Miami real estate pros must help food-insecure neighbors | Opinion
As documented in recent issues of the Miami Herald, our city’s real estate market has come roaring back to life after a challenging start to the pandemic.
Much of this success is due to the resilience and flexibility of my industry colleagues, who have pivoted and adapted to these unusual circumstances. We quickly learned how to showcase listings and communicate with clients virtually, just as thousands of home buyers from domestic markets hit hard by the coronavirus, rising costs of living, and reduced tax benefits decided to relocate to South Florida.
In a moment like this, however, it is important to be grateful and have some perspective.
While our real estate community is climbing back, thousands of our neighbors remain rooted in crippling unemployment, impossible financial challenges, and of greatest concern, rising food insecurity. As a result, I ask my real estate colleagues (as well as professionals in industries across the spectrum) to actively seek out opportunities to directly assist with this mounting crisis.
When the pandemic reached South Florida in March and April, I was horrified by the miles-long lines of people awaiting food donations from our local food banks. This inspired me to personally buy groceries for low-income families at my local Presidente Supermarket, and when I shared some photos and video of this on social media, “pay it forward” donations poured in from my friends, family, and even strangers. Thanks to the generosity of Presidente to match my purchases, as well as coverage from local TV news stations, I have been able to donate more and more groceries.
The look on people’s faces — even while masked — when they see a stranger swiping a credit card to pay for their groceries is indescribably gratifying. Sometimes, we will let them know in advance that we will be paying for their groceries, and when they return to the register with just a gallon of milk, we must insist that they go back and find more staples to fill their carts!
Unfortunately, the pandemic hit home for me in June, in ways I never imagined. I personally contracted the virus, as did both of my parents, and my mother was hospitalized for 45 days (30 in ICU). We are incredibly grateful that she survived, and very blessed to have handled all the challenges that the virus has put in front of us.
Too many of our neighbors, however, are not so fortunate.
In addition to the loss of life and added burden to our healthcare systems, the pandemic has closed businesses, taken jobs, and forced thousands into food dependence. Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization, says coronavirus-related economic crises could push the number of food insecure Americans to 54 million by year’s end; an additional 17 million as a result of the pandemic. In 2018, about 319,970 people in Miami-Dade County were considered food insecure, according to Feeding America’s “Map the Meal Gap” interactive study, which resulted in a Food Insecurity rate of 11.8%. According to their 2020 projections, nearly 150,000 more Miamians are expected to become food insecure this year, pushing us to a rate of 17.3%.
(The numbers for local children are even more stark: in 2018, Miami’s Child Food Insecurity rate was 16.2%, the 2020 projections put the rate at an unacceptable 25.9%.) Locally, that translates to one in four children and one in five adults who don’t know from where they will get their next meal.
In a recent edition of the Sun Sentinel, Feeding South Florida CEO Paco Velez said that federal money that has funded hundreds of tractor-trailer truckloads throughout the region will end in October. After that, the organization will have to buy food on its own.
Since April 2020, the pandemic has increased the ranks of low-income Miamians, and hit them the hardest. United Way reports a prolonged crisis like this can be catastrophic for the five out of ten Miami-Dade households either living in, or on the edge of, poverty; 20% of children will continue to go to bed hungry and one in seven seniors will continue to face the impossible choice between housing, food or healthcare.
If there is a silver lining to this situation, it is the abundance of opportunities to support these and other organizations on the front lines of the pandemic. United Way Miami advises us to organize collection drives for our most vulnerable (including the homeless or infants/toddlers served by early Head Start programs, in the form of diapers and formula), and accepts donations to their Pandemic Response Fund at unitedwaymiami.org/covid19. Feeding South Florida accepts donations and offers volunteering information at feedingsouthflorida.org/covid19. (For every one dollar donated, Feeding South Florida can provide nine meals.)
Miami is a tough and resilient city. We have proven this time and time again by overcoming hurricanes, financial downturns, and numerous other challenges. Together, I am confident our real estate and business community can pool our resources in an impactful way to help our embattled neighbors through yet another difficult crisis.
Master Brokers Forum member board member Andres Asion is the founder/broker of the Miami Real Estate Group. He can be reached at (305) 613-3669 and/or andres@andresasion.com
