EMAIL TO THE EDITOR
The Housing Crisis
A few weeks ago, I commented to a post on Facebook from a story in The Blue Paper on the housing crisis in Key West. Kenne` asked me for permission to use it, and of course, I agreed. I’m sorry he didn’t just cut and paste it then, because by the time I realized he hadn’t, I was unable to locate the post again, so I’ll wing it here and try to explain why I responded to the post.
As most of you know I was a fixture on the island for several years, covering the city commission meetings, fundraising for MCC, Sister Season, and other great charities, loving everything and everyone I came to know on that beautiful island I will always call home. One of my greatest joys was to hop on my bright red trike and ride around the island, through the cemetery and just everywhere I wanted and needed to be, with a good feeling that I was reducing my carbon footprint by leaving my car parked unless I left the island to visit my family or attend to other matters.
One early morning at 1:30, while still living on Petronia between Whitehead and Duval, across from Sir Peter Anderson’s Conch Republic office, I was working on one of my books in the computer when I heard what sounded like teenaged boys laughing across the street. Within moments I opened my door to make sure they weren’t trying to get my bike chain unlocked, but there was no trike, no chain, and no evidence it had ever been there. By the time the police came and scoured the neighborhood to try to spot them, there was no sign of them or the trike.
About two weeks later, I had a knock at the door and when I opened it to a neighbor, Rick, I saw that he was standing next to a black trike. He smiled and told me it was a donation from VFW Post 3900, of which he was a member. I was humbled by their generosity. They’d fixed up the used trike, put new tires on it and it was good as new. I used it for months until I went back to West Palm for diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. When I returned, it was still there, but damaged beyond repair from vandals trashing it when they could not get the lock opened.
On my 70th birthday, and my one-year anniversary as a breast cancer survivor, Joey closed my ‘Cheers’, Bootleggers bar, across the street from me, for a private birthday party. It was packed with friends from the gay community, MCC and UU, Tom, who was always my cheerleader since we met at the city commission meetings, and even cops on the beat and Clayton and a few other city commissioners came to celebrate with me off and on throughout that unforgettable night. Porsche and Chuck donated their time entertaining us in their usual great style, plus they and the bartenders donated all their tips to breast cancer research in my name.
Upon learning that the little Petronia Street condo had sold out from under me and I was going to have to leave the island, another great friend, whom you all know and love, Neil, called me to say I couldn’t leave the island and he was going to help me get into another place, which he did, in addition to buying me another new trike!
How could I not love the island after all that generosity by folks I’d only known for a few years up to that time? So I stayed, found another place on Watson, surrounded by friends, Steve, Robert and Nate, also from MCC, and Steve affectionately called the four of us “Church Lady.” It wasn’t as quiet as Petronia after 11, because so many inebriated folks coming from Dons’ Bar on Truman parked close to my place and didn’t tone down their talking – and fighting – but it was home for the next four years, until after I’d started having serious oral surgery to rebuild my maxilla because of bone loss, requiring several operations over the next two years. Because of the disrepair of that second floor apartment, I fell twice on the slanted stairs the slumlord never got around to fixing, and, thankfully, protected my face from injury both times. During that time, Tom had been mugged and severely beaten by four teenage local thugs, and required jaw surgery from another oral surgeon in the same building as mine, to repair the damage, so we drove back and forth to Miami together for the next year.
Those 200 mile round trips, even with Tom’s paying for two rooms in Homestead for several overnight stays, took their toll on me, and the Watson rent, being $250 more than on Petronia, had been reducing the quality of my life greatly, so with a mixture of trepidation and sadness, I had to made a decision to move back to West Palm. At least, I would be near my daughters and granddaughters, something I’d missed all those years since retiring. Nine months later, the joy of my life, my great-granddaughter, was born, whom I’ve had the privilege of caring for from the time she was three weeks old. I only have her sporadically now that she’s a 3 and a half year old delightful, loving, intelligent and precocious toddler, but we totally enjoy being together when we can.
So I can’t say the quality of my life has not improved since I left the island, as it certainly has. I’ve lived in a lovely 2/2 apartment with all the amenities I need, since I made the move. This has meant a $300 decrease in my rent, and although I don’t see them as often as I’d like because of work/college/university schedules, I am a stone’s throw from my family now and I love that.
I also can’t say I don’t miss my island home, because I do. I remember a plaque at one of the post office windows that displayed a quote from Ernest Hemingway, stated the year I was born, 1937, that went something like this: “They are trying to make this island a rich man’s paradise, tearing down these old wooden shacks and pricing out the poor and middle class who made this place what it is, and that just isn’t right.”
How prescient of Hemingway. Every year his forewarning is coming closer to reality. At the time several of us were commenting on the housing crisis thread on FB, Ian made the statement that there were 20 people who are leaving within the next six months. Yes, 20! Even though I had to make the decision to leave, I always thought all my friends would still be there each time I returned. Sadly, this is not to be, as more are leaving all the time, and others are trying to get themselves emotionally prepared to leave, because they are being priced out of a good quality of life, just as I was.
I don’t know the answer to the dilemma all of you who are still there are facing, but I hope and I pray that before Key West loses all of you who have made it so special all these decades, something will be done about rent control or the Key West we’ve all known and loved will be no longer. When I made that statement on Facebook, some said no, we live under capitalism and landlords can charge whatever they want for their own property. This is also true.
One landlord on the island, of his own volition, made the decision to keep the rent low enough in his quality garden apartment that the lowest paid worker on the island could afford to live decently. If Brooke can do it, so can others, and that, my friends, probably is going to be the only answer to the housing crisis on my wonderful island home.
Peace and love!
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