Seeking the skinny on Florida

What's going on in Florida? Every time I explore the possibility of moving back to The Sunshine State, I learn of something new that squashes my enthusiasm.

Northern Virginia isn't a cheap place to live. And we're currently existing on one income since my layoff last year. This is suppose to be an area with a fair number of jobs, but I have found it very difficult to get a foot in the door in any industry related to what I did as a newspaper editor for 29 years. I've tried public relations firms, college communications departments and a host of specialty publications in an around D.C. Still, no viable offers that would allow us to continue to live in this pricey part of country for very long.

In the past, when the going got tough, I got going - to Florida - as I mentioned in prior posts. The sun, warmth and adventure of living near the Florida Keys and Miami was just what the doctor ordered early in my adult life. My brand-new townhouse in Homestead, Fla., cost a grand total of $39,000, so the mortgage was affordable, even with a skimpy paycheck.

But now, more than 25 years later, Florida doesn't seem so inviting. While the recession has dropped the price of housing, many of the homes for sale have been gutted by previous owners who were foreclosed upon. And there are a ton of foreclosure properties there, many of which are in a state of disrepair. Condo fees are through the roof because there are fewer occupied units to share the overall costs. Single-family homes are falling apart...at least the ones I could afford.

In addition, there is flood insurance to contend with. And in some areas, hurricane insurance (which is separate from flood and homeowner's insurance) would cost more than the monthly mortgage payment.

Renting isn't a great option either. Rents aren't that much cheaper than here, at least not in the bigger cities.

When I lived in Florida, alligators were mostly confined to the Everglades. Now they're showing up in supermarket parking lots and in people's kitchens on a regular basis throughout the state.

But the one thing that never changes in Florida is the crime rate. Gosh, even in relatively small towns like Lakeland, the crime stats are overwhelming compared to where I live in Loudoun County, Va.

Many folks on online forums say that moving to Florida without a job these days is death sentence. This is amazing since Florida had always been a place where you could go with a few hundred bucks in your wallet and eventually get a job, apartment and begin to build a modest life. Apparently, this is no longer the case and could land you on a park bench or homeless shelter in a hurry, particularly at my age.

Tampa, the area of the state I would like to live in, seems to have a fair number of jobs on web sites like Craigslist.com. Of course, with CList, you never know how many of those listings are actually legitimate. I have applied to a lot of jobs in Florida in the last year and not one has responded in a positive or informative manner. Most don't reply at all. I have also contacted real estate agents who never return my calls or answer my e-mails. Very strange. Florida is still attached to the mainland last time I checked on Google Earth.

Still, the lure of sunshine and warmth is mighty strong, especially when it appears that finding a decent-paying job in Northern Virginia isn't as easy as I thought it would be while another winter approaches. I like it here in the Commonwealth - went to college in the southern part of the state and worked at three different newspapers here - but am getting the feeling certain forces are telling me it's time to leave. Where to go is the big question right now. We like our native New York but can't afford the area around NYC. We enjoy states like North Carolina and Georgia but have been unable to find jobs there. We've heard that it's difficult to find work if you're applying from out of state. If that is the case, then we need to pick an area and try our best to find something once there. A risky proposition in this recession.

You can buy a short-sale house in Florida for the price of the average car in Loudoun County. (We have an inordinate number of BMWs, Caddies, Jaguars, etc. here.) I want to move to a place where I am relatively certain I won't be homeless by age 60. But without jobs, I am not so certain the low-cost of housing would be much of an advantage in Florida. It's great that Florida doesn't have a state income tax, but you have to have an income in order for that to be a plus.

I'd love to hear from anyone who might stumble upon this blog and who is living in Florida. Contact me if you care to share the real story about the current state of the state. Perhaps the picture I am getting is skewed by distance and online forums which tend to be overly negative. If there still are opportunities in Florida, I'd appreciate hearing about them.

Homestead, Fla., and the Hotel Redland

It was a cooler-than-normal, sometimes rainy, Labor Day in Sterling, Va., today. The fall itself is not a season to be feared in Virginia, which is one of the reasons I live here and not in northern Maine. The fall can actually be quite beautiful. Unfortunately, fall gives way to winter. And for those of us who aren't fans of temperatures below 50 degrees, winter can be difficult to contend with. Inevitably, by Thanksgiving, my thoughts turn to my days in Florida. Those thoughts are a bit early this year and might be more age-related than climate related.

I lived in Homestead, Fla., for about five years in the early 1980s. Homestead is a small town south of Miami. A stone's throw from the Florida Keys. It was rough place to live at times. Crime and poverty took hold of the agricultural town and didn't let go until Hurricane Andrew flattened it. Then everything left. Eventually, long after I departed, Homestead rebuilt. Now it's the home of a NASCAR facility as well as a revitalized downtown district and other amenities on the edge of the Everglades. It's still no Miami or Coral Gables, and never will be, but it's on the mend and a lot cheaper to live in than the pricier neighborhoods 25 miles up the turnpike.

I will always remember the grittier Homestead, pre-Andrew, when I hung out at a local boarding house known as the Hotel Redland. The flop house was owned by a man named Ben Lonic. Ben also lived in the hotel with his wife. It was located across the street from the newspaper where I worked, the South Dade News-Leader. Ben could be spotted on his porch, sometimes pulling out an old sofa from the lobby that caught fire again from a cigarette. Or perhaps he'd be seen throwing a border out who hadn't paid their rent in weeks.

Ben was a fair-skinned, white-haired man in his early 50s, about the age I am now, with large tattooed forearms and a formidable belly. He loved boxing and managed some of the young fighters in town, mostly minorities, who were hoping to get out of the nearby migrant camps through professional fighting. His most successful fighter was a kid named Johnny Torres. But even Johnny didn't make it very far in boxing. He got beat badly in his only televised bout.

I enjoyed writing about boxing because of the human stories behind the fighters and where they came from and wanted to go. A lot of hope and much despair, but always great images to try to describe. This was a very colorful sport that did not have the glitter of other professional sports. In a way, despite all the corruption and brutality, it was the purist of sports because it was not rooted in expensive camps and private lessons for rich kids.

Ben would hold court on the porch of his hotel for hours, talking about this fighter or that fighter who, in his mind, were a punch or two away from being champions. Ben fought with Homestead officials to keep a practice ring in his backyard. He fought government officials to open a gym down the street in an old abandoned building. He drove underprivileged kids into Hialeah and points farther north so they could compete. I don't remember the make or model of his car, but I remember it was in as bad a shape as the hotel.

Ben died in the hotel one morning. Heart attack. I ran over to see why the ambulance was there. His body was being removed. His face was blue. Rescuers had an oxygen mask on him, but I was sure Ben was dead.

I remember talking with Ben the previous day on the steps of his hotel. He was complaining a lot about what he thought was an ulcer from the stress he was feeling from fighting with town leaders on a routine basis. It was another hot, humid South Florida day. I was there with pen and pad in hand, looking for a story. But as was so often the case, we just started talking about life in general. I watched him touch the area near his breastbone a few times. Ben was not one to complain about pain. I saw his arm on fire once and he barely said a thing about it. But this was different.

Despite many bouts with crime, bugs the size of Buicks and even deaths of acquaintances, I remember my days in Florida fondly, sitting on porch of the Hotel Redland or roaming around the Coconut Grove or Key Biscayne. The Miami Zoo opened and I took my one-year-old daughter there to see the white tigers. I enjoyed going to Miami Dolphin games and eating stone crabs. I liked being a newspaper guy, even when the letters to the editor weren't so complimentary.

I am glad the hotel is still there, apparently renovated and designated as a historic site. While the newspaper died with Hurricane Andrew, Ben's hotel remains. Nice to see some things survive natural and man-made assaults, at least for a while. While age eventually catches up with everything and everyone, good memories have a way of living on a little longer.