{"id":281378,"date":"2026-05-22T22:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T22:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281378\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T22:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T22:00:08","slug":"affordable-housing-lost-in-conversation-of-miamis-wealth-boom-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281378\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordable Housing ‘Lost In Conversation’ Of Miami’s Wealth Boom, Officials Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sunshine State has become the safe haven for billionaires fleeing\u00a0from proposed wealth taxes, but as Miami welcomes the influx of the ultra-wealthy\u00a0and their companies<\/a>, current residents are struggling to keep up with rising costs and rents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The population in Miami-Dade County has started to shrink as a result, reinforcing the\u00a0need for the area to\u00a0add more affordable housing if it wants to retain its\u00a0economic progress, developers, Miami-Dade County officials and affordable housing advocates said at Bisnow\u2019s South Florida Affordable Housing Summit on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“For every billionaire that we recruit, it yields the additional need for affordable units, and sometimes that gets lost in conversation,” Florida Housing Finance Corporation Chair Sandra Einhorn said at the event. “We’re so focused on economic development, and we’re so focused on rolling out the red carpet.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Bisnow\/Chloe Gallivan\n <\/p>\n

\n Palantir Technology Inc. and Trinity Investments are among headquarters relocations to Miami since the beginning of 2026.\n <\/p>\n

Both\u00a0founders of Google, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Palantir founder Peter Thiel and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have all bought houses in the first few months of 2026 amid proposed\u00a0wealth\u00a0taxes in California<\/a>\u00a0and Washington state and a pied-\u00e0-terre tax<\/a> on second luxury homes in New York.<\/p>\n

Beyond the 0.01%, Miami’s millionaire population grew\u00a094% between 2014 and 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Henley & Partners<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Miami-Dade County lost more than 10,000 residents between 2024 and 2025, putting it among the top three counties in the nation with the largest population declines, according to the U.S. Census Bureau<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wasn’t the first year that we’ve seen that we have this danger,\u201d Miami Homes For All Executive Director Annie Lord said onstage at Gale Miami Hotel and Residences in Downtown Miami.<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Bisnow\/Chloe Gallivan\n <\/p>\n

\n Falcone Group\u2019s Alfonso Costa Jr., Next Development Group\u2019s Jennifer Sanz, Leverage Live Local\u2019s Daniel Lopez, Miami Homes For All\u2019s Annie Lord, Florida Housing Finance Corporation\u2019s Sandra Veszi Einhorn and Miami-Dade County Housing & Community Development\u2019s Nathan Kogon\n <\/p>\n

Miami-Dade County is facing an affordable housing deficit of more than 90,000 units for residents earning less than 80% of the area median income, or about $75K annually, according to a 2025 report by Miami Homes For All<\/a>. Miami residents\u00a0spend nearly 34% of their income on rent, making it the least affordable city across 182 markets\u00a0ranked in an April report by WalletHub<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even with oversupply in multifamily causing<\/a>\u00a0market rents to soften and leasing activity to slow, rents have still increased by 40% over the last four years alone,\u00a0according to the Consumer Price Index<\/a>. The average price per month for a one-bedroom unit is $2,580, according to an April Zumper report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“That’s way out of the range of a lot of folks,” Swerdlow Group<\/a>\u00a0Chief Strategy Officer Michael Liu<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Liu called on executives at the companies growing their businesses in Miami to do more to bring down the cost of housing. Swerdlow is building\u00a0a 5,703-unit mixed-use development in Little River,\u00a0with more than 2,200 of the apartments restricted to those making up to 60% of the area median income.<\/p>\n

“I’ll give credit: There are some employers that are trying,” he said. “Unfortunately, they’re not the big people.”<\/p>\n

Citadel<\/a>, a hedge fund led by billionaire Ken Griffin<\/a>, has already\u00a0brought to Miami or hired 400 employees<\/a> in\u00a0the city while it prepares to\u00a0build its 1.3M SF headquarters<\/a> in Downtown Miami.\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0opened\u00a0a 76K SF office<\/a>\u00a0in Wynwood last year, while Apple\u00a0moved into 42K SF<\/a>\u00a0in Coral Gables.<\/p>\n

“If they want to do something to help them get the jobs, or get those at the lower level to get the jobs, come up with some money to help these folks pay the rent,” said Liu, who was the director of the Housing Department in Miami-Dade County for 10 years before joining Swerdlow.<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Bisnow\/Chloe Gallivan\n <\/p>\n

\n Groom Construction\u2019s Dave Groom, Swerdlow Group\u2019s Michael Liu, Pinnacle\u2019s Hugo Pacanins, Beacon Hill Development Group\u2019s Matthew Martinez and Name Development\u2019s Dennis Quolke\n <\/p>\n

The most notable measure the state has made to combat the affordable housing crisis is\u00a0implementing the\u00a0Live Local Act<\/a>, which\u00a0gives developers tax breaks and the ability to override local zoning rules as long as they dedicate at least 40% of their project to units affordable to those making 120% of the AMI.<\/p>\n

But developers have\u00a0questioned the law’s ability<\/a> to get at the core of\u00a0affordable housing because the\u00a0shortage\u00a0is\u00a0more critical for those making below 100% of\u00a0 AMI.<\/p>\n

Between now and 2030, 70% of the jobs created in Miami-Dade County will pay less than $20 an hour, or about $40K a year, which is about 50% of the AMI, Lord said.<\/p>\n

“People come to paradise, not for the billionaires,” Einhorn said. “People come to paradise for the workers that we are losing.”<\/p>\n

“I think that it’s important, not as an afterthought, not as a check-the-box, but for developers to truly look around at the community that they’re looking to develop in and embrace that neighborhood, embrace that community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sunshine State has become the safe haven for billionaires fleeing\u00a0from proposed wealth taxes, but as Miami welcomes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[802,17473,123,125,119889,124,119888,108797],"class_list":["post-281378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-ken-griffin","tag-live-local-act","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-homes-for-all","tag-miami-news","tag-michael-liu","tag-swerdlow-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}