In the past three years, rent on average across the U.S. has jumped 24 percent. In Miami, rents are up 61 percent. Tampa? 53%. Orlando? 34%. And Jacksonville? 32%.
ClickOrlando reports Florida is now “the most expensive place to live” in America. It cites a Realtor.com report which also designates Miami as “the least affordable metro in the U.S.”
Republican Ron DeSantis has been governor since 2019. He won by a tiny margin, just 0.4%, which was a mere 32,463 votes.
He has not been governing like someone who was not given a mandate by voters.
In fact, DeSantis has been holding weekly, if not daily press conferences, often with children by his side, to promote whatever the latest Fox News attack on so-called “wokeism” is. DeSantis’ recent targets have been LGBTQ people. “CRT.” And pushing faux “parental rights,” and his new “Don’t Say Gay” law, which he has been using a false anecdotal story to support.
DeSantis just promised a new focus, and it’s not rent control, or doing anything to help middle or lower-income Floridians.
Florida’s culture-crazed governor is now promising to make the Sunshine State a “constitutional-carry” haven.
So-called “constitutional carry” is just permitless open-carry, as Fred Wellman, who lost one of his children at the Parkland, Florida school shooting massacre, said today:
DeSantis is promising that anyone will be able to carry a gun – no permit, license, training, or insurance required.
“I can’t tell you exactly when, but I’m pretty confident that I will be able to sign ‘Constitutional Carry’ into law in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said Friday, The Tampa Bay Times reports. “The Legislature will get it done. I can’t tell you if it’s going to be next week, six months, but I can tell you that before I am done as governor, we will have a signature on that bill.”
Meanwhile, CBS News notes rents “are positively ballooning across Florida, fueled by a surge of people who relocated to the state during the pandemic.”
DeSantis is doing nothing to stop it or to help renters. In fact, Florida “explicitly prohibits rent control, which could put a cap on skyrocketing rents.”
“Many working-class families in South Florida have protested rent hikes that they say could put them on the street,” CBS adds.
29-year old Mike Wootan told CBS his rent is jumping $500 a month, to $3000 in June.
“It feels like a greedy, greedy time,” he says.
“I’m getting to the point where I’m really sick and tired of renting, and it doesn’t feel like a good time [to buy],” he said. “It feels like we’re on the cusp of another bubble that’s going to burst.”
CBS says Florida home prices are “through the roof.”
“Home values in Florida metros have surpassed heights reached during last decade’s housing bubble.”
Expect gun ownership to do the same thing.