Tioga Herald

Dear New York Times Editors:

It’s clear that housing costs have gone up tremendously, especially in Florida. A recent Sixty Minutes report identified astronomical cost increases in Florida housing. A specific company was mentioned which sounds like the creation of Slum Lord USA, Inc. Based in Canada, one can understand why the company has such investors to come to the USA and buy up housing in Florida when the Canadians pay one-quarter the cost Americans pay for healthcare. We pay to stay alive and don’t have any money left over for LONG TERM mortgages for Americans to make money after 30 years of investment.  We pay for Medicare and health insurance here to such an astronomical cost that we cannot afford increases in housing values upwards of 50% to 1005 or more. Those in Florida pay astronomical increases for premiums in homeowners’ insurance, too.  No money left over to buy homes, so house flippers have a field day, including a company from Canada.

With this being said, what about mobile home lot rent values in Florida? We learned in your newspaper that new investors are buying mobile home parks, particularly in Florida, and increasing lot rents by some 50%. Gosh, we purchased a mobile home near Melbourne, FL, hoping to have a place to visit in Florida form time to time, and to rent it out. A new investor from Wisconsin came into Melbourne, purchased the park where my parents owned the mobile home since the early 1980s, eliminated the ability for the owners to rent out the homes, and increased the lot rent by an astounding amount. Too bad we did not have a 50% increase in our lot rent, compared to what my parents paid. It would have made all the difference!  No. The increase was close to a 350% increase. The cost to rent a home purchased in the park was far more than the total tax bill for a much larger home in upstate New York. And we were unable to rent the place out during months we would not be in Florida.

Readers need to learn more about this type of situation. I don’t believe they are being given that information.
—

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.