After Hurricane Wilma hit last fall, Marlene Brody repaired her storm-damaged seawall and returned to life as a snowbird, shuttling between her upstate New York horse farm and winter home in North Bay Village. But then Brody heard a radio news report that made her realize recovery had not been as easy for everyone.
Read the article Donor Aids Victims
This past week our legislators slashed $190M in affordable housing construction. Just as essential elected officials broke faith with working people, investors and other governments as it violated signed loan commitments previously agreed. Such rash, unthinking action results in the loss of $1B in construction expenditures, a thousand jobs and the risk of bankruptcy to…
Rural Neighborhoods and two south Florida non-profit organizations urged Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez to reconsider his executive action to comply with ICE non-binding, two-day “detainer” requests after President Donald Trump threatened to deny unspecified Federal grants to cities and counties that don’t fully cooperate with immigration authorities. The heads of the Coalition of Florida Farmworker Organizations and Centro Campesino joined Steven Kirk…
The challenges of site acquisition, land use, and competitive financing are no different in communities targeting agricultural workers than in other affordable rental communities, said Kirk. “The added complexity in serving farmworkers is to understand agricultural markets and wages, and to layer sufficient subsidies to reach affordability.” Read the article Seeds of Change
A seed planted more than 20 years ago in South Dade is finally yielding a harvest. The last of 240 foundations for single-family homes has been poured at the Everglades Farmworkers Villages…. The first 69 homes will be ready for families at the end of January – the result of a process that was first…
Just before Thanksgiving 1982, Donato Garcia burst into Trailer 3-6 at Everglades Migrant Labor Camp, joyous with news of “the elections” that would at last bring power to the farmworker. His wife Matilda remained silent — gazing at the unpaid rent bill and the barren refrigerator. “Please, Donato,” she remembers saying. “Don’t get into it….
“It took three years to get back to a sense of normalcy,” Kirk recalled. “In essence, Hurricane Andrew rebirthed Everglades Community Association from a local, inexperienced neighborhood group into an innovative and experienced statewide group focusing on rural communities. On her first visit to the spot last month, an Andrew survivor marveled at the improvements….