Key West legend Virginia Panico was the guest speaker at the Key West Association of REALTORS membership luncheon today and she gave a great presentation covering highlights from her career, the origins of Conch Republic Days, and the importance of homeownership in our community. Here is an excerpt from her comments: (Photo KWAR President Will Langley and Chamber of Commerce Vice President Virginia Panico) .
"One of the ongoing issues in the Florida Keys and Key West is homeownership.
The importance of homeownership in our community is imperative for the fabric of our community. As you all know, from Big Pine Key down to Key West is where a lot of our working community lives. I call it the burbs, and in Big Pine Key is where we lost a lot of homes in our last Tropical Occurrence, Irma. Our working folks live there, the families we depend on in our workforce. As they say, homeownership is the American dream, here in the Lower Keys and Key West it’s the impossible dream for a lot of families. They, in turn, leave the Keys for homeownership further north.
It’s important for us to re-invest in our community because it is both our home and our product. We need people to want to come live, work, and play here. The Florida Keys welcomed over five million visitors last year. According to a Rockport Analytics study in 2019, those five million visitors supported over 26,500 jobs resulting in $943 million in wages and proprietor income throughout the Florida Keys. The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics reports Key West unemployment at 2.1% for the last two months, and as little as three months ago that number was under 2%. To put that number in perspective, that is less than 400 people a month claiming to be unemployed out of a workforce of over 15,000 people.
For most businesses in Key West, whether hotels, restaurants, attractions, CPA’s, retailers, whatever the case may be, everyone is running short-staffed. Haven’t you noticed you’re waiting in longer in lines? This issue of the workforce will not be getting better even though there are more workforce housing projects in some phase of development in the Lower Keys and Key West area right now than there has been in a long time. The workforce housing crisis is nothing new to Key West, I campaigned on affordable housing in 1987 and everyone else has since. With only 3,581 homestead exempt properties in Key West and only 16,107 throughout all of Monroe County, there is mounting evidence that more and more homes are being purchased for the purpose of being a second and in some cases a family’s third home. There are some who suspect that the same property is also an illegal vacation rental in between that family’s Key West retreats. As more domiciles become part-time living quarters, the amount of space available for the people who keep the city and county running every day dwindles. It’s the challenge we face, and it is one that often leaves us with more questions than answers." ... See more
