Gubernatorial Candidate Evelyn Castillo-Bach Unveils Bold Grassroots Plan to Tackle Florida's Cost-of-Living Crisis

An estimated 44,234 families with children are homeless. Reported by Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida. June 2025

PEMBROKE PINES, FL, UNITED STATES, June 24, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Evelyn Castillo-Bach, a Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate running a grassroots campaign with a People First, Not Politics agenda, announced today her affordability plan focused on addressing the state's cost of living crisis. Her plan is built on a simple framework: what you earn, what you pay, and what you owe. Castillo-Bach's proposals are based on her experiences as a Floridian, a criminal justice reform advocate, a former single mom who relied on welfare, and a mother who lost her autistic son to epilepsy.

"For decades, politicians in Tallahassee have made decisions favoring the powerful and the insurance companies while leaving working families to figure it out alone," Castillo-Bach said. "I believe affordability has three parts: what you earn, what you pay, and what you owe. I don't care which party an idea comes from. If it helps ordinary Floridians, I'm for it. If it doesn't, I'm against it.

What You Earn:
Florida's minimum wage is $14.00 per hour. It will reach $15.00 on September 30, 2026. The MIT Living Wage Calculator says a single adult in Florida needs $24.09 per hour. "But that assumes health insurance only costs $311 a month, which most people could only wish were true," Castillo-Bach said. She proposes indexing wages to inflation.

What You Pay:
Property insurance in Florida varies dramatically depending on where you live and what your home is worth. "But there is a hidden, serious problem that must be addressed to protect Florida property owners," Castillo-Bach said. "Affiliate companies." What are they?

A 2022 state-commissioned report — suppressed by regulators and only revealed after a two-year public records battle by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times — found that while Florida-based insurers reported a $432 million net loss from 2017 to 2019, their affiliate companies reported $1.8 billion in net income. When all 53 companies were included, insurers showed $61 million in net income while affiliates made nearly $14 billion. Executives also paid themselves $680 million in shareholder dividends during the same period. "All the current talk about cutting property taxes instead of cutting property insurance rates is a distraction so homeowners don't see how this affiliate scheme is a cash cow for these corporations, built on the backs of homeowners, and going largely unregulated and unmonitored," Castillo-Bach said.

On utilities, Castillo-Bach proposes property tax breaks for homeowners who install solar panels, capping utility profits, and a total ban on utility rate increases caused by hyperscale data centers. "Your electric bill shouldn't be driven by shareholder dividends," Castillo-Bach said. Additionally, she proposes a ban on non-disclosure agreements involving hyperscale data centers and would also require hyperscale data centers to pay a perpetual mandatory fee to fund her proposed Florida Affordable Housing Fund. "If these companies want to operate in Florida, they must be transparent about what they're doing and they must contribute to the fund," Castillo-Bach said. "These billionaire companies need to give, not just take."

About 34% of Florida households rent. Rents have gone up about 39% since 2019. Over 900,000 renters are paying more than 40% of their income just to keep a roof over their heads, reported the 2025 Statewide Rental Market Study, released by the University of Florida’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies.

Castillo-Bach proposes a Florida State Rental Voucher Program and wants to protect renters from predatory corporate landlords while protecting the rights of mom-and-pop landlords.

What You Owe:
Florida's medically uninsured rate is reported at 10.9%. The national average is 8.2%. Approximately 15.5% of Florida's working-age adults are uninsured. The national average is reportedly 11.3%. Florida's children are uninsured at 8.5%, up from 7.5% in 2023, compared to the national average of 6.0%.

Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, responsible for 66.5% of bankruptcies. In Florida, 6.6% of adults — roughly 1.45 million people — carry medical debt in collections.

"Profit should not come from people getting sick," Castillo-Bach said. "No Floridian should go bankrupt because they got sick."

Castillo-Bach proposes the creation of Florida Direct Care: a system that pays healthcare providers directly, bypassing insurance companies, for the benefit of the uninsured, underinsured, and working Floridians who cannot afford private healthcare.

The Florida Direct Care plan also includes:
- ban all medical debt
- ban reporting of medical debt to credit bureaus
- create a public database of healthcare prices
- ban lobbyists representing the healthcare industry from writing laws impacting health care policy and cost
- mandates independent audits of state healthcare contracts.

It would be funded through healthcare surcharges on luxury vessels and luxury real estate, plus contributions from major retailers who do not provide employee health insurance — with exemptions for small businesses and mom-and-pop stores.

Florida has rejected at least $11 billion in federal funds in recent years, including Medicaid expansion, reported by Orlando Sentinel, January 2024. It also reported Florida has left $499 million in federal disability funds unspent, with 23,000 children and adults on waiting lists. Florida blocked KidCare expansion, denying 165,000 children coverage.

Florida's reserves, fiscal year 2025-2026, total $14.6 billion, with $4.2 billion in unallocated General Revenue, FY 2025-2026 Budget Highlight.

"The best solutions for Florida come from looking at every good idea, regardless of which party it comes from," Castillo-Bach said. "I am not part of a political machine. I respect the needs of ordinary people. I respect all Floridians enough to embrace good ideas that benefit them. I want to win the Democratic Party primary with integrity and transparency and showing voters we can fix what's broken. People First. Not Politics.

Correction: A June 19, 2026 press release cited the governor's emergency powers as "Florida Constitution, emergency powers provisions." The correct source is Florida Statute 252.36
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About:
Evelyn Castillo-Bach is a long-time Independent voter running as a Democrat for Governor of Florida in 2026. She currently serves as Executive Director of Balanced Justice Network. Her campaign focuses on three pillars: Health, Home, and Freedom. She is a Columbia University Journalism graduate.

Paid for by Evelyn Castillo-Bach, Democrat, for Governor.

Evelyn Castillo-Bach Campaign For Governor of Florida 2026
Evelyn Castillo-Bach Campaign for Governor of Florida 2026
info@evelynforgovernor.org
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