EVERYTHING community
THE Crisis OF
Affordable Housing
The real estate market in Brevard
County has made and lost fortunes
a million residents, there is not
quite room for everyone to have the
American dream.
Home to renewed growth in industry from giants
such as SpaceX and L3Harris, young professionals
and savvy investors have found a market ripe for
purchase following the real estate bust of the last
decade. But with every boom and bust of the
market, real lives are impacted. Property values
rocket out of reach for
those of median income
hoping to purchase, and
this, in turn, created
a run on the rental
market.
In 2011, Brevard
County was rated one
of the worst in the
country for foreclosures,
with the average home
values dropping 53.4%
since the peak of the
boom. By 2012, the
county was the highest
in foreclosure rate in
the country.
TELLING NUMBERS
The numbers tell the
real story of the area
coded by Housing and
Urban Development for
Palm Bay-Melbourne-
Titusville Fair Market
Rent (FMR). Brevard
County is considered
very high compared to
the national average.
This means that Brevard
is more expensive than
90% of other FMR areas.
When compared to
the rest of Florida, the
Palm Bay-Melbourne-
Titusville FMR area is
more expensive than 67%
of the state.
For fiscal year 2019, a
two-bedroom rental
in Brevard at FMR is
$1,000. In fiscal year
2017, it was only $884.
That’s a 13.1% increase in
just two years. But taking
a closer look at that 2017
number reveals that the
market does not always
follow the FMR. In
fact, in 2017 the Census
ACS survey found that
the average gross rent in
Brevard was $1,056.
To put this in perspective
to income, the FMR
increased $116 for the
same period that the
minimum wage increased
only 36 cents.
WHO IT AFFECTS
Who are the victims of
the affordable housing
crisis? A perfect example
is Latoya, a mother
of three teenagers in
Melbourne with no other
option than to move her
family into a hotel when
her lease was re-written
at time of renewal. Her
rent was raised from
$850 per month to
$1,700 per month.
Latoya works full-time
making $11/hour,
well above minimum
wage, but she faced
homelessness when she
could no longer afford
the hotel. Without other
natural supports, she
made the hard decision
to enter Family Promise
of Brevard, one of the
only emergency shelters
in the county where she
could be sheltered with
Mark Sexton is program services coordinator at Family Promise of Brevard and also
chaired the Brevard Homeless Coalition’s Coordinated Assessment Committee. His early
exposure to the social services community came from employment in direct care and
supervisory positions at Devereux’s residential site in Viera. Mark started with Family
Promise of Brevard in June 2014.
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