Obama will tour Lehigh Acres Tuesday
At least one area businessman wants to show President Barack Obama how well his firm does with vacant homes in Lehigh Acres that have been foreclosed. Obama is coming to Fort Myers on Tuesday in an effort to push his economic stimulus package and then he is expected to take a tour of Lehigh Acres. How that tour will proceed, by caravan or helicopter, was to be decided today.
Jack Lee of Equity Properties Asset Management Inc, in Cape Coral said Saturday that his firm manages more than 800 of the vacant homes in Lehigh.
“Our homes, unlike many others all have the yards maintained, etc. We would enjoy becoming part of the Lehigh presentation to Obama by showing him how some lenders maintain their homes, how we help people buy homes and how now is the best time to move to Lehigh,” Lee said.
Lee was seeking ways Saturday to tell his story to the President who will appear Tuesday morning at the Harborside Event Center in downtown Fort Myers. It is the first time in memory for many for a Democrat President to visit Southwest Florida. Bush made two visits here over the past few years and President Gerald Ford came to Southwest Florida.
The Fort Myers Cape Coral areas and Lehigh, in particular, have been cited as areas in the country where there are large inventories of foreclosed homes and high unemployment rates.
The latest information from Realty Trac, an Internet service, shows 8,935 homes in foreclosed or default status including 4,270 current default, 2,648 bank owned, and 2,017 listed in sheriff sales in Lehigh Acres.
For the period 2007-2009 almost 50 percent of the homes will have been in foreclosure, are in foreclosure, or in pre-foreclosure.
Lee County Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson has reported that preliminary estimates show a 40 percent decline in 2008 taxable values. Combined with the 2007 decrease there has been more that a 50 percent decline in valuations.
The tax rolls show that the community is composed of 30,534 single family homes. Additionally there are 1,266 condominiums, and 1,924 multi-family households.
A phone interview Saturday with John McWilliams, a local Realtor, confirms 10,000 to 15,000 short sales in Lee County most occurring in Lehigh Acres. Many of these are going into default. Almost 90 percent of current real estate sales are from bank owned properties, he said.
Because Lehigh Acres is a working class community with employment centered on the construction industry, unemployment is estimated to be over 25 percent, he said. The decrease in school enrollment has not been confirmed.
Between the decrease in home values, foreclosures, and unemployment Lehigh Acres is one of hardest hit communities in the economic downturn in the United States.
People will be admitted to the town-hall type meeting at the Harbor Event Center but officials were working Saturday to decide how they may be distributed on such short notice. Officials said over the weekend that it was likely that Mayor Jim Humphreys of Fort Myers and County Manager Don Stilwell would accompany Obama to Lehigh to show him properties that have gone unattended due to the foreclosure nightmare in Lehigh Acres.
Some in Lehigh are complaining on local blogs that Obama should be made available to the people of Lehigh and to listen to their problems. The unemployment rate in Lehigh is around 10 percent and thousands of homes are under foreclosure, bank owned or have gone through the process of foreclosure.
Liz Eilf, the a member of the Lehigh Acres Community Planning Corp., and former director of Lehigh Community Services, an agency that helps the needy, said Saturday that she was unhappy that Humphreys and Stillwell would be chosen to accompany Obama to Lehigh.
“It should be people on the planning commission, people like Bo Turberville, people like Damon Shelor, who is also president of the Lehigh Community Council, and people like Joe Whalen, the Chamber CEO and president, and Lee County Commissioner Frank Mann, who represents this area these people know what is going on in Lehigh Acres. When were Mayor Humphreys or Don Stilwell in Lehigh Acres to see what is going on here,” she said.
Commissioner Mann told The Citizen Saturday he knew no more than what was in the media.
“I don’t know what is happening. We are having a County Commission meeting Tuesday morning and I have not been told it has been canceled. But I believe I should be part of any trip to Lehigh,” he said. “I know the people of Lehigh and what they are going through.”
The story of Lehigh’s plight may have also caught the eye of the Obama Administration when a reporter called Lehigh the slums of the county in a story last Sunday.
Security is always tight when a President visits a community and it will be no different when Obama’s Air Force One lands at Southwest Florida Regional Airport sometime Monday morning. How he will be taken to downtown Fort Myers had not been released by midday Saturday.
Harborside Event Center may have been chosen as the venue for the Obama town hall type meeting because Secret Service personnel are familiar with the building and its surroundings since Vice President Joe Biden campaigned there this past summer.
On Monday, Obama will visit a town in Indiana where the unemployment rate is around 15 percent.
A White House press spokesman made the announcement that Obama would visit Fort Myers Friday morning. A large pool of national press reporters from both the printed and TV media, which follows the President whenever he leaves Washington on official business, will accompany him.
Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott met this weekend with the Secret Service and other local law enforcement agencies about how to handle security.