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.
Usually Robert Torres would be in the fields now, preparing the flat, marly ground for young tomato plants set in rows that run straight into the horizon. But not this year. Not after Hurricane Andrew. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe all this,” Torres, 35, said Monday. A big man, Torres was sitting in a folding…
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…
“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….
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…
Metro Commissioner Larry Hawkins wants to block the purchase of a South Dade trailer park that is a key part of a permanent housing plan for farmworkers in South Dade. The housing plan developed by the Everglades Community Association was unanimously approved three months ago by the Metro-Dade Commission. It hinges on the county buying…
Metro has called off next week’s threatened closing of the Everglades Migrant Labor Camp after growers agreed to rent half the camp’s 400 trailers Jack Campbell, secretary-treasurer of the South Florida Tomato and Vegetable Growers Association, said Monday that migrants will have to pay up or get out under the new management, which takes over…