Just before Thanksgiving 1982, Donato Garcia burst into Trailer 3-6 at Everglades Migrant Labor Camp, joyous with news of “the elections” that would at last bring power to the farmworker. His wife Matilda remained silent — gazing at the unpaid rent bill and the barren refrigerator. “Please, Donato,” she remembers saying. “Don’t get into it. You’ll only get your heart broken.”
Read the article Migrant Turmoil
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
Big Cypress Housing Corp. Inc. plans to develop rental housing units for legal migrant and seasonal farmworkers in Immokalee, west of Carson Road. The nonprofit housing organization will construct 92 multifamily rental housing units on the 20-acre property, named the Reserves at Eden Gardens. Read the article New Family Housing
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…
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.
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…
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…