FAU Professor’s Research Suggests Strategies to Tackle South Florida’s Affordable Housing Crisis

The results of a study led by Philip Lewin, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Sociology in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, about affordable housing in South Florida have been published by the City of Lake Worth. The study, titled Emergency Housing Study and Policy Response Analysis for the City of Lake Worth Beach, examined the scope, causes and consequences of housing distress across the city; analyzed the impact of recent state legislation on local housing conditions; and proposed policy recommendations to improve housing affordability and distress. Lewin was the principal investigator on the study. Co-investigators were Yanmei Li (FAU Department of Urban and Regional Planning) and Carter Koppelman (FAU Department of Sociology).

The housing affordability crisis in Florida can be traced back to a Census Bureau study conducted in November 2022. The Household Pulse Survey reported that in 2020, 34 percent of South Florida residents feared eviction or foreclosure within 2 months. This was prior to the Covid 19 epidemic, when the housing situation worsened. The Lake Worth Beach Commission declared a state of housing emergency in response to residents’ pleas for help. Then in August 2023 a study done at FAU showed that nine of the most overvalued markets in the country were in Florida.  The situation has continued, making Florida one of the most prominent centers of America’s housing crisis. Lake Worth Beach has been particularly hard hit with rents increasing 53% between 2020 and 2023, adding an average of $7,500 to renters’ annual costs. This has led to people living in their vehicles and in other unsafe conditions.

Lewin reported that there are several causes for these massive increases in housing costs:

• Population growth. The South Florida population has increased considerably over the past 5 years and the newer population has more wealth. The Wall Street South Initiative has encouraged financial services firms to relocate to South Florida, mostly Palm Beach County, leading to a wealthier population. Covid 19 also allowed remote work, encouraging a migration to Florida.
• Real estate speculation. Private equity firms and real estate trusts have increasingly bought out smaller landlords and improved properties. This has led to increased rents.
• Tourist oriented development in South Florida. A lot of the housing in Palm Beach County has been turned into short term rentals through services like Airbnb and VRBO for vacation and seasonal homes. This drastically reduces housing for long-term residents and makes it more expensive.

All of these factors have culminated in the current housing crisis. Lewin also found that many state laws have not helped the situation.  For example, the Live Local Act blocked rent control that could help cities preserve lower rental rates for certain properties. Instead, it allocated $700 million to incentivize new housing production on the free market. Also, the Residential Tendencies Act prohibits local governments from regulating contracts between landlords and tenants (e.g. requiring landlords to give fair notice when raising rents).  Further, the state took away local government authority to limit short term vacation rentals in 2011 and 2019. Finally, the state has blocked inclusionary zoning that stipulates that any new residential development has to contain affordable housing.

“The issue isn't so much that the state laws failed to stimulate construction, it's that the undersupply wasn't the core problem,” said Lewin. “In fact, housing values are now declining across South Florida due to oversupply supply, though they remain unaffordable to most working families.”

Lewin and his colleagues outlined four interrelated strategies that could contribute to a stable, secure, and affordable housing ecosystem in Lake Worth and across South Florida. They are:

• Protect residents from unfair, illegal, and exploitative, and housing market conditions by prohibiting sources of income discrimination (e.g., denying housing to tenants using vouchers or other forms of social assistance) and funding a right to counsel for tenants facing eviction.
• Preserve existing affordable housing to prevent displacement by enforcing the existing prohibition on short-term rentals in Lake Worth Beach; incorporating a no net loss objective into the City’s Housing Element, and implementing a condo conversion ordinance and demolition controls (this would prevent investors or developers from demolishing or converting affordable apartment buildings into higher priced units)
• Produce more housing that accommodates low- and moderate-income households by establishing an Accessory Dwelling Unit program and revising zoning and land development codes to permit more multi-family developments (the current code favors single-family homes, which are pricier to build per unit).
• Provide opportunities for vulnerable populations to participate in planning decisions related to housing through a housing advisory board with renters and social workers participation.

To learn more about Lewin’s study, listen here, or see the entire study.