Miami's Affordable Housing Crunch

Miami has built a number of impressive skyscrapers, but the changing skyline and growing capacity has not translated into a lot of affordable housing. "According to data from the Florida International University Metropolitan Center’s Miami-Dade Prosperity Initiative study, 61 percent of Miami-Dade County renters and 42 percent of homeowners are paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing – making this one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the United States," writes Mandy Bartle. Miami's property market has a number of buyers from within and without the city limits. "Every year, we lose homes that were once affordable to working-class families as they are redeveloped as luxury homes or simply consumed by the surrounding market," Bartle contends.

Bartle's opinion piece argues that nonprofits and government agencies need to make sure they own land so that they can keep it affordable in perpetuity: "The community land trust model preserves permanent affordability by separating the ownership of land from the home that sits on it; the community retains ownership of the land, and homes are sold (or at times rented) to individuals at an affordable price."