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 discussed in the early 1970s.
Rural Neighborhoods’ President, Steven Kirk, testified before Congress in March 2021 before the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations at its Creating Equitable Communities through Transportation and Housing hearing. In answering the question as to how communities best apply a racial equity lens toward equitable development, he answered “no one…
Former Gourmet editor and James Beard award-winner Barry Estabrook traces the supermarket tomato from Immokalee, FL and presents a who’s who cast of characters in the tomato industry. This New York Times best-seller includes The Builder, a chapter highlighting Rural Neighborhood’s role in improving agricultural housing.
“Everglades Village is a much larger planned community than you would find in a typical tax-credit project or USDA-funded project,” says Steve Kirk, ECA’s executive Director, “Our Planning process was to build more of a self-contained community. Read the article Planning Magazine: Migrant Not Homeless
Four months ago, a 14-member board of deep South Dade growers, migrants, ministers and businessmen took over operation of the 400-trailer Everglades Migrant Labor Camp south of Florida City. The camp was hastily developed by Metro nine years ago to cope with a migrant housing crisis and a smallpox epidemic. Last summer, Metro commissioners voted…
When Carmen Rivera gets to work every morning, she checks her office for messages and then starts walking. She’s a social worker who goes door-to-door at the Everglades farmworker camp, which houses about 400 families, visiting residents and identifying needs. She rarely has time to sit down in her sparsely furnished office. But when the…
It’s been a month since the family moved from Michigan, said Andrea’s mother, Heather Rodriguez, and they’re still settling into their new lives in Florida. It’s been an adjustment, she said, but a welcome one. “We’ve never lived in such a pretty place,” Rodriguez, 29, said of the new two-bedroom, two-bathroom town home the family…