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<\/p>\nLocal housing experts are concerned that Florida could see a significant spike in homelessness in 2023 after a year that saw hurricanes Ian and Nicole ravage the state\u2019s southern peninsula and destroyed affordable homes for some of the state\u2019s lowest income earners.<\/p>\n
Florida has been one of the hottest housing markets in the US since the pandemic began in March 2020. In nearly three years, the state\u2019s median home price has skyrocketed by more than 61% from a low of $251,000 to now more than $406,000, according to data from Zillow. Meanwhile, data from the Florida Housing Coalition shows that the state leads the country with more than 53% of renters being housing burdened, meaning they pay 30% or more of their monthly income on rent and utility expenses, because of rent increases and stubborn inflation.<\/p>\n
As the calendar turns to the new year, some experts are concerned that these conditions will cause homelessness to increase if the state does not intervene.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was already a gap between what housing costs and what people can afford,\u201d Anne Ray, a researcher at the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida, told the New York Times in October after Ian made landfall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe communities that were hardest hit in Southwest Florida already had been seeing large increases in rent over the past year or so,\u201d Ray continued. \u201cA storm like this comes along and we could lose that critical supply of affordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Florida has made a lot of progress on providing housing and services for people experiencing homelessness in the state. The state has seen its homeless population decrease by 41%, or more than 13,000 people since 2007, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development\u2019s 2022 Homelessness Assessment Report, which compiles state level one-night count data.<\/p>\n
The one-night count, also known as the \u201cPoint in Time Count,\u201d typically occurs in late January and is designed to be a snapshot of homelessness in a local area. Totals can vary widely between counts because it relies on volunteers to find homeless people during one of the coldest months of the year and requires homeless people who are contacted to identify themselves as homeless.<\/p>\n
As this paper has previously reported, some people avoid identifying themselves as homeless because of the stigma that is attached to homelessness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes significant time, effort and building trusted relationships between a client and a case manager to work towards permanent housing solutions,\u201d Therese Everly, executive director of the Lee County Homeless Coalition, told Naples Daily News in May.<\/p>\n
The data collected during the one-night counts are then used to determine the amount of federal funding that cities receive to address homelessness. However, some say the data collected during the 2022 count is unreliable because HUD, which oversees the Point in Time Count, did not require local Continuums of Care to conduct unsheltered counts because of the pandemic. Continuums of Care are nonprofit agencies that partner with HUD to deploy homeless resolution programs across the country.<\/p>\n
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Despite Florida\u2019s progress on homelessness, the state still has the nation\u2019s third highest homeless population with 25,959 people being counted in 2022. At the same time, there are signs that Florida\u2019s housing market could leave many cost-burdened households behind.<\/p>\n
One issue is that rents in many cities in Florida are rising at a time when wages in the state are falling because of inflation. Tampa, Miami and Orlando all saw their rents increase in November, according to Redfin\u2019s rent tracker. Miami led the way with a 9.2% growth rate year-over-year with an average rent of more than $3,200 per month. Tampa and Orlando saw their rents grow by 1.7% and 3.1% and both cities have an average rent of nearly $2,100 per month, Redfin\u2019s data shows.<\/p>\n
Wages in each of these cities have not been able to keep up with these rent increases either, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For example, wages in Miami grew by 4.8% year-over-year in November, but inflation in the city was measured at 7.7%, meaning that workers actually saw the spending power of their pay fall by 2.9% over the past year.<\/p>\n
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But this hasn\u2019t stopped people from needing housing, and that demand for housing is being squeezed by historically low supply of homes while natural disasters like hurricanes Ian and Nicole wiped out more homes. That\u2019s one reason why the median home price in Florida has grown by 10% to $390,000 over the last year, as of November, according to Redfin.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBecause of COVID, because of the rental crisis that\u2019s going on in our community, because of migrant inflow, we\u2019re seeing tremendous new demands that we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d Victoria Mallette, executive director at Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, told the Miami Herald.<\/p>\n
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The rising housing prices have also coincided with an increasing number of households facing eviction. Meanwhile, data from the Census Bureau\u2019s latest Household Pulse Survey shows that more than 109,000 renters in Florida feel they are \u201cvery likely\u201d to be evicted within the next two months, up from just 13,000 households who said they would face an eviction in November 2021.<\/p>\n
These factors have caused local leaders, like Democrat Rep. Val Demmings, to call for more protections for Florida\u2019s low-income renters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t let Florida families lose their homes due to emergencies outside of their control,\u201d Demmings said in a press release.<\/p>\n
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Several cities across Florida have budgeted millions of dollars to preserve and create affordable housing within their jurisdictions, but the efforts may be too little too late.<\/p>\n
For instance, Palm Beach voters recently approved a $200 million ballot measure to create 20,000 affordable homes over the next 10 years. But that is only half of what is needed to provide affordable housing to the more than 51,000 extremely cost burdened households in Palm Beach County, according to a housing needs assessment conducted by Florida International University in 2020. These households pay more than half of their monthly income on housing and utility costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s staggering, the increase that we\u2019ve been seeing. But it\u2019s also tied to supply and demand,\u201d Kevin Kent, a local realtor, told WPBF in April. \u201cThere is very, very little supply and there is a huge demand for our area and that continues to push pricing both on rentals and on sales and purchases.\u201d<\/p>\n
For some experts, solving homelessness comes down to a simple choice: Do local leaders care enough about the problem to put forward solutions, or not?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that we can\u2019t solve these issues, it\u2019s that we won\u2019t,\u201d Justin Barfield, outreach and development director of Capital City Youth Services, told the Tallahassee Democrat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Robert Davis Local housing experts are concerned that Florida could see a significant spike in homelessness in 2023 after a year that saw hurricanes Ian and Nicole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,549],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homeless-voice-newspaper","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n