Former Governor Jeb Bush Continues Holiday Tradition for Migrants

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…

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

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…

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…

U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello visited the ”poorest of the poor” victims of Hurricane Andrew on Saturday at a migrant camp on the edge of the Everglades. Everglades Labor Camp, a dusty, muddy sprawl in the flat grasses that abut the entrance to Everglades National Park, was almost overlooked after the storm. It’s not on…