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When communities rebuild after a disaster, they can sometimes be out of reach financially for the people who lived there before. Parts of Florida, for example, are still recovering three years after Hurricane Ian swept across the state, and residents are finding that rising home insurance costs are making it more expensive to live in harm's way. NPR's Michael Copley has more.
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MICHAEL COPLEY, BYLINE: Jacki Liszak owned a little yellow hotel, steps from the water in Fort Myers Beach. When Hurricane Ian slammed into the barrier island in 2022, the storm washed away the Sea Gypsy Inn. The business is just a memory now. Between rising insurance costs and tougher construction codes, Liszak says rebuilding doesn't make financial sense.
JACKI LISZAK: All of the boutique hotels that are on the island that were washed away, they're all in that same boat.
COPLEY: Liszak runs the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce. She says the storm also drove away longtime homeowners, and there's little hope the store clerks and bartenders who once lived on the island will be able to afford to anymore. In their place, a lot of locals expect more big resorts and expensive homes built to handle punishing weather.
ROB FOWLER: That gentrification is a real thing. The change in the cost is a real thing.
COPLEY: That's Rob Fowler, a local builder.
FOWLER: And it all adds up to the fact that, you know, only well-heeled players can play now.
COPLEY: The changes unfolding in Fort Myers Beach are an extreme version of what's happening throughout southwest Florida. The region already had a shortage of affordable housing when Hurricane Ian hit. Rising prices for home and flood insurance have added to the problem, leaving a lot of homeowners struggling to get by. It's a problem that's also facing other communities around the U.S. Home insurance costs are going up nationwide, partly because climate change is contributing to more extreme weather that damages and destroys property.
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COPLEY: In downtown Fort Myers, several miles inland from Fort Myers Beach, Jessica Gatewood is seeing the impact in her real estate business.
JESSICA GATEWOOD: Right now, majority of what I see is that they're pinching every penny to pay that mortgage every month.
COPLEY: With lots of homeowners trying to escape crushing insurance bills, Gatewood says home sales have slowed and home values are falling.
GATEWOOD: If this economy continues on like it is for another year, yeah, for sure we're going to have a lot of foreclosures.
COPLEY: Renters are getting squeezed, too. Melyssa Caballero says rent for the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her husband has doubled since they moved to southwest Florida a few years ago. Now she's thinking of leaving Florida, after watching her niece move away and find cheaper housing in Ohio.
MELYSSA CABALLERO: Little by little you can see everybody going away. Anybody that don't have that money - enough to be able to pay rent - people are going to have to move.
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COPLEY: Back in Fort Myers Beach in October, nail guns echoed along the island's main road, where new houses and businesses were going up next to vacant lots and the shells of buildings still gutted by the storm. In the evening, Dixie Fish Company was packed with diners. People lounged on the beach as the sun set. Some sat on pilings of the town's broken pier. A couple danced in the plaza nearby. Scott Safford says the town's going to make a comeback.
SCOTT SAFFORD: And the guys that are investing now, that are stakeholders now, are going to reap the rewards. It's just taking longer than we ever expected.
COPLEY: Safford's a town councilman in Fort Myers Beach. He's also married to Jacki Liszak, the head of the Chamber of Commerce. He worries national chain brands will replace a lot of the mom-and-pop businesses that characterize the island. But Safford knows the town needs more investment to survive.
SAFFORD: We're going to need development to sustain the tax base.
COPLEY: Fort Myers Beach also needs some luck with the weather. When Liszak thinks about the rebuilding that's still left to do, she's afraid that another big storm will come before the town's ready.
LISZAK: That will chase away all the investors. That will chase away the people who do want to come and live here for their little piece of paradise.
COPLEY: And she says that would set the town's recovery back by years. Michael Copley, NPR News.
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