Good news for Miami Dade County by gimleteye

Miami’s affordable housing advocates had every reason to be angry, during the housing boom.

Today, they have formed a strategic alliance with the county administration, lead by County Mayor Carlos Alvarez who seized the opportunity over the Scott Carver controversy in Libery City to plant seeds for change in relations with disadvantaged areas, offering hope and promise where little existed before.

For video of the recent press conference including speeches from Mayor Carlos Alvarez, Chair of Miami-Dade County Commission Dennis Moss, Miami Workers Center Director Gihan Perera, and LIFFT Leader Ms. Yvonne Stratford.

Throughout the entire housing boom, affordable housing advocates from poor Miami neighborhoods scarcely penetrated the county bureaucracy. Finally, the Miami Herald ‘House of Lies’ series exposed the fraud and corruption, wasting tens of millions of dollars while thousands of poor families suffered.

For the most part, the mainstream media has entirely avoided the underlying facts of the housing boom. During this time, production home builders and condo developers commandeered control of local governments for the purpose of speeding zoning approvals past groups of angry citizens, mostly concerned about shifting the costs of growth.

In this climate fostered by a powerful majority of county commissioners, the Miami Dade Housing Agency sank into a cesspit of fraud and mismanagement, an opportunity for lower level lobbyists to take advantage of easy money to scramble up the wealth ladder.

The Herald’s “House of Lies” series began to expose the rot. In response to the series, the Miami Workers Center in Liberty City convened a new coalition including Power U Center for Social Change, the Human Services Coalition of Miami Dade County, ACORN, SEIU Local 11, FAMN—Haitian Women of Miami, and PACT and strongly supported by a wide range of faith based groups, churches, and student organizations.

In October, activists from the Center for Pan-African Development created Umoja Village, a shantytown in Liberty City which became a permanent symbol of the housing crisis.

In January, former residents, members of LIFFT (Low Income Families Fighting Together) and MWC took over the site of the last standing Scott Carver building, blocks away from the shantytown. More than one thousand families had been displaced from housing in that neighborhood, while promises for new housing failed to materialize throughout the housing boom.

In the face of building momentum, the county moved to shut down the site, triggering a stand off between members and police. On Valentines Night the police evicted members and fenced off the site.

With HUD and its supporters on the county commission clamoring for a federal takeover, Kris Warren, the newly hired head of the county housing agency, reached out to MWC/LIFFT and the result of these conversations is a historic breakthrough agreement.

1. 1 for 1 Replacement: NO net loss in extremely low income units, plus an overall gain in affordable working class housing on site and in the neighborhood.
2. Right to Return: every one of the 1,129 families displaced from the community has the right and affordability to return to their community and its social, economic, political and cultural networks.
3. Representative power over the development design and process, including MWC/LIFFT representation on an accountability panel to oversee implementation of the plan.
4. The development of a community building with space for services, information, and public participation.
5. A tribute and commemoration to Scott Homes; its history, struggle, and the contribution of the Black Community

What happened to the needs of the disadvantaged and poor in Miami-Dade during the housing boom is disgraceful.

When there was attention by the county commission to the needs of affordable housing—like the Barbara Jordan “inclusionary” housing ordinance—it was primarily organized around the needs of production home builders, not community advocates who live and work with the disadvantaged.

The rapid collapse of the housing bubble has builders scrambling for business to keep cash flow from drying up entirely.

Today, Investors Business Daily reports that Miami’s gold plated Related Group is converting multi-million dollar condominiums to units priced from $159,000. One real estate analyst says, “Over the last 24 months you were almost a heretic to talk about affordable housing… now the conversation is, oh market opportunity.”

It is no wonder that affordable housing advocates jumped to attention, a few months ago, when County Commissioner Joe Martinez suggested that production home builders—his campaign contributors and political allies—might be able to “help out” on the affordable housing crisis in the county.

The recent thunderbolts from HUD to “takeover” the Miami Dade Housing Agency was met with similar skepticism by affordable housing advocates, given the close ties of agency point person, Assistant Secretary Orlando Cabrera, to the Latin Builders Association.

But Mayor Carlos Alvarez and affordable housing advocates like Miami Workers Center, LIFFT, and the Human Services Coalition are reaching for a new center that could prove the most positive development for Miami Dade County in many, many years.

To quote from the Miami Workers Center press statement of the recent accord: “This is one of the most significant housing agreements for low-income communities in Miami-Dade history. It also represents a potentially watershed moment for the predominantly African-American community of Liberty City. This could be a huge step in reclaiming the self-determination of the community, its land and reshaping the neighborhood in the interests of those who live there.”

Now there’s a breath of fresh air.