Miami Rent is TOO High: 10 Ways We Can Fix it Right Now

Trenise Bryant speaking at an event about the Housing Crisis in Miami

by: Trenise Bryant, Chair of the MWC Board

Miami seems to be stuck in a nightmare of its own making. This repeated bad dream features all 2.7 million of Miami-Dade’s residents reliving the same news article, story, blog post and report about surviving in the country’s most unaffordable city — and we will keep reliving this same nightmarish day until we start taking the problem seriously. We need to mobilize our time, energy and resources towards a solution.

In Florida’s 2019 Legislative Session, legislators directly attacked access to affordable housing. HB 7103 will make it harder for people like me and others to find an affordable place to live and raise our kids because now developers will have little incentive to create it.

Thankfully, the women and femmes of Miami are on the case. 72% of single-parent households in Miami are femme-led and they are leading them with wages that are 16% lower than men’s. Needless to say, they don’t have time for any more of the usual BS. Here are 10 proven solutions generated by local femmes of color, that we could start implementing right now:

1. Community Land Trusts (CLTs): A non-profit in which the neighborhood elects the board and it owns land for the community’s benefit. CLTs can be used to create clinics, businesses and gardens, but most are used to create permanent affordable housing available for low-income buyers.
2. Tenant Unions: A union of renters, usually organized to address challenges in their building like high rent, lack of maintenance or landlord abuse.
3. Rent Control: Government mandated price controls of the rent in certain areas to benefit low-income renters. This is the most effective and impactful policy for creating the most widespread affordable housing.
4. Single Room Occupancy Units: Similar to boarding houses, except they are being used by long-term tenants. These are very convenient for students, single individuals and the formerly homeless.
5. Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives: Residents of limited equity housing cooperatives are shareholders; instead of a housing unit, buyers purchase a share of stock in the cooperative, which entitles them to occupy one housing unit, at a much lower price. Limits on the resale price of the cooperative shares ensure affordability. The National Association of Housing Cooperatives estimates the number of limited- or zero-equity cooperative units at 425,000.
6. Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning: A government policy that mandates developers to include a certain percentage of affordable units in their otherwise market-rate multi-family housing projects.
7. Transit Oriented Development: Miami is the most expensive city in America when housing and transit costs are combined. Building closer to major public transit corridors minimizes the need for parking, thus increasing the amount of housing that can be built.
8. Renters Bill of Rights: Renters can be evicted for any reason whatsoever, and have their rent raised with little notice. A Renter’s Bill of Rights at the state level can protect renters from these abuses.
9. Accessory Dwelling Units: Also known as “Granny Flats”, this is a great way for homeowners to earn extra income, and provide additional affordable housing units to the community. Zoning laws would need to be adjusted for this policy.
10. Affordable Housing Innovation District: The cost to build housing in Florida is very high, starting at about $120 per sq ft on the low end, and the sky’s the limit from there. There are places in Asia and South America experimenting with 3D printing that can bring the cost down to as little as $4 per sq ft. Those technologies need to be prototyped and approved by the Florida Building Code before they can be domesticated. Having a district for construction experimentation would accelerate that process. And whatever is produced should be legally restricted for affordable housing use only.

We need housing desperately. It is no secret that we are in a housing crisis here in the state of Florida. This crisis is having an even greater impact on gentrified neighborhoods like Liberty City, Overtown, and Little Haiti, where big developments are forcing longtime residents to leave behind their homes.

Community control is key. Communities should be intimately involved in the discussion of any solution proposed for their neighborhood, and ideally, they should be leading that conversation, specifically the femmes. Because, it has been proven many times in many places, when you empower men, you only empower men. When you empower the femmes of the community, you are empowering entire families.

If you are interested in learning more about these and other solutions, or if you would like to get involved in their implementation, please visit www.miamiworkerscenter.org.