WASHINGTON Rep.-elect Maxwell Frost of Florida is the first person from Generation Z to be elected to Congress. He says it’s hard for him to find an apartment in Washington and that he lost an application fee because his credit is “really bad.”
The progressive Democrat, who will make $174,000 a year as a congressman, is only 25 years old. He says his credit score went down because he ran for office for a year and a half and got into debt. He said that after three months of running for office, he had to become an Uber driver to pay his bills and buy food.
Frost tweeted on Thursday that his trouble finding an apartment in Washington, one of the most expensive cities in the country, wasn’t for people who didn’t already have money. His situation shows how hard it can be for young or otherwise struggling new members of Congress who move to a pricey city and may not be able to afford a place to live until they start getting paid by the government.
Kevin Lata, who ran Frost’s campaign, said on Friday that the new congressman has received more than 100 offers for temporary housing while he continues to look for an apartment. Jose Andres, a famous chef, and Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California, who lives in California and shares an apartment with Democratic Rep. Darren Soto of Florida, have both publicly offered him a place to stay.
Frost remembered that Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who at the age of 29 at the time of her election in 2018 became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, encountered a similar challenge when she was first elected. She claimed that she was unable to find an apartment in the city that she wanted to live in before she started receiving her salary.
Ocasio-Cortez brought attention to the fact that many members of Congress are extremely wealthy, and she questioned how they could fairly represent working people if they had never faced the same challenges.
Frost, a Black man of Cuban descent, ran his campaign on the issues of gun safety and “Medicare for All.” He received the endorsement of progressive figures such as Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for his efforts.
In Florida’s highly blue 10th Congressional District, which encompasses the Orlando area, he won the seat that had been held by Rep. Val Demings by a comfortable margin. Demings was unsuccessful in her campaign to unseat Marco Rubio, who is a Republican senator.
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