Don’t believe the hype. Ron Desantis may not be the 2024 GOP Savior after all.
Here’s the link...
Amid a surge of demand from out-of-state buyers, limited inventory and booming neighborhood redevelopment, the Sunshine State is quickly becoming one of the least affordable places to live in the United States, a trend that is straining new home buyers and renters even as longtime homeowners reap a windfall of equity.
Over the past six months, Florida’s home prices have risen faster than those of any other state, according to a Washington Post analysis of Zillow data. As housing markets elsewhere have cooled, home prices in Florida have shot up the national ranking, overtaking Minnesota, Maine and Connecticut. The state’s prices are quickly catching up to higher-cost states such as New York and Virginia.
Florida’s wages, meanwhile, have grown at a slower rate than the national average. In the six months ending in November, when home prices in the state rose 16 percent, average hourly earnings in Florida were up only 2.1 percent, compared with the national rate of 2.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I keep hearing how DeSantis is a kinder, gentler version of Trump who can win over independents. A viable contender for the 2024 GOP nomination that President Biden should be very concerned about because of DeSantis’ “winning record of success” in Florida.
Not so fast. Think again.
“Everything is just blowing up right now, and with the way the market is, people are just going crazy for houses,” Rodriquez said.
But the price spike is also making it difficult for scores of Pensacola residents to secure affordable housing. Sherri Myers, a member of the Pensacola City Council, said the city is now facing a “dire” crisis, with a growing homeless population and limited availability of rental housing.
“If I did not have my house, I could not rent right now in Pensacola on my income,” said Myers, 79, who earns about $40,000 in annual salary from her council job and Social Security. “I would be living in my car.”
Michael Kimberl, director of the Alfred-Washburn Center in Pensacola, said “hundreds” of Escambia County residents are sleeping in their vehicles each night.
Even many Pensacola residents who consider themselves middle class can no longer afford “the cheapest rent in town,” Kimberl said.
This Washington Post article is filled with stories from residents new and old in Florida—more than one with multiple school age children living in tents.
'Nothing is affordable'
After Hurricane Sally damaged her apartment in 2020, 29-year-old Natasha Fields spent most of last year “couch bouncing” until just before Christmas, when she moved into a homeless shelter with her husband and two children.
Fields is a cashier at a grocery store who earns $11 an hour, and her husband works as a truck driver. The couple had to rely on federal housing assistance and local charities to move into a two-bedroom earlier this month. The $1,350 rent is nearly double what the family used to pay.
“This has been mentally brutal, and it’s draining on the adults, and it’s draining on the kids,” Fields said. “They can put all of this new shiny stuff in [Pensacola], but it doesn’t help anything if nothing is affordable.”
This year, 1,257 students in Escambia County public schools are considered to be homeless, according to school records. Melissa Johnson, a Pensacola social worker who works in homeless encampments, estimates the real number is much higher.
If you are one of those on DK who fears that DeSantis could not only win the GOP nomination, but maybe even win the 2024 election? Bookmark this link and share it with others.
I’m being very judicious about how much I copy and paste from this article as I know we have rules regarding how much we are allowed to quote from an article.
WaPo’s analysis of increasing housing costs for both those who own and those who rent is truly disturbing and also thoroughly detailed. The reporters drill down into specifics on exactly how much houses are skyrocketing in costs as well as the increase in monthly rents.
This is vital information we should be sharing far and wide.
In Tampa, another traditionally affordable locale, City Council Chairman Orlando Gudes (D) predicts more residents are “going to be homeless soon.” Gudes said that he has been receiving calls from constituents who say their landlord is “upping their rent by $500, $600 or $700 a month.”
Gudes blames Republican state lawmakers for the crisis, noting that market-rate rent control laws are prohibited here. In 2019, the GOP-controlled Florida legislature voted to allow local governments to require developers to build affordable units in new projects. But counties and municipalities must “provide incentives to fully offset” the cost to developers, which has tempered such agreements, Gudes said.
“We have been a Republican state for a long time, and legislators now need to get off their high horse and figure out what they can do to help people,” said Gudes, who is exploring whether Tampa can get around some of the state regulations by declaring an “emergency housing situation” to temporarily cap rent increases.
Since 1992, Florida has also had a robust funding mechanism to pay for affordable housing, the Sadowski Trust Fund, which is funded through real estate transfer taxes. But Florida legislators have consistently diverted the money to other things, including a decision last year to shift $200 million to fight sea level rise.
Jaimie Ross, CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition, a Tallahassee-based group, said advocates are relieved that DeSantis has proposed spending all of the projected Sadowski Trust Fund’s receipts for the upcoming year — about $355 million — on affordable housing.
But Ross said state legislators need to spend even more to avoid an even broader crisis.
“I think people look at places like San Francisco, and think, ‘Oh that will never be us,’ ” Ross said. “I think they are making a mistake because I think that will be us, and there is additional reckoning coming to state of Florida.”
I intend to shout it from the hilltops on my social media:
DeSantis is turning Florida’s housing crisis into a mirror of San Francisco’s.
I’m sure the GOP (and Trump) are gonna love that.
A DethSantis economy = low wages, rising rents & exploding homelessness
Let’s spread the word about the real life impact of the policies implemented by Florida’s current GOP Governor.
And I hope to God all those elderly people and parents with children quoted in this report get off the street and into safe, affordable housing A.S.A.P.