Soaring property insurance puts pinch on renters, too

Soaring property insurance puts pinch on renters, too.
By MORGAN C. MOELLER
Published: Jul 2, 2006
SPRING HILL — Doug Hedden has no place to go.
Hedden, 41, is paralyzed from the waste down, he’s not able to work and he receives just over $700 a month from the state to cover all of his living expenses — rent, food and all.
So he’s crossing his fingers that his landlord, Carol Howard, won’t be forced to raise his rent.
“I already can’t afford it now,” Hedden said. “I have to have a roommate… There’s no way I can afford a house, not even a trailer.”
Unfortunately for Hedden, it’s not something that Howard can control. As a result of ever-increasing property insurance rates in Florida, Howard feels almost certain that she will have to raise her tenants’ rates just to break even.
“It’s looking like I am going to have to raise rents upward of 20 percent,” Howard said, although she has not received all of the premiums for her eight rental homes.
And she isn’t the only one.
Don Singer, director of the Hernando County Housing Authority, said that many of the landlords who work with the county’s Section 8 Voucher Program, a federally funded rental assistance program, are being forced to raise their rates.
“We’ve got a number of landlords who participate in that program who are looking to increase their rates dramatically,” Singer said. “…We’re seeing people asking for as high as $100 increase on monthly rent.”
And the county simply can’t approve increases that high even with justification, he said. Typically, they don’t approve increases of more than $25 a month. If things continue on this upward trend, the county won’t be able to help as many families, he said.
This year, the program will be OK. But how it fares in the future is dependant upon how the county is able to “budget out the money and make things work,” Singer said.
Meanwhile, landlords like Howard who are denied the increases will be forced to cancel leases, Howard said.
“I am going to lose money if Section 8 doesn’t change their ways a little bit and kind of give us money in line with the insurance rate increases,” Howard said. “…If Singer and his crew do not give me the increase that I need, then I am going to have to cancel their leases.”
But even residents like Hedden, who are not on the county’s rental assistance program, are being affected by insurance rate hikes.
“There’s a crisis a major crisis,” said Sen. Mike Fasano, a Republican from New Port Richey. “It’s now hitting those who live in condominiums…individuals who rent in apartment complexes are seeing rent go up significantly.”
For Hedden, there is no place else to turn. He knows from past experience.
For nine years Hedden lived in a home that had low, basically fixed, rent. When the owners decided to sell, Hedden figured he wouldn’t have a problem finding another place.
After doing some research, he was shocked.
“When I moved out of there and was trying to find a house it was $600, $700 easy,” he said. “You can’t even rent a trailer for that much now… How am I supposed to live?”
That’s exactly the question he posed to several aid organizations the first time he was forced out of a rental property. The pointed him in the direction of a homeless shelter on U.S. 19.
He tried the Section 8 program then, but was disappointed to find that there was a waiting period of several years, he said.
“What I am supposed to do, live on the streets for two years or four years?” Hedden said.
At that point, Hedden wound up staying with his brother before finding a roommate.
But he already has a roommate this time. And although Howard and Hedden’s family have tried to help, he said they just can’t seem to find an alternative this time around.
So what will he do if the seemingly inevitable rent increase comes?
“I’m gonna have to afford it because I have no place else to go,” Hedden said. “I’m going to live off of $200 a month.”