And La Gringa gets a seat at the national table
Just over a month after Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins was elected in a historic and competitive race, La Alcaldesa II is packing her blazer and her housing talking points for Washington D.C.
The former Miami-Dade county commissioner — now Miami’s first female mayor — will attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting that started Wednesday, joining big-city mayors swapping war stories about housing shortages, crumbling infrastructure, and how to do more with less while Congress does… whatever it’s doing.
But Higgins won’t just be sitting in the audience nodding along. She’s been appointed Vice Chair of the Conference’s Community Development and Housing Committee, a national perch that lets her help shape the mayoral agenda on housing affordability and neighborhood revitalization. She takes the chairmanship over from Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz.
Read related: A beautiful beginning: Eileen Higgins sworn in as Miami mayor; now what?
USCM President and Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt praised Higgins’ “practical, innovative leadership,” saying she’ll help advance solutions that strengthen neighborhoods and meet housing needs. Translation: Miami’s mayor now has a microphone in a national room where housing policy wish lists get drafted before being walked over to Capitol Hill.
But does Holt, a Republican mayor, really know her? Or has he just read her press releases?
It is true that for Higgins, this is familiar terrain. Long before she took the City of Miami’s top job, she built her political brand in 
Miami-Dade around fast-tracking affordable housing approvals, pushing transit-linked development, protecting renters, and unlocking public land for residential construction. She has proudly cited thousands of affordable and workforce units planned or preserved under her watch, including the 70 units at the Magnus project in Brickell (photo left).
Supporters call it urgency. Critics call it developer-friendly velocity. Either way, housing is her signature issue — and now she’s exporting that signature beyond county lines.
“I’m especially grateful to serve as vice chair of the Community Development and Housing Committee, because building stronger neighborhoods and expanding access to safe, affordable housing are core priorities for Miami and my administration,” Higgins said in a statement. “I look forward to bringing Miami’s experience and our city’s priorities to the national table, and to partnering with fellow mayors to deliver real, practical results for residents.”
Read related: La Gringa Eileen Higgins makes history with Miami mayoral election victory
That “experience,” however, includes a city where rents continue to soar, homeownership drifts further out of reach for working families, and every commission meeting on zoning now comes with a side of public outrage. It includes projects where a small fraction of units are promised for “workforce housing” that is reserved for residents who make a maximum of $95,000 a year.
If nothing else, Higgins arrives in Washington with real-world battle scars — and a city watching to see whether national influence translates into local relief.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors bills itself as nonpartisan, collaborative, and solutions-oriented. Which is Washington speak for: mayors talking, Congress listening selectively, and everyone hoping someone else picks up the tab.
Still, for Miami, the symbolism matters. A mayor whose political rise was built on mobility and housing policy now holds a national housing leadership role. Higgins isn’t just attending the conversation — she’s helping write the agenda.
Now the question back home is simpler: Will the trip bring Miami new tools to fix its affordability crisis — or just another glossy group photo for the mayor’s press kit?
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Miami’s new mayor, Eileen Higgins, takes housing agenda to Washington added by Ladra on
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Higgins is corrupt. Why else would she allow Christine King to remain the Chairperson of
the Miami City Commission?
In order to really tackle affordable housing, we need to do what James Demings explained last night at the Democratic Forum at the Unitarian Universalist Church that he is doing as mayor of Orange County: https://www.ocfl.net/Portals/0/Library/Neighbors-Housing/docs/FLY_19.10_Housing_for_all_report_English_ADA_compliant.pdf
He is creating a local trust fund to have enough funds to tackle this immense problem. Actually, a similar idea was proposed by FIU’s Metropolitan Center to the city of Miami years ago after the city paid for it and shelved it. Eileen Higgins said she would implement it if she got elected when she spoke at one of the Democratic forums before the election. Here is the plan: https://metropolitan.fiu.edu/research/_assets/reports/2020-miami-master-plan-draft.pdf
We can’t rely on just state or federal funds to resolve the affordable housing crisis!
Higgins had a chance to veto the sale of City land to well connected developers at
a 90% discount. She did not Veto. Taxpayers lost $300 Million. Developers smirked. Higgins signaled she is corrupted.
Eileen Higgins has been a huge disappointment! She appointed the novice Reyes to be City Manager. The dude lives in Broward County! Reyes’s only qualification is he is a client of Christian Ulvert. Higgins re-appointed the corrupt Christine King to be Chair. That decision was tone deaf.
” I hope Mayor Higgins points out that the big drivers behind housing price increases are foreign buyers”
Yes , I live in a small gated community in Doral where one foreign buyer using an American company has bought several houses which as you know not illegal but had no idea the extent of it till a real estate broker told me .
Yeah, I don’t know that Miami is a good example of provision of affordable/workforce housing. I really don’t know what – if anything – could increase housing inventory enough to really make a dent on the issue. You’d have to build and build and build, and sooner or later – and as you’re seeing more and more in Miami – people are going to begin pushing back against it. It’d be interesting to see what other large cities with similar issues are doing.
We do not need to construct thousands of additional hi rise rental apts in Miami which will also bring thousands of additional vehicles and much worse traffic congestion with the totally inadequate roadway Infrastructure system currently in place which on weekdays often results in 1-to-2-hour commutes one way locally (which developers are NOT concerned about only profits) but rather need much lower rents, lower living costs, and higher salaries asap for all low income and retired residents.
If the current residential apt rental building construction boom continues to occur throughout south Florida that is NOT properly regulated there will eventually in my view be a BUBBLE BURST occurring (in less than 5 years) in the residential apt rental housing market. This will undoubtedly result in an oversupply / surplus of residential rental apt housing inventory occurring (with thousands of vacant apt units) that will result in a major economic decline.
Ha – Elvis – quite the opposite, she is lobbying to build more and faster.
500sf sounds refreshing for single dwellers and lower income folk I’m sure, as I’m certain President Trump is already tackling corporate real estate speculators, it’s so refreshing to finally see some progress! Wouldn’t you say LOL
I hope Mayor Higgins points out that the big drivers behind housing price increases are foreign buyers, corporate buyers and real estate speculators.
It will be great if she lobbies for federal law to stop those things, rather than pushing for more and more housing to be built, with high-rises that will severely impact our traffic and limited infrastructure and overwhelm the character and scale of our neighborhoods.
Nobody tells you that these affordable units are 500 sq feet at most. It’s the oldest trick in the book.
Sad part she truly believes these developers and that’s why they all donated to her campaign.