Three weeks after Hurricane Ian hit Florida, hundreds of homeless service-sector employees, low-income retirees, and newcomers to the area with few resources or connections are sleeping in public places like gyms.

Iran PressAmerica:  As of Tuesday, 476 people remained at two public shelters in Lee County, most of them at Hertz, an ice hockey and concert arena. The county took a direct hit, with 5,041 residential properties destroyed and 13,052 suffering major damage, records show.

According to New York Times, many of their occupants have second homes or relatives with a guest room to fall back on or can secure rental properties while they await federal disaster assistance, insurance adjusters, and general contractors to help them begin rebuilding their lives.

But many of the people relying on shelters have none of those options. Sleeping side by side on American Red Cross cots and air mattresses are service-sector employees who are newly homeless and unemployed, retirees dependent on Social Security checks, and newcomers to the region with neither resources nor connections. Many were renters in North Fort Myers and other lower-income areas, barely making it even before Ian.

Long before the storm, the cost of housing in Southwest Florida was a source of gnawing anxiety for many low- and middle-income residents. The metropolitan area that includes Fort Myers saw a 21.6 percent jump in rental prices year over year, the second-largest increase among the nation’s 100 largest such areas, said Shelton Weeks, the Lucas Professor of Real Estate at Florida Gulf Coast University.

A typical two-bedroom apartment commands $2,000 a month, he said — a price that will most likely jump because of reduced supply and surging demand after the storm. While that price reflects the national average, it strains the budget for many in the Lee County area, Dr. Weeks said.

Buying property may be even more out of the question. Amir Neto, director of the Regional Economic Research Institute at Florida Gulf Coast University, said he had identified just 129 properties for sale in Lee and neighboring Charlotte County for $250,000 or less, and none in Collier.

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