In Homestead, farmworkers have a choice of living in what one resident calls paradise. The community is called Everglades Village. The housing project was built by an organization called the Everglades Community Association, a public-private group whose goal is to build decent and affordable housing for farmworkers.
Read the article Group to Build Housing for Immokalee Farmworkers
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…
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…
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
National public accounting firm Cohn Reznick Group profiles Rural Neighborhoods in a short video. Tom Neibaur, Director of Operations says, “We can put up the bricks and mortar, that’s the easy part. We could never have mastered the finance and accounting intricacies of our project without Cohn Reznick Group’s help.” Please click on the full…
In an unprecedented effort of cooperation, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman pledged their commitment to local farmworkers last week on a two-day visit to South Dade. Read the article Farmworkers Get Cabinet Support
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…