Suffering St. Lucie County called a ‘disaster’ area
With unoccupied homes and families in distress, a St. Lucie County leader wants to declare a state of emergency to release $17.5 million in reserve funds.
The Baehrs — Derek, Kellyanne and their two young daughters — are five months behind on their mortgage payments. They sometimes eat at a soup kitchen and shop at a food pantry. They expect to lose their three-bedroom suburban house before the end of the school year.
”This is just awful, and I know that we are not the only ones going through this,” says Kellyanne, 37, an accounting clerk. Derek, 40, is disabled. “We used to try to go day by day. Now we are just trying to get to the end of each day.”
The details of the Baehrs’ descent into financial ruin are singular, but their predicament has become painfully common. Port St. Lucie, once the fastest-growing city in the country, full of families lured by affordable dream homes, is now pockmarked by more than 10,000 properties in foreclosure and drained by a 10.5 percent unemployment rate.