A coalition of progressive groups registered this week with the Florida Division of Elections the text of a constitutional amendment that would limit annual rent increases to 3% or inflation — whichever is lower — with the aim of bringing it to the ballot in 2028, according to reported WLRN.
The initiative, named «Floridians for Fair Rent», is led by Florida Rising, Miami Workers Center, and Community Justice Project. The measure would exclusively apply to corporate landlords with large real estate portfolios; small individual landlords would be exempt from its reach.
For thousands of Cubans renting in Miami-Dade, Hialeah, and Kendall, the proposal could represent future relief, although it is neither immediate nor guaranteed: it depends on a process that will last until 2028 and requires overcoming several obstacles.
"The high cost of living in Florida is the number one issue making life unsustainable for people here, and the rental crisis has been one of the worst in the country," stated Ivanna Gonzalez, director of campaigns for Florida Rising.
The context is clear: Florida has the highest percentage of renters facing cost burdens in the entire country, at 59%, according to the report "America's Rental Housing 2026" by Harvard.
In Miami-Dade, 61% of renters spend more than 30% of their income on rent, and nearly 800,000 Floridians pay more than half of their salary on rent.
The average rent in Miami-Dade reached $2,669 per month in September 2026, while the average individual income in the county is around $39,000 annually. The campaign estimates that if a 3% cap had been in place since 2020, the average tenant would be paying $470 less per month, which amounts to about $5,500 less per year.
The path of the citizen amendment is, in practice, the only one available. The state legislature prohibited in 2023 local governments from imposing rent controls, overturning the measure that Orange County voters had supported with 59% of the votes.
Florida Realtors and the Florida Apartment Association filed a lawsuit to block it, and both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case.
To reach the ballot, the campaign needs 891,589 verified signatures in at least 14 of the 27 districts of the state by February 2028. If successful, the amendment must receive at least 60% of the votes to become law.
"All Floridians can agree that rent is too high. For years, large corporate landlords have manipulated the rules to their advantage, stripping tenants of protections. It's time for that to change," stated Santra Denis, executive director of the Miami Workers Center.
Collecting those signatures will not be easy. The HB 1205 law, passed in 2025, requires volunteers who gather more than 25 petitions to register as official collectors and pay fees that the organizers consider prohibitive.
To overcome this obstacle, the campaign chose to use postal mail: citizens register on their website, receive the petition at home with a prepaid reply envelope, and return it within three days.
The administrative approval of the text is expected in January, at which point applications will begin to be submitted. The campaign aims to gather 100,000 registrations before that date.
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