Lael Licht | Earth and Environment Lab Technician
On October 9th, hurricane Milton blew through central Florida, narrowly missing Miami and FIU. This time around, we got lucky: The storm surges weren’t as bad as predicted, but winds, rain, flooding, and unexpected tornadoes in South Florida contributed to catastrophic property damage and resulted in at least 23 deaths. The overall devastating effects of Florida’s hurricanes, like Milton, show us how the climate crisis will drastically exacerbate the housing crisis, especially for working-class people.
Recently, hurricanes in Florida have contributed to increasing housing prices, causing long-lasting demographic shifts towards wealthier groups. As climate disasters become more frequent, this phenomenon may impact the housing market surrounding FIU, increasing off-campus housing prices.
Hurricanes impact on-campus housing too. During Irma, Bayview at BBC suffered from extensive water damage and mandatory evacuations. According to students, FIU housing was surprisingly secretive about the extent of the damage.
Unfortunately, hurricanes will only become more extreme as the ongoing climate crisis tightens its grip. Milton’s offshore intensity was exacerbated by record-high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, a trend which will only worsen as warming trends escalate.
FIU is not off the hook for its role in the climate crisis, as evidenced by its financial ties with fossil fuel companies like Chevron. Chevron’s scholarships, panels, and seminars at FIU allow this corporation to pipeline students directly into their fossil-fuel-based industries. Additionally, FIU’s ties with Boeing and Lockheed Martin, both of which are involved in international weapons exchange and Palestinian genocide, provide further support for polluting industries. Lockheed Martin is the US Department of Defense’s largest weapons contractor, which, in turn, is our planet’s biggest fossil fuel consumer. If FIU really cared about the impacts of the climate crisis on their student body’s housing, they would divest from these fuel-hungry corporations.
But FIU’s students are pushing back. Panthers Unite for Student Housing (PUSH), pioneered by the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) at FIU, aims to address FIU’s climate-related housing crisis. Under their demand for improved housing quality, PUSH advocates for readily available emergency housing and consistent inspections, including hurricane safety, mold, and water damage check-ups. Additionally, the PUSH campaign will pressure FIU’s administration to bring off-campus housing with financial ties to FIU (e.g. the One) under university control, protecting off-campus students from the rental increases expected because of hurricane-related price hikes. Through these efforts, PUSH engages FIU’s working-class students to fight for housing rights.
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