FGCU panel addresses anxiety surrounding affordable housing scarcity

Unyielding pressure from higher rent leaves people confused and anxious. We spoke with an FGCU housing panel hoping to have ideas to relieve the scarcity of affordable housing.

“The short-term solutions that are out there are already overwhelmed,” associate dean and professor Tom Felke Ph.D. told us. 

“If you look across the SWFL region 60% of the households that receive snap benefits are above the poverty line,” Tom says. “At least one if not two working heads of households.”

Associate professor Landon Frim Ph.D. added, “I think that the big picture here is that you’re not going to solve this problem by offering a particular kind of benefit whether it’s subsidized rent or subsidized housing”

It simply isn’t an easy problem to solve, but we did ask about housing becoming an employee benefit.

“You do have a risk of these outside consequences of you know, having something like a company store dynamic,” Landon explained. “Where you become awfully dependent on your employer, not only do you depend on him for your wage and your disposable income, but also because of how the American healthcare system works, your medical care, and your housing.”

FGCU professor of Real Estate and Director of the Lucas Institute for Real Estate Development & Finance, Shelton Weeks Ph.D. made the point, “One of the points that I’d like to make when you think about inflation, I tend to think of inflation as the ultimate regressive tax.” Shelton added, “It hurts the poor much more than it hurts those that have assets.”

Demonstrating how many factors are in play with this issue Tom spelled out, “If we build all the affordable housing up in Lee County, for example, that’s not helping anything down in Collier County.” Showing the layer of issues involved he concluded, “those individuals are going to be sitting in traffic there’s going to be major opportunity costs.”

Affordable living has been a part of Floridian lives for a long time. This is a serious problem that isn’t an easy fix nor is it an issue that will simply fix itself. Decisive action and legitimate progress are needed before it’s too late.