A year ago this Wednesday, President Barack Obama came to Fort Myers and spoke to a community gutted by foreclosures and double-digit unemployment.
“I know Fort Myers had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation last year,” Obama told a crowd of 1,500 at Harborside Event Center, not a month after his triumphant inauguration. “If we want to fully turn this crisis around, the starting point is to get people back to work right now.”
It hasn’t happened.
Lee County’s unemployment rate has increased by 2 percentage points since Obama’s visit. It sits at 13.8 percent, with 37,600 residents looking for work.
Foreclosures also remain high, though they’ve declined in the past year. Lee had 1,228 foreclosures filed in January, a 37 percent drop from a year ago.
Southwest Floridians, some of whom pumped their fists and shouted “Yes we can” during Obama’s visit, now have mixed emotions about the president.
Some say Obama’s $787 billion economic recovery plan, which was passed by the Senate even as the Fort Myers town hall meeting was going on, never impacted them. Others say Obama should be given more time.
The local reaction mirrors a growing national dissatisfaction. Obama’s approval rating has dropped 20 percentage points since January 2009 and is at 48 percent, according to Gallup.
“I haven’t seen much of a change. My wife is still trying to find a job. She’s been looking for a year,” said Quran Pettyjohn, a Lehigh Acres resident who sat in the front row for Obama’s appearance.
“So far, it’s not so good but a lot of people are expecting change overnight. That’s not going to happen.
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