The Florida Roundup - Restricting ‘period talk’ in schools; new trend in foreclosures; what to know about Candida auris

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Florida lawmakers consider a bill to restrict "period talk" in schools; foreclosures as code enforcement; Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus spreading in Florida.

Welcome to the Florida Roundup. Thanks for listening. I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville. And I'm Danny Rivero in Miami. Legislation that would prevent teachers from talking about sex education topics in elementary school is moving through the Florida House right now. That's right. Now, the bill is sponsored by Republican Florida State Representative Stan McLean. It would mandate that only children in grades 6 through 12 can learn about certain subjects related to human sexuality, like reproduction, sexually transmitted diseases, even menstruation. During a recent hearing for the bill, Democratic State Representative Ashley Gant from Miami questioned McLean, asking if it would restrict children who get their period at a younger age from talking about it with their teachers. Does this bill prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles? Because we know that typically the ages is between 10 and 15.

because we know that typically the ages is between 10 and 15. So if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade? I recognize. Thank you, Madam Chair. It would. Now this is the latest in a string of measures moving in Tallahassee that would restrict what teachers can talk about in class. Many critics are sounding the alarm. They say conversations around menstruation, a normal bodily process,

should not be outlawed in elementary schools. Now, that's just in part because these days, girls are starting their cycles at ever younger ages. And joining us now to talk about this with us is Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Executive Director of the Birbom Women's Leadership Network at the NYU School of Law, and the author of Periods Gone Public, Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity. Jennifer, thanks for coming on. Hi, glad to be here. And we want to hear from you, our listeners, on this topic. You can call us at 305-995-1800. Again, that's 305-995-1800.

And you can tweet us at Florida Roundup. Now, Jennifer, just to hop into it, your advocacy work centers around destigmatizing periods and the conversations around menstrual cycles in general. Can you tell us a little bit about what period stigma is and how that manifests in the world? Sure. I mean, I think that it's probably pretty obvious to folks that periods are the butt of jokes often, but the kinds of ways that they can be stigmatized can actually be a matter of life and death. In some parts of the world, deliberately excluding girls who are menstruating, shutting them out of their homes, their schools, is common practice. Here

at home, it can be something that seems sort of benign, making jokes, using euphemisms, but really practices that amount to ignoring and marginalizing girls to leaving menstruation and its impact out of our policymaking, out of public budgets, and as we're seeing here, out of education. and as we're seeing here out of education. So it can have a really debilitating impact on people's lives, making them feel less than. And just to put myself in it, I mean, I grew up in a house with two brothers.

My mother was the only woman. And I only learned that periods were even a thing in the fifth grade in sex education at school. It just wasn't something that was on my radar in my household. Can you talk a little bit about how limiting these kinds of discussions can impact boys too, along with little girls? Yeah. I mean, you're sort of the case in point story there. If it's not part of somebody's home discussion or it doesn't come up in their family lives, which it can for some people who don't have, you know, who aren't experiencing it nearby, it's a really important

thing that they don't know or don't learn about. Boys exist in the same world as girls do, and we need to understand the basics of human reproduction and our bodily functions. You know, especially when we think about, you know, the future for reproductive rights in this country, what people know and don't know about how our bodies work. It can actually pose real for boys um if they don't understand the reproductive cycle if they don't understand how pregnancy happens if they don't understand um how menstruation works um this kind of education matters for all of us i mean a lot of the work that i do is focused on on equity and access to menstrual products and information. And again, if folks don't even know how something works, if they don't know there's a problem,

how are they ever thinking about solutions? And data shows that girls are getting their periods earlier and earlier, well into the elementary school years. What would this mean for a girl, say, in the third or fourth grade to be banned from talking about something that's biologically actually happening with her body in the classroom setting? Right, exactly. I mean, beyond the fact that it does reinforce the shame that this

is something that should be considered off the table, not talked about, it could deny her of healthy options during the school day, which is a long day. It's eight hours that kids are in school. If she needs to ask to go to the bathroom and the teacher has sort of a no bathroom policy, would she be punished if she said, well, the reason I need to go to the bathroom is because I have my period? It could result in compromised personal health if somebody is not able to change their menstrual product a pad or a tampon as frequently as they're supposed to if they leave it on for hours longer it obviously could result in the shame that happens if somebody bleeds through their clothing and kids

make fun of them i mean some of these things might sound small but they're huge to kids. No, and I do want to, sorry to cut you off, but the, I mean, in popular culture, just in films and movies, I mean, that is a topic and a theme that comes up repeatedly. It's the first period, right? And if that happens in the middle of, you know, a classroom setting, there's a lot of shame associated with it, but it's a real life

thing that young girls might have to deal with. And I think what the point you're raising is, if someone has their first period in a classroom setting, which does happen, and they bleed, how would the administration deal with that situation if they can't even talk about it? Yeah, I mean, that's a real open question. And you know, it's funny, in this work, I often get asked questions about first period and worst periods. So it's not just first periods, too. I mean, for kids, especially, it takes a while for menstrual cycles to even out for them to become more regular. So it's not just when it happens the first time. It could happen the second, third, tenth time and be unexpected. And again, just cause real trauma.

But I don't think we can understate, too, the importance of just being able to move freely in school and change a pad or, you know, use the restroom. If somebody doesn't have a pad and their school doesn't provide them, are they to go to the, like, what are they to do? Are they to go to the nurse? Are they, you know, it's, there's, there's a whole lot of things that actually need to be discussed about how kids exist in school. And periods are one of them. It's inevitable. Sorry, they happen. Yeah. I'm wondering too, as we talk about this issue, this legislation, which may or may not pass in its original form, because there has been such an outcry. But this legislation, critics say anyway, is sexualizing elementary school girls dealing with a biological reality. Can you talk about that? reality. Can you talk about that? That's absurd. I mean, that's just absolutely absurd. To say that menstruating bodies are automatically sexualized bodies. It's this is part of the human development

process. And it is what it is. I wholly reject that. Do you see the criticism of this bill in terms of shaming girls, that this is legislating a form of shame towards girls in being told that they can't discuss their bodies or learn about what's going on with their bodies at a really young age when they have so many questions about their bodies. You know, Judy Blume's landmark book, Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret, came out 50 years ago. And it opened up these conversations so that girls could have a better understanding of their bodies. Another landmark book was Our Bodies, Ourselves. was our bodies ourselves. And those were seen as groundbreaking because they enabled girls who weren't getting good information to understand their bodies, which removed a lot of taboo and shame. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, Judy Blume herself just tweeted last week, you know, sorry, Margaret, when this video of Representative McLean went viral. And yeah, sorry, Margaret, when, you know, when this video of Representative McLean went viral. And yeah, no, the shame is a huge, huge piece of it. And it can't be denied. That's exactly what is happening when we say that you're not to talk about your body.

And when especially, especially when you need help, not just for the sake of talking about it, and for the sake of knowledge, and I'm not undermining those things, those are very important, but especially when you need the support and help to get through your school day. I mean, something else we can talk about, and that I write about frequently, is also what it means to just be lacking menstrual literacy. I will say that any legislator who puts forward a bill thinking that kids before sixth grade aren't equipped or ready to be talking about menstruation is lacking menstrual literacy themselves. But this is something that is so important to be taught. and create life or death circumstances for women and girls, especially for young kids, understanding how their bodies work, understanding what the menstrual cycle means,

understanding reproduction is absolutely important. It's 305-995-1800 here on the Florida Roundup. Calls all over the state coming into the show, beginning with Patty in Fort Pierce, Florida. Hello, Patty. You're on the radio. Go ahead. Hi, I'm here. This whole thing is so completely absurd. We have to understand our bodies from a young age. I matured early in elementary school in the early 1960s. And I both had to start wearing a bra and got my period.

And we didn't have sex education then. And I was vilified, harassed, made fun of, because nobody knew what it was. This is terrible. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Patty, for sharing your story, and I agree with you. Yeah, Jennifer, since this legislation has been put forward, have you been hearing from a lot of women about about this, especially women that are older? And remember how it used to be in school a long time ago? Yeah, I have been hearing from people, you know, across the country and around the world, in fact.

And again, I have a lot of different perspectives on this. I'm very concerned about the shame aspect. I'm very concerned about the deficit in education. And I'm very concerned about how it plays out with other initiatives that have been happening around the country, including in Florida, that have been very thoughtful about what it means to consider menstruation in the in the um you know in the landscape of public policy

there are many bills that have been introduced and passed in blue states and red states that ensure that menstrual products are made more affordable that they're made more accessible especially to kids in school so they're freely provided in bathrooms so that they're freely provided in bathrooms, so that they're exempt from sales tax. And so it's all part and parcel of the same discussion that's been happening about what it means to make menstruation a matter of public policy and what it means to destigmatize it so that we're able to ensure that people are treated with dignity and that they have all options open to them. The number is 305-995-1800. And we're going to go to Millie calling from Gainesville. Millie, thanks for calling the Florida Roundup. You're on. Hi, it's Nori from Gainesville. And my comment is basically that I think it's ridiculous that we

should micromanage personal matters that should be addressed by the parents by by a mother talking to her daughter perhaps or even a father raising a daughter these are things that should be discussed at home and you should prepare your daughters this isn't something for the teacher or the school. And I think it's absolutely absurd and sickening, heartbreaking that a teacher would ask a child, why do you need to get up and use the restroom? If a child raises their hand and says, I need to use the restroom, the teacher should not ask any questions. It's that simple. I don't think there should be any legislation about this. I was once a young girl and had my period and got, you know, my clothes stained. And

luckily for me, I was in an all-girls school. If anything, perhaps we should consider the idea of separating boys from girls in, you know, in junior high and perhaps high school for certain, you know, periods. And I'm not suggesting that. That's just a thought that crossed my mind at the moment. But, you know, that's it. That's basically, you know, my view on it. Thank you for your call, Millie. Jennifer, I want to actually jump off of what Millie was just talking about. Jennifer, I want to actually jump off of what Millie was just talking about. I mean, can you fill us in a little bit about, because obviously this legislation would change things from how they are now. But can you help ground us in where exactly things are now when these discussions do come up now?

If a student would be required to get that instruction, if they could opt out, et cetera, can you just help us understand where we are? Well, I know that there are multiple bills in Florida and some do have opt out and opt in provisions. And so it's it's it's kind of hard to assess which, you know, which is going to rise to the fore here. which is going to rise to the fore here. Again, I view this as basic health education. And to respond to Millie as well, I do hope parents are teaching this at home. Obviously, that is lessons and discussions that belong in the home.

You just shared that it didn't happen in your home. And I imagine there are other homes where it's not happening to you. I want kids to be safe in school. I want them to be able to live without in school. I want them to be able to live without shame. And I want them to be able to take good care of their bodies. I'm not this particular law that would ban talking about these matters to kids who are already menstruating is not over. It's it's not overreach in terms of what it's allowing

the schools to do. It's ensuring that kids are safe in school. Okay, it's 305-995-1800. Lots of tweets coming in to the Florida Roundup about this. Terry tweets the show, hate is what's motivating this. People have strong opinions about this legislation and others. Let's go to, oh, we've lost James on the line, but it's 305-995-1800. You know, I would think that this is the kind of legislation, Jennifer, that isn't happening in a vacuum. There have been a number of other bills that have moved this legislative session dealing with sexuality, LGBT issues.

And this is part and parcel of what we're seeing out of this legislature. How do you look at this in the larger context? I've been looking at this in the larger context as a matter of health, as a matter of equity. I've been thinking a lot about what it is we know and don't know about menstruation and how that impacts how people are existing in this new era, you know, post-Dobbs and post-Roe v. Wade, where reproductive outcomes can be criminalized. And what they do and don't know about menstruation is vital to their health and safety. Let's try to squeeze in one more call. Ed in Aventura, Florida. Ed, go ahead, quick. Yes, hi. Thank you very much for taking my call this is an issue i'm very sensitive because

i think we're missing the point here education is education we cannot dictate what to learn what not to learn what to read what not to read etc so this is to, government overreach at its highest. And a certain group needs to be ashamed of itself for essentially exacerbating something that they themselves are preaching everywhere, screaming to the top of their lungs that, oh, this is not right, but unless it's aligned to their own value. All right, Ed. I appreciate that thought from Ed and Aventura, and I want to thank you, Jennifer. She's Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Executive Director of the Birnbaum Women's Leadership Network at the NYU School of Law and the author of Periods Gone Public. Jennifer, thanks for joining the Florida Roundup. Thanks so much for having me.

And still to come on the Florida Roundup, Florida cities are paying a high price in foreclosures again in a different way. That's next. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្� Thank you. Welcome back to the Florida Roundup. I'm Danny Rivero in Miami. And I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville. Well, a number of cities across Florida have started to aggressively foreclose on homes. Now, there's a different reason than what we went through over a decade ago. They're doing this now due to code enforcement violations. That's according to a new report from the Miami Herald released this week. It examines how one attorney who used to help homeowners facing foreclosure in those

disastrous years a couple years back is now helping cities foreclose on properties with violations ranging from unmowed lawns to unsafe structures violations. Now, this whole thing has been sold as a way for cities to rev up their local economies after dealing with the three or so years of COVID-19. And foreclosing on homes for these kinds of code violations is bringing in millions of dollars in revenue for Florida cities, but at a high price for the families who are getting their homes taken away from them. The lawyer who has aggressively pursued this practice in Fort Pierce, Clearwater and St. Petersburg, to name a few cities, shown no signs of slowing down as he looks to other state municipalities to do his business. So we'll look at foreclosures in Florida part two as we welcome Ben Weter, data and investigative reporter in McClatchy's Washington bureau.

Hi, Ben. Thanks for having me, guys. And if you're in Fort Pierce, Clearwater, St. Pete, or wherever you are in Florida, we want to hear from you as we talk about this. It's 305-995-1800 and tweet us at Florida Roundup. So, Ben, tell us more about this attorney and how he's making a lot of money on these foreclosure lawsuits with florida cities yeah so the attorney's name is matt weidner which i should point out uh similar to my last name but but no relation um and uh matt weidner really was uh first sort of made made a name for himself

uh during the the foreclosure crisis in the wake of the Great Recession uh he was actually credited by the Wall Street Journal as having come up with the term Robo signer to describe um uh people who worked for banks and mortgage lenders who would sign off on documents without even really looking at them to foreclose on homes and so uh but but as the foreclosure crisis started to slow down uh in 2015 he signed the first of what would then be nine total contracts with cities and counties across the state to foreclose on properties that had racked up code violations over the years. And the idea was that these were properties that in some cases were abandoned lots, and it was sold as, you know, this is a

program that's going to focus on properties that are owned by absentee owners, often corporate entities. That was the pitch at least. And these are homes that properties are homes that no one really cares about. And so we're going to go after them. We're going to take them over. We're going to get new ownership. And the end result is going to be that, you know, these neighborhoods will now see, you know, new homes coming into these areas. And in the process, the city will make some money off of it because they will either get money from selling the properties or the owners will have to pay up to make good on the code fines that they've owed over the years. on the code fines that they've owed over the years. It's pretty remarkable that this attorney who used to be in the business of keeping families in their homes is now making money kicking them out. Right. And he knows the system very, very well. He was involved in defending hundreds of homeowners throughout Florida. So he understands the foreclosure process about as well as anyone.

And in fact, I mean, part of how he had gotten attention during his years as a defense lawyer was he was very regularly blogging about his exploits and blogging about the state of foreclosure in general. So this is a guy who knew the system in and out and was able to sort of take that knowledge and now kind of go to the other side and use it to foreclose on people instead of defending them, which is something that I think, you know, really caught a lot of people by surprise, including some of the property owners. I mean, one of the property owners we talked to, you know,

they were trying to fight one of these lawsuits, and they were looking for a lawyer who could help them. And one of their friends said, hey, you should talk to this guy, Matt Widener. And they said, wait a second, Matt Widener, that's the guy who's suing us. He's not going to help us. He's taking our home away. 305-995-1800. Now, there's one graphic in your investigation that's pretty eye opening. You show how much this practice is impacting neighborhoods in South St. Petersburg, a majority black neighborhood. Tell us what the data shows there. black neighborhood. Tell us what the data shows there. Yeah, it's really striking in St. Pete and in some of the other cities. When you look at where the foreclosures have been concentrated, you know, we looked at all the addresses of all the properties that were foreclosed upon,

and it really is stark to see how many of them were in neighborhoods that were heavily black. And what that meant was that, you know, the people who were by and large facing the brunt of these foreclosures were property owners in black neighborhoods. And that meant, you know, the people I talked to in many cases, these were homes that might have been in their families for generations. It was where they grew up. It was where, you know, their parents had owned it, their grandparents had owned it. And one thing that they had in common was that, you know, the process of transferring that property from one generation to the next hadn't necessarily been done properly.

You know, when you die, you're supposed to leave a will, but some people don't do that. And, you know, that can create this situation where it makes these properties, they're sort of in a legal limbo. And officially on paper, there isn't really any owner. And that's important because that means that they can be foreclosed upon because if it is your homestead, if it is your primary residence, they can't foreclose on the property. But if its legal ownership is in limbo, well, now it's vulnerable. And this has had a huge impact in these heavily Black areas. And it's important because nationally, you know, we know that in general, black families receive far less of an inheritance than white families overall. Both the number of black families that receive an inheritance and the actual size of that inheritance. And so what

you're seeing happen in some of these families is you're seeing wealth just leave the family. They've lost properties that they've had for generations, and it is contributing overall to this disparity between wealth that Black families have and wealth that white families have. Have you heard from city officials where this is happening? You do quote former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kreisman. He says he had no idea how or why these cases would be concentrated in Black neighborhoods, but we are seeing what looks like disproportionate enforcement. Are cities becoming aware of this practice? And is there any effort to perhaps mitigate against it? Well, they claim that there is no racial bias.

And, you know, I don't you know, it's hard to say specifically that there is from what we've seen. At the same time, I think, you know, in talking with some former city officials, you know, some of the issues that contributed to these problems that we found were things that were not really on their radar. So, for example, what I was talking about with title issues, where, you know, especially in Black neighborhoods, the properties haven't necessarily been transferred properly from one generation to the next. That was something that a former St. Petersburg City Council member, Carl Nurse, who is a very passionate advocate for affordable housing, told me he was not really aware of before this program started. So it came

as a surprise to him how much of an issue that would be. And he is now in his personal life trying to take some steps to do things about that. He worked with some affordable housing nonprofits. But I think it did catch some city officials by surprise, the degree to which this could have a disproportionate impact on these neighborhoods. And you are seeing some steps being taken. I don't know that they're being taken by and large at the city level. I think there are organizations out there that are trying to address this problem and take the first step of helping people clear up the ownership of their properties, which creates all sorts of problems if they aren't legally the owners,

because it means they can't improve their properties. And so if they have code violations, they can't necessarily get permits to make the repairs. They can't take out loans to get the repairs. And you can imagine how that creates a situation where down the road, they're now facing a foreclosure over the issues that they have really not been able to solve. And you can call us at 305-995-1800, 305-995-1800. And we're getting a call from John, a former code enforcement officer in Tampa. John, thanks for calling. You're on.

I think we just dropped John, unfortunately. We have another call coming in from Benjamin in Jacksonville. Benjamin, thanks for calling the Florida Roundup. You're on. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. I appreciate your work. I want two ideas. Is it a myth that the financial institutions, the banks, the lenders, don't want your property? They do. They want every piece of property they can get. And then have you ever

seen the big short? Watch the big short and they show you how there were trillions of losers and a few winners. But it's about to happen again. Thank you. Thank you for the call, Benjamin. Ben, I want to, you know, just on a top level, a lot of fears in some of the people that are quoted in your article, and I've done a lot of reporting on code enforcement and how it's happening in South Florida. But is this what you're describing and what your reporting has found? Is this a return to the kind of quote unquote urban renewal, renewal, slum clearance kind of policies that fundamentally transformed a lot of cities in the 1960s, often at the cost of destroying poor black communities? And, you know, to to Benjamin's point, some people were big winners in that. Yeah, no, that's a great question. And I think certainly,

you know, the people I talked to very much saw this as part of a, you know, gentrification effort. And, you know, in St. Petersburg, for example, you know, I talked to one family and, you know, they lost a property that had been owned by it was two sisters. They lost a family that had been owned by their mother and that other family members had lived in. They'd spent part of their childhood there. And they specifically invoked a neighborhood in Tampa called the Gas Plant District, which is where the baseball stadium that Tempe raised, that neighborhood. And that was developed in the 80s. And what wound up happening was a lot of Black-owned businesses and homes were basically pushed out. And they were given money for it, but they felt, you know, a lot of people felt as though

they hadn't been given a chance to participate in this renewal. You know, the city was going in and saying, we're going to make this neighborhood better. But they didn't say, hey, we want you to come along for the ride with us. They said, we're going to push you out. And so in this case, you know, for this family um the grandparents of these sisters had lost a business that had been in that same neighborhood that gas plant neighborhood and so for them they said this is just the next round of it you know they told me st petersburg has been taking away property from our family for generations so they absolutely saw this as part of um as part of you know know, as very much in line with some of the things that we've seen in the past.

And I should point out, I mean, you know, one thing that is important to point out here is in some cases, some of the properties that have been sold have been redeveloped. They've built homes. And St. Pete has, you know, made an effort, at least in more recent years, to try to push for turning more of these properties into affordable housing. But those sisters that I talked about, you know, the lot that they lost, and this was a home that actually had been damaged in a storm, so it had to be torn down. But the lot that they lost is no better shape than when they had it in 2018. And they, you know, their grandmother still lives a few blocks away. So they're not far from this place. And they look at it and they say, this place is no better than we had it. The difference is that we don't own it anymore. And the owner of the lot is St. Petersburg. So they look at it and say, we've lost something, you know, but who's gained from this?

You know, we certainly haven't seen any benefit and the neighborhood hasn't seen any benefit. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. 305-995-1800. Danielle in Venice. Hi, Danielle. Happy Friday. Go ahead. Happy Friday. I'm actually a relatively new realtor, and I'm hearing about this, and I'm absolutely shocked that this type of thing is happening. But as a realtor, is there anything I can do to educate just people in my neighborhood about this issue? Like, hey, should you check your title constantly or what can I do to help? Sure. Ben, what can be done to keep people in their homes?

Because that's, you know, ostensibly the goal that the state has had for some time ever since the financial crisis. Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. I mean, the title thing is huge. So, you know, if you know people where maybe a family member has passed and the home now, you know, maybe like a parent died and there's two or three siblings and they'd like to keep this property, but it hasn't been fully resolved. You know, that's an instance where it's where we're certainly getting that resolved. Getting the title resolved on the house is hugely important because, as I said before, you know, without without clear ownership of a house, you can't get access to things like loans and you can't necessarily get building permits in a lot of places as well. So, you know, if you do need to make improvements, let's say you had an elderly parent that was in a house and, you know, maybe didn't, wasn't able to keep up on all their

maintenance in the last few years that they owned it. You know, if you want to be able to go in and fix it up and maybe one of the family members wants to be able to live in it, or even if they want to sell it, you know, you need to be able to get permits to do that work. And so, so clearing that ownership is important. But the other thing I'd say is it's important to try to keep up with these code enforcement penalties and to try to pay them off as quickly as you can, because these fines can accrue daily. And what I'll say is, you know, what we saw is, you know, some of the owners I talked to would ostensibly fix a problem. But, you know, if they didn't necessarily tell the code board that they had, let's say it was mowing the lawn. If they didn't

tell the code board, hey, I mowed the lawn after you said I didn't, the code board might keep charging them a daily fine, even though they've actually fixed the problem. And so it's important that you keep up with those fines, try to resolve them as quickly as possible, and try to avoid letting the balances run into what I saw, which were, you know, code enforcement fines that could be, you know, code enforcement fines that could be, you know, in the hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, even more than a million dollars, because these fines really grow quickly, they can go anywhere from, you know, more than $100 a day, I saw some communities where they were charging $250 a day. So so once you get gotten hit with

an initial fine, it can really, you know, you know, it can really grow and double, quadruple and become many, many multiples of the initial balance fairly quickly. And, you know, I'll just I'll just throw in their local municipalities in Florida. We don't have income tax. They get most of their budgets from the property and the land itself. So the incentives for government to try to make money off the real estate itself, off the land, is pretty high. But, Ben, I want to ask you, you mentioned in your piece that this attorney that's pushing this forward, Matt Widener, is looking to expand these kind of operations to different parts of the state, outside of Central Florida, basically, where we've been talking about. Do we have any idea where he's looking,

where he might be talking to local government in other parts of the state? Well, I think I think his he would be happy to expand everywhere in the state. He has he is a very regular attendee and sponsor of basically all sorts of conferences that target local officials, whether it be code enforcement officials, whether it be, you know, mayors and city managers, you know, he goes to all these conferences, he presented some of these conferences, and really makes a strong pitch to these people. Now, you know, we filed records requests, where he currently has contracts, but also a lot of cities all throughout South Florida. And we saw that he's been making pitches aggressively to cities all throughout South

Florida, you know, in Palm Beach County and Broward County. He's sending regular pitches. And frankly, I mean, I think he goes to these conferences and we have an example of this with Fort Pierce, which is his most recent client. He goes to, in that case, it was a redevelopment conference. He went to the conference. A few days after the conference, he goes to, in that case, it was a redevelopment conference. He went to the conference. A few days after the conference, he sent messages to attendees of the conference saying, hey, if you're interested in this thing I was talking about at the conference about my program for turning code enforcement lawsuits into money, here's more information about it. And in Fort Pierce's case, they went from- So it sounds like he's making moves to expand it.

And we'll have to see where that goes. Ben Weider, data and investigative reporter in McClatchy's Washington Bureau, writing for the Miami Herald this week. Ben, thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Thank you guys for having me. And when we come back, the deadly fungus killing some Florida residents and how to protect yourself next. Thank you. Welcome back to the Florida Roundup. I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville. And I'm Danny Rivero in Miami. Cases are on the rise in the U.S. of a dangerous fungus.

And Florida is among the top states with the highest number of cases, a new government study finds. Now, the Centers for Disease Control says this fungus kills 30 to 60 percent of people who get it. Sounds alarming, but don't panic. Let's learn about this from Dr. Aileen Marty. She's an expert in infectious disease at Florida International University's Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. Dr. Marty, good to have you back on the show. Always a pleasure. Thank you. 305-995-1800.

There's a fungus among us, Florida. Let's learn about it. Tweet us at Florida Roundup. Okay, this is drawing parallels to the hit HBO show The Last of Us that just wrapped up its season. But what's going on is not the plot point of that show. Tell us about this fungus, what it is and why it's a concern. of that show. Tell us about this fungus, what it is and why it's a concern. So there are over 150 different types of candida, only a few of which routinely cause disease in humans. But this particular organism that we're talking about, Candida auris, has sort of sprung up in an unexpected way over the last few years. And specifically, the reason for the alarm is that this is a type of Canada that has a higher percent, a significantly higher percent of resistance to the drugs that we have available to treat fungal infections. So it's resistant to our favorite types of drugs that treat fungi called the azole drugs. In fact, the resistance to the azole drugs is somewhere between 90 and 95%. And that's alarming because those are very safe antifungals that we like using. So we can't use

that for this organism. And it's the type of infection that can manifest almost anywhere in your body, as all candida infections can, although they do have predilection for particular parts of the body, right? problem because it's hard to get rid of, not just hard to get rid of in a patient that has it. In fact, pretty much somebody with some of these candida auris infections, we can treat them and make them well, but we don't necessarily eradicate the fungus. And from the environment, it becomes a big problem when you're talking about healthcare settings, because in the healthcare setting environment, it can attach to all kinds of places. It forms this thing called a biofilm where it can grow and then it's really hard to get rid of. You have to use these special EPA approved compounds to get rid of Canada in a health care setting. So it's a huge, huge problem. It's also now, the reason

you're hearing about it is that we had a class of antifungals that worked really well against Canada oris in general, and those were the echinocandins. Now we're seeing more and more resistance to the echinocandins, not yet to a point that we can't use them, but also to a, it's just alarming. There's another thing that we have to consider is that there are four different types of Canada auris, clads, what we call them. And among those clads, the ones that are most likely to have resistance to echinocadines and the other types of antifungals that we use are here in the United States and here in Florida. How do you know if you have Canada oris? What are the symptoms?

And that's an excellent question. And it's a challenging question for clinicians as well for several reasons. Number one, it can manifest as a usual kind of candida. It could be a simple thrush. It could be a yeast infection in other mucocutaneous areas like the vagina. It could be that. But most of the patients that we deal with in the United States that we have identified as Canada Oris, in fact, half of them are bloodstream infections, so sepsis because of Canada Oris. And those are by far the most dangerous. Now, one of the problems with Canada Oris in Florida is that in Florida, Canada Oris is not yet a reportable disease. So even though, as you noted in your intro, it's a very high incidence have been detected in Florida. It's sort of random catch as catch can because we it's just clinicians that have reported directly to the Center for Disease Control since Canada-ORIS is not yet a

reportable disease in Florida. And according to the CDC, Florida has the third highest number of these cases with 349 reported clinical cases. Why are we seeing such high numbers here in Florida? Well, it's partly because of the population that we have. We have a significant elderly population, which increases the susceptibility. So let's just talk in general about things that make you more susceptible to having significant disease from Canada auris. And that is if you're taking certain types of biologics, biologics that interfere with interleukin-17 or interleukin-22, then your odds of having a worse disease go up. If you have an immunocompromised condition because you have AIDS or you have other problems like cancers, kidney disease, diabetes,

these can increase your risk for getting bad chronic Canada oris. And as we get older, we tend to have more of these various diseases. And so we have an older population where we have this increased risk. But remember, the cases in Florida are vastly undercounted. And there's another reason for the undercount. And that is that many of the standard techniques that we use to detect which species of fungus somebody has don't really tell you accurately that it's Candida auris. And so there's a lot of misdiagnosis going on. So the CDC has asked all of us to use a nucleic acid amplification test like PCR to really know that we have Canada oris and to tell them what clad it is and also do those studies that

tell us how resistant a particular patient's Canada oris is because we're very concerned. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. because we're very concerned. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. You can call us at 305-995-1800. Doctor, the CDC says that this fungus presents a serious global health threat. And since the COVID-19 pandemic started, surveys have showed that the trust in public health institutions has gone down pretty dramatically in some populations. What would you say to someone listening right now who might kind of write this off and, you know, don't worry about it? We're not worried about what public health officials are saying. What would you say to someone that says that?

Well, it breaks my heart because this is not only a problem in the United States. They're absolutely right. The WHO has made it one of the most serious diseases on the planet. And in fact, it put out a special list of dangerous pathogens. And Canada auras is right there, right near the top of the list. So the fact that, yes, there has been this loss of confidence in public health is really unfortunate. And it requires that people get more personalized information from their health care providers about how these things really can affect their lives and the simple things that they can do to reduce their own risks, which is really ultimately what people need to know. Before we say goodbye, can you, I'm assuming a lot of it is common sense,

like washing our hands, but what can we do to protect ourselves from this? Yeah, so first of all, the very first thing you want to do is maintain your wellness as best as possible. So the simple things like exercise, eat right, right? I mean, get enough sleep. All those things are going to decrease your risk, right? If you have an immunocompromising condition, then your risk is already up there. And if you get COVID, for example, your risk is even worse. It really made COVID cases much more difficult to manage and much more likely to die if they got super infected with this candida auris. So what people need to understand is they need to practice hygiene, just like you said. There are EPA products that

people can look up. There's a chart called the EPA List P that gives people a variety of different products they can use in their homes that decrease the risk of having that fungus in their homes and in their offices and other places that they frequent. And should the Department of Health be doing anything in the way of getting messaging out to the public and tracking cases? Yes, the Department of Health should definitely be tracking cases. And I certainly hope that in the very near future, it becomes an officially reportable disease in Florida. reportable disease in Florida. So that's, there's the rub. It needs to reach that level of status before we can get a better idea data-wise? Yeah, I mean, right, it is a nationally reportable

disease, but we don't have that obligation here in Florida to report it to the state, and therefore we're not tracking it in the ideal form. And that's unfortunate. And that's one of the first things we need to fix. Is this worse in South Florida or is this spreading all over Florida? It's worse in certain pockets of Florida. So it's not a widespread issue right now. Nonetheless, I think that anyone going into a health care facility needs to be aware if there was an outbreak in that health care facility and whether it was resolved using those appropriate EPA products because it can linger in the

environment. These biofilms of Canada or as you know stick to plastic stick to windows stick to all kinds of things and and if you're going into the hospital, you're likely going to have some reason why you're going to be more susceptible to the infection. Be wary of that. And thank you, Dr. Aileen Marty. She's an expert in infectious disease at Florida International University's Herbert Wartime College of Medicine. Thanks for appearing with us today on the Florida Roundup. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Wash your hands, everybody. Stay healthy. And that is Roundup. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Wash your hands,

everybody. Stay healthy. And that is our show. Thanks for listening. The Florida Roundup is produced by WJCT Public Media in Jacksonville and WLRN Public Media in Miami. Heather Schatz, Bridget O'Brien, and Natu Tway are show producers. Brendan Rivers is associate producer. WLRN's vice president of radio and our technical director is Peter Mayers. Engineering help from Doug Peterson, Charles Michaels, and Isabella Da Silva. Richard Ives answers the phones. And our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at AaronLeibos.com. I'm Danny Rivero. And I'm Melissa Ross.

Thanks for being with us and have a great weekend.