>>Welcome back.
The failure of the Florida legislature
to pass any reforms this year
making condos safer is drawing a strong reaction
from families who lost loved ones
in the Champlain Towers collapse.
This week, I spoke to Martin Langesfeld
who's sister Nikki and her new husband Lewis
were among the 98 people who died in Surfside.
Give me your thoughts with regard to
the fact that they did nothing this session.
>>It's unbelievable.
And to families of victims, it's truly just gut wrenching.
It makes it very clear to see how little they care
of so many people dying in their safest place.
You purchase a home and all you wait for
is to go to bed at night
because you know that's your safe place.
You worked your entire life for that.
And for them to not do anything
in the first legislative session, the most important one,
after such a horrific catastrophe
shows that money is more important than lives
here in Florida.
>>Tell me a little bit about your sister.
>>It's hard to think she's not here anymore.
It's been over nine months now
and it really feels like we are in a never ending nightmare.
She's a beautiful 26 year old attorney
when she got taken from us.
Ready to start her life, recently married, an athlete,
animal lover, ambitions that she worked so hard on to start.
And finally, once she opened that door
and got her dream job, had all the potential in life
to do what she wanted and what made her happy,
it was taken from her.
>>And that's bad enough, but then having to experience that
and then seeing nothing getting better as a result.
In other words, not doing anything to make condo life safer
for more than three and a half million people
in the state of Florida,
more than a million and a half condos and units
in the state of Florida.
That's the part that's infuriating for you.
>>Three and a half million people are in potential danger.
How many more need to die
for our political leaders to make a difference?
They have the power in their hands to make a change,
an actual change, and to save lives.
>>There was another bill that brought you up to Tallahassee
which the current bill would've allowed,
or the current law says that developers can be held liable
for problems within their building
for 10 years after they turn it over, correct?
That's the current state of the law.
They tried to pass a bill that would've lowered that
to just four years.
What were your thoughts when you heard that?
>>How is that even possible?
We're going in the complete opposite direction.
That's an insult to all the families,
to all the people who feel safe in their own homes.
Instead of raising accountability to 20 years, 15 years
or whatever the number may be, they're doing the opposite
and trying to drop the accountability to four years
so they can wipe their hands and walk away
when more people die.
>>Now that bill didn't pass,
in part because you went up and lobbied against it.
You made it clear that this was unacceptable.
>>It's unacceptable.
It should have never been on the table.
And I made sure to make my voice clear
for those who no longer have a voice.
>>Now, the bill that there was some hope for,
that would've actually put in some real reform
for condo associations and condos
was a bill that broke down at the end
on the issue of reserve funds.
Reserves being the money set aside to make sure
that you have it there for critical repairs.
The House sponsor of the bill,
State Representative Danny Perez,
said that should never be waiving under any circumstance.
The Senate raised the standard
from maybe just a dozen or so condo unit owners
being able to waive it for an entire building,
to requiring that two thirds of all unit owners
vote to waive before it could be waived.
That's where the negotiations broke down.
What were your thoughts about that bill?
>>I'm very grateful that Representative Danny Perez
did present this bill and did everything he could
in his power to try to make a change.
And I stand with him that there's no negotiation on life.
The few thousand dollars it may cost
to keep your building safe,
you're going to end up spending in funeral expenses
when another building collapses.
So it's very, very disappointing to see
that it broke down because of money once again.
There's no negotiation on the value of life.
>>That's it, end of story.
>>It's going to happen again if things are not changed,
if regulations and laws are not put to standard and to code
and the only way to do this
is with having funds that cannot be negotiated.
>>When you look at your sister,
your sister moved in about two months before the collapse,
she had just gotten married, correct?
>>Ready to start her life.
In her dream home, would wake up, go on her runs,
work from home because of the pandemic.
And she died in her dream place.
>>And she probably had no idea what was going on
structurally within that building.
>>Absolutely no idea.
She was just happy to be there.
>>Yeah. You think you're on the water,
you think things are good, you go to bed.
>>Who doesn't want to live
on that street with that beautiful view?
And that view is what killed my sister.
>>We talked about the House and the Senate
not being able to come to terms with this.
I'm wondering, where was Governor DeSantis
during all of this?
He was at the site every day, we saw him there.
To your knowledge, did he play any role in trying to
help pass legislation that would've done something
about making condos safer?
>>He did absolutely nothing.
Once the cameras left,
maybe three weeks after the collapse, he left.
We've requested to meet with him countless times.
Many families have requested to meet with him
and he acts like we do not exist.
It seems he doesn't care if another building collapses.
I've gone to knock his door in Tallahassee multiple times.
Change needs to be made.
He can make the change and he doesn't want to listen.
>>When you say we've tried to speak to him, who's we?
>>Family members, victim's family members, myself, others.
>>And you've reached out to the governor's office.
And you can't get a meeting?
>>Countless times.
Over 100, probably.
>>What does that tell you?
>>How little do they care?
How many buildings is it going to take
for our governor to care?
When it's his family, maybe?
What's it going to take?
>>What do you wanna see happen?
Do you want this to be taken up next year?
Or would you like to, are you hoping that there'll be
some sort of a special session where they can come back
and deal with this subject sooner?
>>Next year could be too late
and we can't even have a question in the air
of something being too late and for this to happen again.
This needs to be taken in a special session.
It's already disappointing and insulting
that it wasn't taken up in the first legislative session.
3.5 million innocent hardworking people.
Citizens, residents, visitors, millions come to Florida
to live their dream, to be happy here.
And so many of them do not know they are in danger.
We can't see the foundations and what's under the building.
We're not experts in this.
Change needs to be made,
and a special session is the only way to make this happen.
It's already too late.
We cannot wait another year.
>>Let's sort of broaden it out a little bit.
And let's talk about, what has the last nine months
been like for you?
>>A never ending nightmare.
Sometimes you just have to slap yourself
to see if this is reality and think back nine months
and you picture it in your head.
Sometimes you lay down, you look at the roof
and you say, what were my sister's last seconds like?
Did she see the roof fall?
It doesn't seem to be real.
>>You think about that when you lay down in bed at night?
>>All the time,
and I'm not the only one who thinks about that.
This really affected everyone.
And the worst part is, the hardest part is,
we don't have closure.
We do not know what happened.
And we can't compare this to 9/11
because in 9/11 we knew what happened
seconds after it happened.
Here, we don't know and it's over nine months already.
And the scary part is it could happen again.
>>Up next, with rents and fuel costs going up,
families continue to have trouble
keeping enough food on the table.
We check in with the head of Feeding South Florida
to see where we stand.