Florida
Florida’s Affordable Housing Crisis: The Troubled Path part 1 of 4
Inside Florida’s affordable housing crisis
FOX 13’s Chief Political Investigator Craig Patrick reports on Florida’s ongoing affordable housing problems, and how the state plans to combat the growing crisis in the near future.
TAMPA, Fla. – Brad Butler works long hours as a carpenter and home remodeler. He and his work partner spent three weeks and $6,000 of their own money updating a house in Dade City. But instead of getting paid for their work, they accepted a deal to rent the house at a discounted price of $1,400 per month for a year—because they could not find other options they could afford. After a year when the rent increases, they’ll look for other options.
“I’m a very honest hard-working person, but it just doesn’t seem that the economy has it in it to make hard-working people successful right now,” said Butler. “Prices have skyrocketed three times, I think. And just in this area.”
People who recently moved to the Tampa Bay area may not believe what houses used to cost. For example, in 1998, a three-bedroom waterfront home in St. Peterburg sold for $133,000. That was near the start of the tech boom, which helped ignite the housing crisis.
Two years later, the tech boom crashed. Investors moved what was left of their fortunes into real estate, snatching up houses everywhere—but especially Central Florida. Real estate in our area had flown under the radar until the age of the internet revealed comparatively cheap homes (on or near the water) for the whole world to see.
At the same time, banks lowered their standards—approving high-risk adjustable mortgages to high-risk buyers with lower credit scores— while investors flipped one home after another. Many starter homes got demolished and replaced by larger, more expensive homes—further reducing the supply of homes working class families could afford.
Then, by 2008, those high-risk buyers stopped paying the soaring costs of the high-risk mortgages. Banks failed, the economy tanked and real estate dipped—but in the Tampa Bay area, houses still cost much more than they did ten years before. For example, the same house that sold for $133,000 in 1998, sold for $275k in 2009 at the end of the downturn.
The Great Recession and glut of foreclosures crushed home builders, reducing the supply of new homes as the economy recovered.
“We did have a, a shortage of building for a while, especially in Florida after the market crash. You know, we were ground zero for the market crash. It took a long time for builders to get back online. A lot of builders went bust as well when that happened,” said St. Petersburg City Councilman Richie Floyd.
Builders who kept going started building larger, more expensive homes for larger profits—increasing the shortage of starter homes.
As millennials moved out on their own, they preferred urban living, which drove a movement from the suburbs to the spiraling costs of living in cities like Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, and Sarasota.
Meanwhile, the government offered new tax credits for home buyers, and interest rates dropped. Warren Buffett advised his fellow mega investors to snatch up homes—saying he’d buy a couple hundred thousand himself if he could. They followed his lead by purchasing more houses, condos, and apartments across the nation—and Florida in particular. Large investors and corporations replaced small landlords and homeowners, and they charged soaring rents (especially in urban areas).
Then President Trump signed new tax cuts on investment profits- fueling the real estate frenzy.
Then the pandemic hit. Florida stood out for lifting lockdowns and restrictions before other states. That drove a flood of relatively wealthy newcomers eager to buy.
“Post pandemic and during the pandemic, we saw this shift from high tax states to states like Florida, where people can work here and get the benefits of living here and that has only accelerated that challenge,” said Florida Policy Project and former Florida State Senator Jeff Brandes.
A wave of hurricanes, a property insurance crisis, and a trend of millennials migrating south combined to burn working-class people who can’t find an affordable place to live- unless they really scrimp and live a long way from work.
We don’t yet know the long-term impact of the Hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton. But studies like this one in Science Direct show hurricanes tend to drive Florida home prices up in the short term.
“750 people are moving to Florida every single day. And there just isn’t enough housing being built to support that,” said Brandes. “And that’s kind of created the supply and demand challenge.”
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Florida
Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’
It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.
Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.
But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.
William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.
Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.
Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.
“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.
“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”
The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.
He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.
At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”
Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.
Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.
Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.
“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.
That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”
In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.
“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”
Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.
Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.
Florida
Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'
Florida
Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip
Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.
“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.
“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.
Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”
The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.
“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”
That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.
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