Magali Perez, 25, remembers coming home from her job at a plant nursery, hoping she was next in line to use the kitchen shared by four families living under one roof. They shared one stove, so they had to cook and eat in shifts. She and her husband, Ramiro, and their five children now have their own kitchen.
Read the article Cultivating A Home
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…
Less than two years after the Everglades Community Association began a 500-unit project to house farm workers, 240 homes have been completed, 135 families have moved ir, and bids on the project’s second phases are expected to go out next month. Everglades Villages, south of Florida City on the way to Everglades National Park, is…
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….
Without the stimulus funding, the project “would have died on the vine,” says Kevin Tatreau, director of multifamily development for Florida Housing Finance Corporation. “Stimulus allowed for less than 60% AMI, says Steven Kirk, President of Rural Neighborhoods. “We try to get as many units set aside for extremely low income so farmworkers can take…
Rural Neighborhoods is honored to be a co-author in the book NeighborWorks Works: Practical Solutions from America’s Community Development Network. The recently released publication consists of case studies of the best work being done in community development as well as innovative solutions in affordable housing. Our excerpt “Nonprofit Takeovers: Tools for Tough Times” describes our…
One of South Dade’s Farmworker communities is on the move. After months of delays, the Everglades Community Association has begun relocating trailers to a temporary site in Leisure City. Once the move is complete, construction of permanent housing will begin at the ECA site outside Florida City. “The funds have been allocated and thinks are…