Miami-Dade Parks kicked off the opening of its newest addition Saturday with mariachis, Mexican food and a hot-air balloon – all while fighting off rain and mosquitoes. But the dreary day did not stop residents from enjoying the celebration. “We came to see the opening,” said Vanessa Godinez, 12, who went with her family.
Read the article Mariachis Help Open New Park
It’s been a month since the family moved from Michigan, said Andrea’s mother, Heather Rodriguez, and they’re still settling into their new lives in Florida. It’s been an adjustment, she said, but a welcome one. “We’ve never lived in such a pretty place,” Rodriguez, 29, said of the new two-bedroom, two-bathroom town home the family…
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…
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
Ten years ago, hundreds of migrants who harvested Homestead’s winter vegetables lived in dilapidated trailers at the Everglades Labor Camp near Naranja. The camp was set up in 1974 with 400 mobile homes provided by the U.S. Labor Department.[Steven Kirk]’s nonprofit association has spent the past 10 years using more than $40-million in local, state…
For a week, the migrant workers and field hands in the spartan Everglades Labor Camp four miles west of this farming center found themselves at the end of the relief lines, ignored and isolated as they battled hunger, thirst and then the weekend’s rains. Time and again, an ambulance or police car would stop, residents said…
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…