This was the year for Central Florida to make headway on affordable housing. Then the virus hit. | Part 3 of Special Series

“People were paying attention,” the Rev. Mary Lee Downey said of Central Florida’s affordable housing crisis and her project to build 225-unit complex for low-income families. “We were right on the cusp, planning to break ground in the fall. The money was going to be there, the excitement was going to be there, everything. And then the pandemic hit. And everything stopped.”