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Tuesday's Afternoon Update
What you need to know about Florida today
Unite Florida Portal now open for state sheltering and housing assistance
The Unite Florida Recovery Portal, launched Monday, is designed to connect Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian to important recovery resources, including housing support. Florida’s state-led sheltering and housing program is available through IanRecovery.fl.gov and provides temporary sheltering options — such as travel trailers and recreational vehicles — and temporary or permanent repairs for households whose needs are not met through insurance or FEMA’s Individual Assistance program. More from WUSF.
AAA is forecasting the busiest Thanksgiving travel season for Floridians since 2005
AAA forecasts more than 2.9 million Floridians will travel 50 miles or more for Thanksgiving. That’s 50,000 (2%) more than last year’s holiday and nearly 22,000 (0.74%) more than 2019. Nationally, AAA expects 54.6 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home this Thanksgiving, which is slightly below pre-pandemic levels, but the Florida Thanksgiving travel season is expected to be the busiest since 2005. More from WUSF.
Florida home sales fall nearly 25% in October, nearly 30% nationally
The drop in what was, quite recently, one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation is largely the result of the Federal Reserve's attempts to curb inflation with months of interest rate hikes. According to Freddie Mac, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 6.9% in October, up from 3.07% a year ago. More from the Business Observer.
Carriers feeling cheery about on-time holiday deliveries
Following two years of suffering under the pressures of holiday crunch, carriers like the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and United Parcel finally anticipate having enough capacity for a return to pre-pandemic levels of "normalcy". More from the Orlando Sentinel.
Which teachers will actually receive a major pay boost by the state of Florida?
"Governor DeSantis has delivered for Florida families with historic k-12 funding and increased teacher pay," states part of a campaign ad. "Not for everybody," says Stephanie Rowe, a St. Johns County science teacher in response, "maybe for new teachers, new hires." $47,500 is supposed to be the lowest salary for teachers in Florida and for many teachers, that's a massive raise. The increase in teacher pay was even a central theme of a campaign ad for Governor Ron DeSantis. More from the First Coast News.
Profile
The transition from trucker to CBD sales was a healing journey
Local hemp farmer Tyler Griffin said his path to helping people heal from pain and other discomforts has been full of interesting turns. Griffin is the owner and founder of Southern Sun, a company that specializes in quality, all-natural and affordable CBD products. The hemp used to produce Southern Sun’s products is homegrown at his family’s farm in Archer, Florida.
» More from WUSF.
Changemakers
Felecia hatcher
When her high school guidance counselor said college wasn’t in the picture because of academic reasons, Felecia Hatcher applied for and received more than $100,000 in scholarships, prompting her mother’s friends, her church and high schools to ask her to help other students. So she created a company to do just that. “I thought, ‘Hey, I figured this out. Let me share what I know.’ I also realized that so much of it was just not listening to everyone who said just go get a job or go to vocational school or be relegated to something that wasn’t an opportunity,” says Hatcher, who attended Lynn University. “I owe everything from a mindset standpoint to that lesson that I learned at 17.”
» Read more from the Florida Trend.
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