We truly are an organization driven by our mission…. [Staff] take personal pride that they do their job well and do a great deal of good. For a charitable group like ourselves, measureable success opens doors to local elected officials, lenders and investors – and that means the opportunity to do more good.
Read the article Changing Perceptions: High Quality Housing for Farmworkers
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…
Rural Neighborhoods’ President, Steven Kirk, participated in a White Housing roundtable on rural housing on Wednesday, July 24th. The policy discussion brought together twenty-five rural and tribal housing professionals from around the country together with leadership from Domestic Policy Council, USDA and HUD. Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development Basil Gooden, HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary…
Marisol Avenir has spent the past four months living in a place she calls paradise. It’s a stone’s throw from the Dade County prison on a road that leads to farmland once devoured by Hurricane Andrew. “In Homestead,” she says, “I’ve lived in three different places. I’m super happy here.” Read the article East Coast…
“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….
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.
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…