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This was recently published on keynet.com (article below). Please consider this information before moving down to the Florida Keys. The reality is, a majority of people in the Keys now have moved here voluntarily. A huge percentage do so with no job lined up first and no apartment signed for, and no idea of the real cost of living. People just assume they can come down here and land some service job, hospitality job, dive job, manual labor job, and everything will work itself out. But in reality, there are not enough jobs for all the people who come down here, and the ones that exist are low-pay, no benefits, part-time, and often seasonal. And you need a vehicle.
Rooms for rent - literally just a room with maybe a microwave in an illegal below-flood dwelling- average about $800/month. 1 bedroom apartments, again in illegal below-flood crummy dwellings - average around $1300/month. Prices just go up from there, especially if you want something nice, or waterfront. Additionally, landlords have the ability to be very picky with who qualifies to rent from them, because there are plenty of wealthy people who have great credit and own a home already who can afford half a year rent just to vacation. So how do you qualify if you have no job yet, but need to verify that you make 3x the rent with pay stubs from the last 3 months? It is NOT easy to do for the average dreamer/drifter, all the more so if you have poor credit and no local references.
Do NOT think you can just come down here and barter your carpentry skills for a place to stay. There are thousands of people down here already peddling that nonsense, and they're all still looking. It's unlikely that anything you can do to "watch somebody's house" or whatever is going to be worth nearly as much as landlords can get from actual rent down here.
Do NOT come down here with multiple pets and then beg for someone to take you in. A ton of people do that - more people seem to move here with multiple pets than have no pets, and Keys rentals are generally speaking not pet-friendly... again, because they don't need to be, demand is great enough that they can rent to people with no pets who will pay a high price, and never take on the risk of cat pee smell in their floors or dog scratches on the walls. Your pets are above reproach, we know - but everybody says that. The fact is, landlords are not desperate enough for money to take the risk. There is someone waiting right behind you who has no pets at all and a full schedule of work, so all they'll have time for is sleep - hence they'll make a way better roommate.
Want to move to the Keys? There are a million dreamers just like you - but please, think it over. It's not an impossible dream, but it is not something the majority of people in the US can successfully pull off. And if you think all you're gonna do is party and go snorkeling, they call that "Keys Disease" here, and you'll be bankrupt and possibly with a substance dependency problem within 6 months. It happens all the time...
What I wrote here might sound harsh, but it is true. And it is really more compassionate to try to prevent people from getting into a mess they can't handle, than to encourage them to come down here and watch them suffer and beg for help 9 times out of 10.
Here's the article:
--------------------- Census numbers indicate the Keys are the seventh-worst county for income inequality in the U.S.
By ANTHONY CAVE
October 8, 2014
Monroe County is the seventh-worst county nationwide when it comes to income inequality, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
In a report published Sept. 23, the Huffington Post, after crunching the numbers, found that Monroe has a median household income that is more than $6,000 above the state average and a population of about 76,000 people.
Using what's called the Gini Index, which measures disparity between income brackets, it found Monroe scores a .5477. The scale ranges from 0 to 1.
"The higher the number, the more unequal things are," Sam Houston State University economics professor Mark Frank said.
Frank has researched income inequality nationwide. He said the Gini Index is broad because a county could have pockets of both wealthy and poor people -- like the Keys do.
Still, Monroe County, despite having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state at 3.9 percent, struggles with affordable, and available, housing.
United Way of the Florida Keys President Margie Smith, who will resign at the end of the year, summed up what most people know: The county is "dramatically short of housing."
"[Our] No. 1 request is rental assistance," she said.
Smith also believes that the lack of an equal playing field, including access to early childhood education and a high number of jobs without benefits, is part of the "perfect storm" in the county.
Other social service providers are threading the waves, too.
Feeding South Florida, which distributes food to several food banks and soup kitchens across the Keys weekly, including St. Mary's Soup Kitchen in Key West, has seen an uptick in demand.
"We have to consider looking at another route," Feeding South Florida vice president of community relations Sari Vatske said. "We can easily provide another truck, but we don't have the support for that vehicle at the moment."
According to Feeding South Florida, Monroe County has the highest food cost index in South Florida, at $3.61 per meal, and almost 13 percent of its population is "food insecure."
The Marathon-based Coldwell Banker Schmitt Charitable Foundation, which helps Keys residents with critical needs that are not met through other means, can be seen as the exception to the rule.
Between January and through September last year, it had 69 requests for help, which included housing and rental assistance. It only had 46 requests in the same period this year.
Foundation Chairwoman Jamie Martin said the requests are sporadic and are not even measurable by season.
However, she said a slightly better economy and the application process, which could take as long as eight weeks in some cases, could explain the decline.
"It's hard to say," Martin said. "It really just depends."
Nonetheless, Monroe County is the worst in the state when it comes to income inequality according to the Gini Index.
Collier County, on Florida's southwest coast, which includes cities such as Marco Island and Naples, has a Gini Index just a shade above 0.53. Neighboring Miami-Dade County has a Gini Index of almost 0.52.
The six counties more unequal than Monroe County, according to the Huffington Post's research:
Here is a post to the Keys Craigslist that someone posts in multiple housing sections, at least once a week. You can see, this person is corroborating everything I'm saying. We are not all making this up:
----- Affordable Rental (Keys)
0BR apartment available
For all of you looking to rent an affordable place....forget it. Look at the postings here. The housing in the keys is very limited and extremely expensive. Close to or over $1000 for an efficiency or one bedroom , about $2000 and higher for a 2 bedroom. IF you can find one that's available and IF the landlord wants to rent to YOU! Work is limited and the pay scale makes it almost impossible to survive. Most local people have at least two jobs. Most available houses are rented as vacation rentals for 2 or 3 thousand a week or more. No, you can not "housesit" people will pay BIG BUCKS to stay in the house while they are away. Enclosed , converted garages
though illegal are also rented out.You can not park your van or rv in a driveway and live in it. Also against the law. Even campgrounds are expensive , $300- $400. a week ! Rv lots well over $600 a month in the off season , if your lucky enough to find a cheap one and you proberly wouldnt want that type of neighbor. In winter they charge over $1000. a month for an R.V. space. And that is just an empty lot !!!The "High Season " starts mid December. December through mid April is unbelievably busy with "Snow Birds" form the north. They pay sky high prices to stay for a few weeks or months. Every available place is rented out.Weekly rentals are almost impossible to find . Even now in the slow season they are renting by the week for $300 - $350 a week for one hotel room , if you can grab one before they are gone. And that's only till mid December. Landlords have been burnt too many times. With the housing market now the landlords can pick and choose their tenants , they can ask outrageous prices for dumps with first , last and security because there are no other places to live..Save your money and your sanity. Go someplace else
Here is an Opinion piece that was published on keysnet regarding dealing with our affordable housing issue. In the comments section, many people agreed, but some noted that local businesses cannot afford to pay higher wages - the cost of property and insurances here is outrageous, and eats up most profits:
---- Paying living wages will go far to solve the Keys' housing problem
September 13, 2014
As a resident of the Keys for 24 years, the pay scale for workers hasn’t changed. When I arrived here, the going pay scale was $10 an hour; that was at a major resort for a management job.
Times haven't changed much. The answer to affordable housing is paying a living wage. You will find it nearly impossible to live anywhere in the Keys for $10 an hour.
Typical rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $800 to $1,000 a month. Let's see how that adds up. $10 an hour after taxes is like $8 an hour. Multiply by 40 hours, that's $320 a week and $1,280 a month. Now subtract your rent, $1,000 plus utilities for $150 a month. That leaves $130 a month for food and if you drive to work, you can subtract even more.
It's time for business owners to pay a living wage to keep good workers here in town and not spending seven hours a day on a bus from the mainland.
Dave Harlow
Marathon
Here is an Opinion piece published in the same paper from the other side of the fence. Not everybody in the Comments section agreed with this either:
Above-store apartments can help solve housing problem
September 13, 2014
The politicians advocate using taxpayer funds and publicly owned property removed from the tax roles to build workforce housing as bargain-rate rentals for employed residents.
They define workforce housing as for teachers, law enforcement and other professional workers. In their socialistic concept, they shouldn't have to pay more than 30 percent of their income, including utilities, for housing. Monroe County has a steadily declining population, which means the tax burden on the rest will grow exponentially. As the burden increases on taxpayers, the population will decline even faster.
There is what I like to call the Robin Hood syndrome -- rob from the "rich" to give to the poor until no more "rich" people exist. Workforce housing should not be at taxpayers' expense or using public land for this purpose.
Providing workforce housing should be the responsibility of the builders and developers and the companies that employ those who qualify, since they are earning the profits from their labor.
I am a child of the Depression, born and raised in New York. Before the end of World War II, home ownership was too expensive for the average worker. Apartment living was a way of life. So I would like to adopt and update one of the prevalent solutions of the time to the dilemma of workforce housing.
The County Commission should adopt a program that encourages any new storefront commercial buildings or hotels to contain a second or upper floor for price-fixed rental apartments. To provide the incentive to the builders, they would be given special tax credits for doing so. All leases would provide a clause that would restrict these rentals to provable Keys employment by the renter. In addition, any existing commercial building that structurally could support an additional floor could qualify.
Before the naysayers start screaming it can't be done, almost all the older northern cities have live-above-the-store apartments.
Howard Gelbman
Key Largo
I'm amazed that some of the bay area and SoCal counties weren't higher than the keys. Honestly, between NYC and those areas, they are some of the most unequal places in the country despite the more "liberal" initiatives of progressive taxation and high minimum wage laws
News Flash. If people are working for $10hr. Then business will pay $10hr. If Business have jobs they can't fill then they will raise the pay. That's the way it works today and everyday since the beginning of time. Too bad we don't have an actual recovery then employers would be fighting for workers with higher wages and benefits.
News Flash. If people are working for $10hr. Then business will pay $10hr. If Business have jobs they can't fill then they will raise the pay. That's the way it works today and everyday since the beginning of time. Too bad we don't have an actual recovery then employers would be fighting for workers with higher wages and benefits.
They call that the Sunshine Tax in Florida, and it is all the more so in the Keys. People will put up with almost anything to live down here - and once they've moved, they'll take whatever pay just to try to make it work. Employers don't need to raise wages because there is a long line of employees waiting to take that sad $10/hr job with a smile. And as I said, the costs here are so high that it's not like most employers are rolling in profit either - unlike most tourist economy locations, the Florida Keys is mostly small business owned, a lot of family businesses or small chains. Most of it is not run by the big money. So that means overhead costs are so high that many businesses do not really have a lot more to give. It costs far more to own property here than anywhere else in FL, because nearly everything is in a flood zone, wind insurance is astronomical, and code enforcement is far stricter and elaborate than any other county. Having code violations can easily put you out of business, and code violations are common because code has to be so strict due to the hurricane risk. This is more of an issue in the Keys than in any other county in FL, and it's not really that easy to fix. It is not cheap to build something that can withstand living in the middle of the ocean.
But tourists will continue to come down here and dream of living here full time, just like I once did. Luckily, I had secure income and some savings before I did so, and a ton of knowledge about life here. A lot of people just don't think ahead, and then they move here and get stuck posting all over Craigslist Rideshare for a free ride back home to where they came from.
There is a lot of young people coming and going, working the bars, restaurants and boats. They come down stay a few months, a year, maybe two, then are gone, replaced by the next. I have seen and talked with a bunch if them. Run across very few that actually stay and work, making a long-term life. But as has been mentioned, they work two jobs to make ends meet, or own some of the small businesses, run charter boats, boat captains, etc.
Now you can live cheaper up on Marathon, etc, and judging by the traffic coming south to Key West in the morning, a lot of people actually live up the Keys, not n Key West. For example, on one of the Keys, you can buy a small RV for under $15K with a fairly reasonable lot rent. Some of the older mobile homes are similarly priced, again with reasonable lot rents. But you are not on Key West with Duvall Street and all the mystique of Key West.
Just because we have palm trees, doesn't make this paradise.
I was there a week or two ago and found there were a lot of homeless and people with psychiatric issues roaming the streets. Watched a 20-something yr old rummaging through garbage cans at the beach and eating what he could. I was fortunate enough to camp on the naval base for the week - after a few days there I was ready to head home.
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