Tania Fulmore, her teenage daughter, and her dog live in their car in Naples. Dezarae Napier, her husband, and four children just learned their landlord is selling the house they are renting in Lehigh Acres. They have to leave immediately, and finding an affordable place to rent is almost impossible. These are the faces of our community’s homeless and almost-homeless families.
Napier and her husband have good middle-class jobs. They have been responsible providers for their family of four children, ages 2-14. Now they are one of hundreds of local families struggling to find a place to live. Their landlord, taking advantage of high selling prices, put the house on the market. Napier had been paying $1,300 a month for the four-bedroom home in Lehigh Acres. Even when she worked in Naples, she lived in Lehigh as it was more affordable, but now, nothing there is less than $2,200 a month.
“I am finding nothing,” Napier said. “Rents that were $1,300 a year ago are $2,400 now, and people that are normal middle class can’t pay that much rent. It’s hard.”
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says renters should not pay more than 30% of their income on housing. Napier said with today’s prices it would be more than 50% for her family. Making it even harder are the application fees that she says are at least $60 per person. They already have applied to eight places, spending more than $1,000 for residences that they might not even get.
“You can’t have an average job anymore,” Napier said. “You have to make more money. I don’t know how people are going to continue to pay these prices.”
It’s even more difficult for Fulmore. When she lost her housing in Naples in September, she and her daughter moved into her car. She had been working full time at Walmart, but recently had to quit her job because she didn’t think it was safe to leave her daughter alone in a car while she worked.
“I have been dying to go back to work, but how can I go back to work without a house?” Fulmore questioned. “My daughter; her heart is broken. There are so many problems.”
It’s not fair
Fulmore says it’s not fair that good, working people can’t afford a place to live. “I don’t take drugs. I don’t drink alcohol,” she stressed. “Why can’t people get the help they need?”
Fulmore says she has been to churches and government agencies, but hasn’t received any help.
“I have been trying so hard,” Fulmore said as a few tears leaked from her brown eyes. “Sometimes I break down, but not in front of [my daughter] because I want her to be strong. It’s been a really hard journey. It scares me; the experience just scares me.”
Government officials and nonprofit experts are unable to offer many solutions. Angela Edison, director of housing for the Collier County Housing Authority, says the waiting list for Section 8 housing is closed because there are more than 1,000 people already on the list, and those on it can expect a wait of at least five years. Collier County recently received 78 extra emergency vouchers, but even those lucky enough to get one still aren’t finding a place to live. Landlords have raised the rents so high that the vouchers are not enough.
“The landlords have increased their rent so drastically so it has made it almost impossible to find a place,” Edison explained.
That’s what happened to Fulmore’s grown son and infant daughter. They got a voucher from Collier County and spent five months unsuccessfully looking for a place to use it, before finally giving up and moving to Texas, where housing is cheaper.
“People are making those major decisions because they have to survive,” Edison said. “It is unfortunate. It is sad that we are displacing people who have lived here all their lives.”
Edison’s only advice is be persistent. “I tell them it is the luck of the draw,” she said. “People call and are told there is a waiting list, but call again tomorrow and they might suddenly have an opening.”
She also advised people to expand their housing searches to Lee County where prices are a little lower.
“It is a tough, tough time,” Edison concluded. “We just try to encourage them as much as we can.”
Priced out of the market
Lois Healy, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Affordable Homeownership Foundation Inc., which serves Southwest Florida, says one of the biggest problems is landlords selling the rentals to make a profit in this high-priced market.
“They don’t even try to work something out with the renter; they just file an eviction,” she said. “If they get an eviction notice, it goes on their record, and they can’t get another place to rent.” Healy noted that even people with leases who pay their rent on time can be kicked out if the owner wants to sell.
There are a few things AHF is able to do to assist those struggling to afford housing, such as providing vouchers for moving expenses and grants for training for higher paying jobs, and helping people prepare an emergency budget.
“But helping them find housing is the issue,” Healy said. “Moving out of state might be the only answer, but a lot of families don’t want to do that. We have families living in their cars and vans all the time, and they are without options. They all have jobs, but they can’t afford to live here.”
Mary Cassidy, a longtime Realtor with The Cassidy Team, part of Domain Realty in Bonita Springs, is seeing the trends in the industry that are creating this situation. She said the last few sales in Bonita Shores in northern Collier County were to investors who turned those homes into Airbnbs. Instead of remaining affordable rentals, the houses became expensive holiday spots. In Collier County, the cheapest rent she found for a two bedroom, two bathroom was $2,000.
“There is nothing under $2,000 and you would be lucky to find that,” she added. “It’s more likely to be $2,500 or $2,900.” In Naples Park, which historically has been one of the more affordable family neighborhoods, Cassidy said the cheapest rental on the market is a two bedroom listing for $2,500 a month. In the traditionally working class Naples Twin Lakes community, the least expensive was $2,700.
“I feel bad for people,” Cassidy said. “They are priced out of the market. It’s unbelievable. I have never seen anything like it.”
Cassidy’s advice is look outside the listings.
“Just ask everybody you know and drive the streets, because sometimes there is just a sign in the yard,” she advised. “The rental market is so tight. I see lots of people moving back with their parents because they have to. You have to feel sorry for those people.”
Searching for solutions
Collier County Commissioner Andy Solis is trying to find solutions, but most of them will take years to be a reality.
“This is a huge problem, and it has a huge potential for having a huge impact on our economy,” Solis began.
He said the county recently approved two projects with affordable units in North Naples.
“We have done the best we can requiring developers that want to build apartments to put in as many affordable units as they can,” he said. “The bulk of the problem is that land has become so expensive in Collier County it becomes unaffordable once they build the building.”
Solis also is looking at using some county-owned property to build affordable housing. But all that takes time to develop and build, and the dire need is now.
“We are doing things, but the problem is increasing at such a fast rate that it is just a drop in the bucket,” Solis admitted. “We really need to do more. [The] commissioners understand how serious a problem this is, and we are doing everything we can to try to come up with ways to address it. We are doing our best with the limited resources. I wish there was more we could do right now. It is heartbreaking. It’s a real crisis.”
Teri Lamaine, executive director of the Bonita Springs Assistance Office, feels the frustration.
“Nine out of 10 phone calls yesterday and today were: ‘I don’t know where to live. I am working, and I don’t know where to live.’ Even Cape Coral and Lehigh are getting too expensive,” she said. “People working here making $17 an hour can’t afford to live here.”
All she can do is refer them to the housing coalitions. Her organization also has paid for one-way bus tickets for people to move to North Carolina and Georgia.
“It just breaks my heart,” Lamaine said. “Every weekend more people are living in their cars in the parking lot at Walmart. It is beyond bad. I don’t know what we are going to do. It’s just a very sad, sad situation.”
Hemi Kafle, the McKinney-Vento district liaison for Homeless Education and Foster Care for Collier County Public Schools, works to help the children victims of homelessness the best he can. Right now there are 858 students in the district identified as homeless, though that includes children living with relatives and friends. Kafle said he can help families keep their children in the school they attended prior to homelessness and assist families in enrolling their children in school even if they don’t have proof of an address. Kafle refers families to homeless shelters such as St. Matthew’s House or Providence House.
“I look at the whole family component,” he explained. “We provide essentials: laptops, shampoo, [as well as] anything the student needs to do well in school, [such as] tutoring, uniforms, internet hot spots.”
What he can’t do is find a solution to their housing crisis.
“The number increases every day,” he said. “We don’t have housing. There is no room at the hotels. The housing shelters are full. They are basically going to Lee County. They are sharing housing, doubling up. Our society has normalized the idea that that is how things are. Families living crowded together – that is normalizing how people are living.”
Fulmore says there is nothing normal about living in her car with her daughter. She spends her days looking for that impossible affordable place to stay.
“There are no places in Naples. It is so difficult,” she said.
It’s also a vicious cycle. She can’t work and leave her daughter alone in the car. But she can’t earn money to rent a place without work.
“That’s why so many people stayed homeless, because they can’t get themselves back up,” Fulmore said. “It’s a tough situation, but I pray that something will happen. We will get through it.”