South Florida NPR affiliate, WLRN, is teaming up with FIU Caplin News, along with other local media outlets, to produce a series of stories that put a spotlight on South Florida’s housing crisis. Readers can find all the stories here.
On an ideal morning, Giovanna Ruiz would wake up slowly as the sun spilled across her bedroom wall. Wrapped in a lounge set with a warm cup of coffee in hand and her cat Chi Chi curled beside her, she might journal, paint or read, just because she can.
But most mornings aren’t like that. Not when rent is due.
Ruiz, 20, is a junior at Florida International University double majoring in psychology and studio art. She moved to Miami from Texas in June 2023, alone, without family support. She now lives at Fourth Street Commons, a student apartment complex across the street from FIU’s Modesto Maidique campus, where she shares a two-bedroom unit. Her portion of the rent, after utilities, comes out to roughly $1,400 a month.
“It was the only place that approved me,” she said. “I didn’t have a co-signer, and my credit wasn’t good enough anywhere else. This was the cheapest option, and it’s still insanely expensive.”
Since she moved in, the building has had several issues, including a flooding incident in her hallway, a broken water heater that left her taking cold showers for days and a carbon monoxide alarm that went off late at night.
“It doesn’t feel stable,” she said. “Like, it’s not unsafe, but it’s definitely not comfortable either.”
To afford rent and basic expenses, Ruiz is a server at IHOP and a desk assistant in FIU Housing. Until recently, she also worked retail selling clothing at Hollister, but quit after receiving only four hours a week. Even now, with two jobs, she’s struggling.
“I’m on a payment plan for last month’s rent right now. ” she said. “And now this month, I can’t pay it off either.”
Ruiz said that when she fell behind on rent, she asked her mother for help, but her request was turned down.
According to Ruiz, her mother said she would only give her money if it was structured as a loan.“She told me, ‘We could pay for your entire college right now. But we’re not going to. So figure it out. You’re young. You can work two jobs.’”
Ruiz said that conversation made it clear that even temporary support wasn’t an option.
“I’m completely on my own,” she said. “If I can’t make it work, there’s no backup.”
She says the pressure has reshaped her college experience.
“Sometimes I don’t go to class because I have to work,” she said. “Other times I just don’t have the energy.”
Though she is an artist, she says the cost of surviving has erased the creative parts of her identity.
“I just do art,” she said. “Telling someone I’m an artist feels like a joke because I don’t indulge in my craft.”
The bigger picture
Ruiz is one of many FIU students who say that, for all the talk about access and opportunity, the reality of what they pay each month does not feel affordable. Rent alone stretches their budgets to the breaking point, and it is only one part of the bill. Groceries, gas, phone plans, insurance, textbooks, and basic supplies add up until even students working multiple jobs cannot keep up.
“If I lose my housing, I’ll probably lose my schooling,” she added. “It’s a domino effect.”
The issue is not just the cost of housing. It is the total cost of living. Across campus, students are juggling jobs, skipping meals, delaying graduation, or giving up on campus life altogether. Many are doing so just to stay enrolled.
Mich Bustos, a senior majoring in digital media and composition, said she moved back home because the costs became impossible.
“$1800 in a month?” she said. “I don’t even make that in a month. All the money I have each month goes just to living in a room, no groceries, no spending outside of that.”
Bustos spent her first two years in campus dorms, first Panther and then Everglades Hall. Panther’s shared two-person suites cost more than $3,100 per semester, and private rooms in Everglades run close to $4,500. That’s before adding a required meal plan.
“Those places are so expensive,” she said. “I’m just gonna move back in with my family. It wasn’t an easy option, but it was the most logical one.”
The move helped financially, with Bustos only having to worry about gas for her car. But the transition from campus to home meant losing access to the daily routines and relationships that once grounded her school life.
Students say the university’s decisions are only making things worse. Housing options are not just expensive, they are limited. Many of the buildings are outdated, and now some are disappearing altogether.
FIU’s University Apartments, which house up to 537 students, will lose four of their buildings to demolition in 2026 to make space for a new $160 million medical education complex.
Student reporters at PantherNOW, FIU’s student newspaper, have reported that as space is prioritized for freshmen and parts of University Apartments are prepared for demolition, more upperclassmen are being pushed off campus. That means juniors and seniors will be competing for fewer available beds near campus.
Students worry that as demand rises, off-campus landlords will have even more power to raise prices.
“I get that the [buildings] are old, but to not even replace [what they’re demolishing] with new housing is sick,” Bustos said.
Pressure from every side
For some students, the pressure doesn’t stop at the edge of campus. It reaches across oceans and into their family homes.
Isvari Amponsah, 19, is an international student from Ghana studying health services administration. She lives at 109 Tower in a four-bedroom apartment, paying about $1,400 a month for her space.
She’s only allowed to work on campus due to restrictions tied to her F-1 student visa, and without much job experience, finding a position has been difficult.
Her father, who is self-employed and takes on odd jobs, is the sole provider for Amponsah and her two siblings back home.
“Tuition and housing are really expensive, and my dad is paying that alone,” she said.
Even though he tells her it’s his responsibility, Amponsah still worries about what it costs him.
“It’s kinda a burden,” she said quietly. “I still try to cut my spending so he doesn’t have to spend a lot.”
A crisis without a plan
Ruiz, the artist who moved from Texas to Miami, is still trying to hold it all together — school, work, rent, and the uncertainty that comes with all of it.
“I’m here to get an education, but I don’t know where to live,” she said. “There’s a lot of people worrying about where they’re gonna live, and that affects people’s education.”
Like many students facing financial hardship, she has thought about leaving. But going home isn’t a real option.
As housing shifts around them, students say they feel confused and frustrated, unsure where to turn.
“I don’t know who’s in charge of what. I can’t just point a finger,” Ruiz said. “But can we just use the funding correctly? Can we notice that there’s a housing crisis?”
