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
“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….
To do that, the Homestead-based nonprofit housing organization which provides affordable housing for rural poor, migrants and seasonal farmworkers in Collier, Hillsborough and Miami-Dade counties offers a program that gives tenants in their affordable housing developments 5 percent of their rent back to help them become a homeowner…. “We wish to encourage tenants to not…
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….
A 9-acre tract on South 25th Street, once home to some 100 dilapidated trailers, has a new life with 104 brand-new apartments, a clubhouse, pool, playgrounds and other amenities. Both the new Live Oak Villas and the former ABC Mobile Home Park, which was condemned by the city, cater to the same people – farmworkers…
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.
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…