Palm Beach County housing squeezes young adults

The COVID pandemic has fueled a historic migration of wealth to Palm Beach County. This influx of money is transforming our area’s style, landscape and fortunes, with some communities increasingly resembling the city of Palm Beach. Migration will bring changes and challenges. This is part one of a multi-part Palm Beach Post series titled The Palm Beaching Project. Go here for more stories in the series.

Growing up in Palm Beach Gardens, Jilian Munguia envisioned making a life in her hometown near her parents, sisters and high school friends.

She gave it a try when she moved out of her family home in her 20s, living in apartments with roommates and her boyfriend while working full-time as a hairdresser.

But it has become more difficult every year as rents have skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was hard,” she recalled. “We’ve watched everything go up in price over the time we’ve lived there, so we’ve always been a little bit in suspense.”

This year, the rising costs have become too much. In April, Munguia, now 23, and her boyfriend packed up and moved to Pompano Beach to live with her boyfriend’s parents.

They save money on rent, but at a high cost. Munguia was forced to quit her job as a hairdresser and spent months looking for a new job.

“I moved here and then I lost all my clients doing that,” she said.

Munguia is one of thousands of young adults who don’t live in the parts of Palm Beach County where they grew up. As housing shortages and an influx of transplants drive up rents and home values, many now face difficult choices about where and how to make their lives.

“In this area, I don’t know anyone who lives on their own,” Munguia said. “It’s just impossible.”

The COVID pandemic has fueled a historic migration of wealth to Palm Beach County. This influx of money is transforming the style, landscape and fortunes of our area, with some communities increasingly resembling the city of Palm Beach. Migration will bring changes and challenges. This is part one of a multi-part Palm Beach Post series titled The Palm Beaching Project. Go here for more stories in the series.

Across the county, communities that were once reliable bastions for working-class young adults have become unaffordable for many.

“Rents have gone up so much it’s just ridiculous,” said Patricia Fitzpatrick, a realtor with Illustrated Properties and past president of the Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County. “Places that used to cost $1,200 a month are now $2,500.”

The changes affect people up and down the income scale. Along with inflation and high interest rates, even many upper-middle-class families who once would have set their sights on the Palm Beaches are instead flocking to exurban communities in neighboring counties.

“I have people looking in the Jupiter or Gardens area, but what I’m finding is you get more for your money in Stuart or Palm City,” said Kim Hoss, a realtor in the Jupiter office of Illustrated Properties.

The growing unaffordability has been coupled with what housing advocates call too little affordable housing construction. With so much new housing geared toward higher-income earners, housing experts say more needs to be built for low-income and working-class residents.

In 2022, county voters approved a $200 million program to encourage more affordable housing. The county government’s program aims to trigger the construction of up to 20,000 affordable apartments and houses over the next decade, using public loans to offset the profits developers lose through price cuts.

But in May, county commissioners expressed disappointment with plans to use the money so far, which called for more than half of it to be invested in a series of projects that would have produced just 1,100 affordable housing units. reduced.

After criticism from commissioners, county government officials agreed to come back with another plan.

Despite this, some housing for low- and middle-income residents is coming online.

Data compiled by the housing board shows 884 housing units designated as workforce or affordable housing were completed in 2023 across the county, while another 639 are under construction and 1,500 are in the planning stages.

Experts say, however, that tens of thousands of new units are needed.

Other efforts are in the works. The housing board is working with local city officials to review zoning and permitting rules for ways to speed up construction, make it less expensive and encourage more affordable units, said Suzanne Cabrera, president of the housing board.

West Palm Beach, for example, is giving developers permission to build more units on their vacant lots in exchange for lower-rent apartments, while Riviera Beach is revising its zoning and permitting rules for ways to streamline housing projects us, she said.

“That’s how we’re going to make units more affordable and bring them to the areas we need,” Cabrera said.

But these are longer-term strategies that don’t do much to help people who are now looking for more housing options. While rents have largely stopped the dramatic peaks of 2020 and 2021, there is little sign of relief in the near future.

“Rents don’t usually go down,” Cabrera said, “but we don’t see those thousand-dollar increases anymore.”

For Munguia, the future is less certain. She and her boyfriend hope to move back to the Palm Beach Gardens area within a year after saving enough money to get a head start.

Then, she hopes, she can resume her hairdressing career.

“I feel like everyone in my generation is struggling,” she said.

More about Palm Beaching and the growth of Palm Beach County

Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Contact him at [email protected].

Palm Beach County housing squeezes young adults

More about Palm Beaching and the growth of Palm Beach County

By Matthew. Jr

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Palm Beach County housing squeezes young adults

More about Palm Beaching and the growth of Palm Beach County

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