South Florida LISC Works With HUD and Local Residents to Preserve Affordable Housing in Miami
20 Feb 2008
Overtown residents save `piece of heaven'
As surrounding neighborhoods are gobbled up in downtown development, residents of Overtown's Town Park Village have fought to keep their `oasis.'
BY PETER BAILEY
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MIAMI HERALD FILE PHOTOS, 2007
Top left, burned out building in Town Park Village. Children left homeless after the fire, Ahmad Milson, 6, center, plays with Ayanna Milson, 11, right, and Danesha Milson, 15. Bottom left, Anthony Oliver and Guy and Dana Milson stay at a hotel after Town Park Village caught on fire. |
But at dusk, the bright orange and violet hues of sunset streaming through the neighborhood's ficus trees and illuminating Lillian Slater's window sill in Building 16 reminds her why neighbors call Town Park Village ''an oasis'' amid urban blight.
After facing imminent foreclosure last year following a series of failed inspections, and then a fire that damaged several buildings, Slater and her neighbors fought to own their ''piece of the pie.'' Now, it appears, they've won.
''We weren't going to give it up,'' said the 70-year-old Slater. ``Over my dead body.''
Slater and other residents gathered inside the village's community center Thursday to celebrate U.S. Housing and Urban Development officials' recent decision to convert the 147-unit Overtown co-op into affordable homes.
After sustaining considerable roof damage from Hurricane Wilma in October 2005, the insurance policy on the complex lapsed, leaving building officials unable to pay for the fixtures.
The buildings, constructed in 1970, faced a possible HUD takeover after the failed inspections. South Florida LISC, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on economic development, intervened, brokering a partnership between the residents and HUD to form an economic development team.
''There was no need for this community to be uprooted,'' said Kris Smith, senior program officer for LISC. ``This victory can set a precedent for other low-income Miami-Dade communities.''
Housing activists call the plan a landmark victory for low-income neighborhoods throughout Miami-Dade County squeezed by the affordable-housing crisis in the city's changing landscape.
Joining with several private interest groups and city agencies, LISC was able to repair roofs and refurbish walls. But a gas explosion in Building 3 in August 2007 nearly wiped out the residents' dream.
Undaunted, they regrouped and asked HUD to allow the condo board and residents to create a home-ownership structure if the residents agreed to pay off the existing mortgage. HUD agreed.
At Thursday's rally, HUD officials praised the residents' role.
''We are now partners, and you the residents are the most important partners,'' said Armando Fana, field director of HUD's Miami office.
The unprecedented arrangement is part of a sweeping overhaul after a highly publicized countywide housing scandal in which several developers were charged with squandering millions in funds meant to build affordable housing in Miami's urban areas.
Town Park is home to many of the workers at nearby clinics and hospitals, including the former Cedars Medical Center, now called University of Miami Hospital.
Slater, the co-op president and a retired nurse, moved her family from an apartment in a violence-plagued area on nearby Northwest 19th Street because ``things got crazy.''
She raised two sons, one daughter and seven grandchildren in the village.
Like many others, Slater mentioned the uprooting of families who had lived in the Scott and Carver housing projects in Liberty City -- which were demolished in 2001 -- when reflecting on her reasons for confronting HUD. Local housing activists argue that HUD officials have yet to tend to the unfinished business of building at least 850 homes promised by county officials to the former Scott-Carver residents.
''It wasn't gonna happen to us,'' Slater said.
Only several blocks removed from the shadows of the Interstate 95 overpass where homeless drifters congregate, the village, with its manicured green lawns and ficus-ringed playground, seems out of character amid the surrounding dilapidated low-rises.
''It's our piece of heaven in what people call a bad area,'' Slater said. ``We're proud of it.''
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Article Type: News