There is a housing crisis in this country. Yes, that includes people who are unhoused due to unemployment, mental health issues, etc., but it also includes people who have good jobs and families who still may be unhoused or living in precarious situations. When I was a manager at Borders Books, I had two full-time employees who were homeless from time to time. That was more than 25 years ago, and it has only gotten worse since then.
I live in an area that has seasonal residents. The population swells from roughly October through April every year, from around 100,000 who live here all year round, to an additional 12,000 people during the season. That may not sound like much, but Boca Raton is not a huge city; it’s a suburb, and we can definitely feel the difference. There is tons more traffic, it’s hard to get reservations for popular restaurants, or to make appointments for doctors or even at the hair salon. The stores are more crowded, with long lines at the gas station or supermarket checkout. It’s not fun, and I always enjoy summer more, despite the heat and the hurricanes.
I grew up in New York, and not in a seasonal community, but we had good friends who lived year-round in the Hamptons, a very seasonal community. Many of our Boca Raton seasonal winter visitors move to the Hamptons, Fire Island, or the Catskills for the summer, or to the summer resorts in Massachusetts like Nantucket, Cape Cod, or Martha’s Vineyard, or back to Canada. The thing that most of the seasonal residents don’t think about is where the people who serve them live – the firefighters, the waiters, the librarians, the cops, even the small business owners who cannot afford seasonal pricing, with many being priced out of their neighborhoods.
It’s bad in Boca Raton. We bought our house in 1987, and we have no mortgage anymore. But the price of homeowners’ insurance is almost as much as my mortgage payment was, and the price of these homes has gone up tremendously. Yay for me when I sell, but if I had to buy my house now, or even rent my house now, I couldn’t afford it. It’s not even close. My husband and I would both have to work two jobs each to afford it. Some of my co-workers have 90-minute commutes each way to get to work because that’s how far they have to go for more reasonable housing prices. And even that’s not great, just a tiny bit better. The median home price in Boca Raton, Florida, is $682,500. There is no way a librarian and a retired engineer could afford that!
I feel lucky to live where I do, and I totally understand why Millennials and Gen-Xers are so resentful about home ownership. A former co-worker librarian is still living at home and waiting for her parents to move out so she can buy their house from them. She’s 40 years old! Even though she’s been living with her parents forever and is banking a lot of her paycheck, it’s still the only way she’ll be able to afford to buy. Another co-worker was looking for a house they could afford that was close enough to their aging parents to be helpful, yet still be somewhat affordable. He finally found something, but it took more than two years!
I’ve read all of Elin Hilderbrand’s books set on Nantucket, several of Nancy Thayer’s, and recently have been ripping through Pamela M. Kelley’s books that are set there. Kelley’s characters live there year-round, and I have often found myself wondering how these characters can afford it. It’s fiction, so I suspend my disbelief and just go with it, but really, how do they afford it? The New York Times doesn’t know, either…
Book News
This was a terrific discussion of the classic American novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Iit’s only about 40 minutes, and well worth your time if it’s been a while since you read it. I read it three times, all assigned; once in junior high, again in high school, and in a college lit class (from a reading list of dead white male authors, the usual of a late 1970s curriculum).
Book bans are getting weirder, targeting cats, dogs and civic-minded grandmas
‘There is no political power without power over the archive’
by Richard Ovenden
The library faculty at Western Illinois University won the Academic Librarian of the Year Award from the Illinois Library Association. It is an honor, but wouldn’t be quite so newsworthy had not the entire staff been fired: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://savewiulibrarians.org/content/2025_IL_Academic_Librarian_of_the_Year_Award_PR.pdf
Food News
Love this show! It is one of two that I think of as just a nice place to spend a little time. An escape from reality. Phil genuinely loves food and people. (The other show that gives me that same sort of pleasure is Clarkson’s Farm.)
More on seasonal living, this time in the Hamptons
Good News
Unusual seasonal residents, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, have rented a home for the spring/summer season in Boca Raton. I personally haven’t spotted them anywhere, but I did see them on TV at a Panthers’ Stanley Cup playoff game. Swift has been making her presence known locally – in a very good way–
My kids came to visit and we had the best time – except for little Sylvie, who was teething and very uncomfortable the first few days of their visit. But then it looked like the tooth broke through, and she was her happy, giggly self again (except for depriving her parents of a single good night’s sleep!) We had a great time at the Museum of Science & Discovery, Splash Adventure Water Park, lunch at the Lazy Dog Cafe (highly recommend!), and just hanging out. Jonah and I baked Raspberry Streusel Muffins and a chocolate cake, and Jonah and Papa played with trains – he still loves all things train, from the subways in New York to Thomas & Friends to these electric trains.. We love spending time with them, and now I miss them so much!
As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.
Thanks to The New York Times for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 