Gen Z Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost has been denied an apartment because of “really bad” credit
- Business
- December 9, 2022
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- 11
Maxwell Frost made history last month when he won the election in Florida’s 10th congressional district and became the first Gen Z member of Congress at just 25 years old. But that historic win wasn’t easy – and now the financial toll of the campaign is making it difficult for him to secure a home close to home.
In a Twitter thread Thursday, Frost said he just applied to rent an apartment in Washington, DC. During this process, he told the person who received his application that his “credit score was really bad.”
I just applied to an apartment in DC where I told the guy that my credit is really bad. He said I would be fine. Was rejected, lost the apartment and the application fee.
This is not for people who don’t have money yet.
— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) December 8, 2022
“He said I’d be fine,” Frost said. “Rejected, apartment and application fee lost. It’s not for people who don’t have any money yet.”
He went on to say that he had bad credit because he “went into a lot of debt for a year and a half to run for Congress.”
During his campaign, Frost told Politico that he quit his job to focus on the campaign. He drove to Uber to pay his bills, a “sacrifice” he made because “I can’t see myself doing anything but solving the problems we’re having right now.”
But that money didn’t go far enough, Frost said Thursday, saying he “didn’t make enough money from Uber myself to pay for my living.”
“It’s not magic that we won our very difficult race. I left my full-time job for this elementary school because I knew I would have to be a full-time contestant to win by the age of 25. 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. It’s not sustainable or right, but it’s what we had to do,” he said tweeted. “As a candidate, you cannot give yourself a stipend or anything until the end of your campaign. So most of the time you don’t have $ that you make unless you have a second job.”
Members of the House and Senate earn $174,000 a year, but that salary doesn’t start until Frost is sworn in on Jan. 3. In the meantime, he must find a place to stay in DC’s expensive housing market. According to Apartment List, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city is $1,786, well above the national average. Zillow has an even higher cost of living, with a median rent of more than $2,300 for a one-bedroom apartment, up a little over $300 from last year.
Frost noted that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced something similar when she was elected in 2018.
“I have three months without a salary before I become a member of Congress. So how do I get an apartment? These little things are very real,” she told the New York Times. “…I was really just banging around and then hoping that would get me to Janaury.”
Four years later, “it’s still an issue,” Frost said Thursday.
“We have to make it better for the whole country.”
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