.
“I wasn’t sure if the water was going to fall on top of me,” Martinez said.
“It was like a trauma.”
Then a new apartment complex for low-income renters opened nearby in June, and the couple found a way out of their housing nightmare.
The new complex off Orange Blossom Trail offers rent as low as $400 a month for qualified residents but also bright clean apartments with plenty of amenities.
It is part of the county’s 10-year plan to create more affordable housing.
The need for such units is acute.
The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Central Florida is now $1,600, according to Apartments.com, far more than many can afford.
The median wage in the Orlando metro area is $48,000, and residents earning that should pay no more than $1,200 a month for housing, according to the Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse at the University of Florida’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies.
“There’s a pretty big gap between what people can afford and what the market is providing,” said Anne Ray, the clearinghouse manager.
“Affordable housing, inevitably, is a problem that you don’t solve.
You chip away at it,” Ray said.
“And increasing the supply, especially the supply that’s really targeted towards those most in need, is a viable strategy.”
That is the county’s goal.
The Enclave at Canopy Park, where Martinez now lives, is the fourth affordable housing complex to open this year with support from the county’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
The four complexes made 542 new subsidized apartments available.
About half of The Enclave’s 104 apartments are already occupied, and the rest are expected to go fast.
“We had opened the office for applications for a period of time, but the staff just couldn’t handle the amount of traffic, so we have to schedule appointments now,” said Brett Green, president of Archway Partners, which built The Enclave.
“There’s so much need and demand and appetite for this product.”
In Orange, there are an estimated 71,000 low-income, cost-burdened renters, meaning they spend more than 40% of their household income on housing, according to the UF center.
In 2025, Orange allocated $58.5 million over a three-year period to help finance and preserve affordable housing.
The money is projected to contribute to the construction or preservation of 3,570 units over the next few years, and feeds into the county’s broader 10-year action plan to create or preserve 11,000 units by 2030.
Archway Partners, an Orlando developer with 10 affordable housing complexes across the state, including Sanford’s Monroe Place, received $3 million from Orange and $10 million from the state and was given low interest loans and tax breaks to help build The Enclave.
In return, developers agreed to keep rents low.
The Enclave has one-and-two-bedroom apartments with a monthly rent of between $400 to $1,500, depending on a family’s income.
To qualify, a family of four must earn between $25,278 and $91,920.
Martinez and her husband were among the first residents in the new development.
Retired, they live off Social Security and pay $700 a month for their 2-bedroom apartment.
That’s $100 more a month than they paid for the old one but the extra money is worth it for a substantially upgraded apartment, they said.
Their new 950-square foot home has granite countertops, wood cabinets and energy efficient appliances, including a washer and dryer.
“We have so many things,” Martinez said.
“The kitchen is so beautiful.
We have a microwave, a stove.
Everything is beautiful.”
The complex includes a gym, a lobby where residents can access free wi-fi, security cameras and a police substation where local law enforcement are welcome to do their paperwork, creating an on-site presence that enhances safety, Green said.
Martinez was so impressed with the new building, she encouraged other family members to fill out applications.
Her sister-in-law, Julia Santana, and her husband, Victor Sierra, moved into the apartment below theirs.
And Sierra’s sister, Leonarda Sierra, and her daughter, Juana Romero, became residents, too.
All of the relatives are retired and rely exclusively on Social Security.
Santana and Sierra moved to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2017 after their home on the island was destroyed by Hurricane Marie.
They were living in the same apartment building as Martinez.
And, like Martinez, they did not have the money for anything better, until now.
Santana, who plays guitar at her church, turned the spare bedroom in her new place into a music room for her seven guitars and two keyboards.
She joked, in Spanish, that she plans on living at The Enclave, “until Christ comes back.”
Romero and her mother, who is 85 and disabled, were renting a house nearby for $1,000 a month.
It was also in very poor condition, she said.
“It was really bad, we had a lot of cockroaches,” Romero said in Spanish.
She also used to struggle to help her mother climb into the bathtub so the older woman could shower.
“I didn’t have the strength to be holding her,” Romero said.
“So it was very dangerous.”
The new apartment has a much-needed walk-in shower.
Romero’s mother livened up their apartment with her collection of dozens of brightly colored chicken statues, popular in Puerto Rican folk art.
A big grey sectional couch takes up half of their living room.
The extended family will often gather on the couch, playing dominos, watching Mexican cowboy movies and sharing meals.
They all plan on living out the rest of their days together in the complex.
“We can take care of each other, check up on each other, because we are at an age where we need to be able to check up on each other,” Martinez said.
“It’s a blessing.”
Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda of the Sentinel staff contributed to this story.
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