- Kim Ulrich's home was destroyed in September when Hurricane Ian devastated Florida.
- She worries she won't be able to find an affordable home in Florida if hers can't be repaired.
In September, Florida housing advocate Kim Ulrich found her circumstances turned upside down: She was the one displaced from her home.
That's because Ulrich, an employee of the nonprofit homeless assistance group Family Promise, is one of the many Floridians whose homes have been damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Ian in September.
"Before I could try to guide people but I too am in the same situation," she told Insider.
For the past two months, the 25 year-old, her husband and dog have been living in one of the organization's properties as they wait for their home to either be repaired or demolished.
"As of right now, our situation is still at the mercy of insurance as we still have not heard back," she said. "We have been unable to start any part of the journey to rebuild."
As Ulrich's temporary stay is extended, she is assessing all of her options — especially whether or not she should purchase a new home.
But with housing inventory levels falling in Florida and demand rising, she is having a difficult time finding a permanent home she can afford.
"There's not a lot of rentals out there,'' she said. "And then if there are rentals, there's no affordability."
"Everything is just kind of uncertain because everyone else in this area is looking, too," she added. "We're kind of at the mercy of everyone else."
Florida's housing market is tight. After years of robust population growth, there are simply not enough homes to meet demand. Conditions continue to worsen as natural disasters destroy its limited supply of existing inventory and builders slow down their production of affordable housing. For a state seeing an influx of about 900 new residents each day, the loss is likely to exacerbate its housing crisis.
That will make it harder for residents like Ulrich, who plans to remain in Florida, to find safe and affordable housing.
"As a lot of our clients are being displaced, I feel like I can empathize with our families more," she told Insider, adding that the difficulty she is facing has "helped her better understand exactly where a lot of these families are coming from when they are displaced or they're losing their rentals."
Florida's housing crisis has been years in the making
Ulrich is from Sarasota County, a Gulf Coast district located in West-Central Florida. Throughout the pandemic, the area has seen a tremendous increase in inbound migration — which has helped make the county one of the most unaffordable in the country.
However, Anne Ray, a researcher with Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida said that while the county experienced some of the state's sharpest price increases over the past two years, its affordability crisis was long in the making.
"What's happening in Florida is similar to what's going on across the country where there's just a shortage of affordable apartments and homes for people who are working lower-middle-wage jobs," she told Insider, adding that the state has had a "decades-long housing affordability problem" that's "not going to go away overnight."
Indeed, data from the University of Florida shows that even prior to the COVID housing boom, the state lacked sufficient housing inventory for low- to moderate-income workers — who make up the largest share of cost-burdened households in Sarasota County.
According to the Shimberg Center, between 2000 and 2019 the county added nearly 13,000 rental units, but lost more than 2,000 priced for $1,000 or less. Ray says the pullback in affordable inventory has exacerbated the crisis, especially as transplants move into the market.
"Florida's population did grow over the past couple of years," she said. "Then of course, there's a reduction to the housing supply because of the recent hurricanes. So all of these things combined to exacerbate a trend that was already going on nationally and particularly in our state."
Although it will be a difficult situation to remedy, she says it's a problem that can be "chipped away at by increasing the supply of affordable housing and assistance."
That's why she believes organizations like Family Promise — which often houses locals who cannot afford housing in churches or their own properties — are so important for Floridians.
"I think we need to increase our efforts through both public and private actions," she said. "To build more starter homes and affordable rental housing developments and to create more supportive housing for people who need both an affordable place to stay and services to help them live safely and independently."
Without Family Promise's help, Ulrich said she and her husband "would have nowhere to go."
"Family Promise was so kind to take us through this program," she said adding that "we as a community are all going through this together. I think my biggest thing is just giving back, that's really the only way anyone's going to get through this."