Affordable Housing vs. Global Warming

8/14/2019 Affordable Housing vs. Global Warming

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Affordable Housing vs. Global Warming

2009 September 19

tags: Affordable Housing, Climate Change, Economy, Global Warming, Government, Housing

Policy, Obama Administration, Politics, Public Issues, Questions, Rising Sea Levels, Sea Levels,

The Little Guy, Workforce Housing

An excerpt from SharedEmergency.wordpress.com. The full post features 3 compelling videos.

by Mitch Chester

[email protected]

The year is 2035. It is clear that the steps taken to reduce global warning at the summit in

Copenhagen in December, 2009 were not nearly enough. Miami Beach is covered with a foot of water. Miami and Fort Lauderdale have suffered the fate of the Maldives Islands, as much

of the cities are submerged. The story is the same in the Florida Keys, which were largely

evacuated years ago. The predictable environmental disaster of high waters is now of age, and counties adjacent to the expanding Atlantic Ocean have lost billions in tax revenue. Places to

live had just disappeared, and once proud condominiums stand as silent monolithic memorials

to improper land use planning and the environmental disregard of past eras.

Hundreds of thousands of environmental refugees have been displaced by waves, sand , fish,

and massive pollution and have moved inland. Areas to the west of the waterways, once considered “blighted” and “undesirable” are now the home towns of those who wanted to,

but now cannot, live on the once glamorous barrier islands.

Room for lower income housing has been squeezed to the max, and affordable housing itself

has been displaced, and along with it, the millions of lower and middle income workers who service our shops, restaurants, hospitals, governments and corporations. It seems as if in only

a few short years, affordable housing has become yet another casualty of climate

change. Those that cannot afford to live in affluent areas now live distressingly far from their places of work. It is now common place to travel 75 to 100 miles a day, one way, just to get to

work in South Florida to earn a living.



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Municipal, County and State leaders engaged in political gridlock a mere 26 years ago simplywere unable to formulate strategies to achieve meaningful responses to rising sea levels. The

largely irrelevant debate about the cause of higher sea levels (man-made or natural causes)

has long resolved…it was both. As populations shifted to the now shrunken Florida peninsula, those that were born in 2009 look back, with the curiosity of 26 year olds, and ask, why was

there so little planning when they were children. Why, they ask, did it fall upon their generation to deal with the problem of global warming refugees in a state which continues to

diminish, mile by mile?

With all the discussion about the effects of global warming, careful scrutiny must be

focused in 2009 on the need to provide affordable housing in coastal areas likely to be

impacted by rising sea levels. We need strategies designed to cope with the new reality that

the sea is going to encroach upon our municipal domains. Already, in Fort Lauderdale,

during the week of September 13, 2009, all one had to do is step out on the soggy commons of

Gateway Terrace, along the Intracoastal Waterway, to see high tide waters foretelling a future of

submersion. Another few inches at high tide and much of Downtown Fort Lauderdale will

experience flooding along the intrusive New River. Responsible thinkers in the Keys are thinkingabout their tiny islands and survival as those low lying areas, like those in the Pacific, face

the prospect of flooding and eventual burial at sea.

It is not too soon to think about moving those who live along the intracostal region to inland

areas in future years, the resultant loss of property tax revenues, and the relocation of, well,

literally, millions of once comfortable, and dry, residents.

If we are not careful, one of the great casualties of climate change will be affordable

housing opportunities and communities. Global warming threatens not just our weather,

but it threatens our local real estate and business economies, as well as our future housing

options. Unless we are careful today, one can foresee the day when affordable but economicallydefenseless communities are uprooted to make room for those who can no longer live on

threatened coastal areas. Already we have seen the displacement of thousands of mobile home

residents in Broward County, Florida so that new developments can be created. The motive thus

far has been purely economic…the goal in the future will be the very survival of counties…to

find new homes for those displaced by the growing sea. Despite the fact that the law of Florida

requires comprehensive plans that provide “housing elements” for existing communities, present

laws have been insufficient to follow the established public policy of providing affordable

housing opportunities. Such statutes will be under greater stress as the impact of sea level rise

becomes manifest and society grapples with what to do.

The problem is not limited to Florida, nor is rising salt water levels the only antagonistic and

threatening element of global warming. The conflict between the need to adapt to the effects of

climate change but still allow our communities to thrive (by providing affordable housing for

those that oil the engine of our economy) is real, and is just beginning, all across America, from

Hawaii to California, to the Gulf Coast and the Northeast. If affordable housing is not

protected in governmental decisions to adapt to environmental threats, the fabric of our

communities will become increasingly frail.





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Affordable Housing vs. Global Warming