Miami, the tropical paradise with the most varied offer of condos and luxury homes, is a desert if it’s decent and affordable housing, something Jennifer Garcia knows well, a young woman who needed to move to a cheaper place and it took six months upon finding it.
Due to rising house prices in Hispanic neighborhoods like Little Havana or Hialeah, many people like Jennifer have moved to City of Freedom, An area that concentrates a predominantly African-American, low-income population and carries a reputation for being insecure, Although she has had “no problems.”
Several new real estate developments they are flourishing in this hidden face of touristy Miami and is expected to help change things in a traditionally neglected area.
Liberty City is a neighborhood in northwest Miami, closer to poverty than glamor. Photo: Ana Ochoa and AP
The apartment rented by Jennifer is in Liberty Square, as the place where more than 80 years ago a residential complex was built to improve the situation of African American workers who were crowded into dilapidated housing in Exceeded, Another neighborhood in Miami.
Today the buildings of the nine blocks or islands of Liberty Square, owned by Miami-Dade County, are being demolished and replaced with new ones with about 1,455 units as part of a development project. $ 300 million by the group Related.
Soon only the original communal center, which was rehabilitated to continue its mission, will be left of that project from the 1930s.
Beaches and good life. One of the faces of Miami. Photo: Bloomberg
On two of the islands there are three-storey buildings painted in cheerful and already inhabited tones.
In the surrounding islands they reign the ruin, abandonment and poverty.
A painful contract
The contrast is huge and hurts the eyes.
In the old buildings, on one floor, there are walled doors and windows, but in some clothes are still seen lying beside the entrance as if to warn of human presence.
All those who live in these dilapidated houses today have the opportunity to live in the new apartments or settle, with the help of a municipal subsidy, in the place they want.
Liberty City, an African American-majority neighborhood. Photo: AP
Albert Milo, president of Related Urban Development Group, the company behind this project, explains that they partnered with Miami-Dade County to replace old buildings with new ones in which they were allowed to build twice as much. units of the original complex.
This is the business and also the way to reduce one affordable housing deficit which in Miami is 150,000 to 200,000 units according to different sources, Milo points out.
The problem isn’t just Miami, it occurs throughout the US and it has to do with the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth.
The Gap, the gap in Spanish, a coalition of civil organizations, in its latest annual report, for 2020, put the national deficit of rental housing for people with extremely low incomes at seven million.
Restaurants in Little Havana, Miami. Photo: EFE
There are only 36 rental homes available and affordable for every 100 low-income households, of which there are 10.9 million nationwide and 20% of them are African American and 15% Hispanic.
Us $ 1600 rent per month
According to several specialized pages, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Miami around $ 1,600, While the average selling price of a home is $ 350,000 to $ 400,000.
These figures are unattainable for Jennifer Garcia, a 21-year-old American of Cuban and Colombian origin who lives with her mother in a two-bedroom apartment, a bathroom and kitchen, dining room and living room in one piece in Eden, As the second phase of the $ 300 million project to rehabilitate Liberty Square has been named.
The apartments, with one to four bedrooms, are delivered with the fully equipped kitchen and García, who previously lived near La Petita Havana, shows it to visitors with satisfaction.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Miami is around $ 1,600. Photo: AFP
The young woman says that when they told her about Liberty City he had doubtsBut when he saw the apartment they disappeared and the same thing happens to friends who visit home.
All the people he has dealt with since he moved here in November 2020 ”have been very kind“With her and her mother, who has already convinced two Latin friends to live in Liberty Square.
Rental based on income
The rent is set based on the income of the tenants and this also guarantees one economic diversity, From people with the highest level of housing allowance to workers with fixed wages in sectors such as health or education.
“This is what helps change a neighborhood,” says the director of the real estate group, which has other similar affordable housing projects underway totaling more than $ 1 billion.
the new buildings they have security staff and surface parking in a central courtyard, where there are garden areas and children’s games.
Outside is another world, but to Jeniffer Garcia, who works relatively close as a lifeguard in a Miami city park, it doesn’t seem to scare him.
A developer notes that police have reported that crime in the area has dropped as much as 90% in the last year.
Milo says there are plans for a national chain supermarket to be set up in the neighborhood, which will lead to 3,000 jobs, And some of the buildings will have commercial premises for rent to stimulate the local economy.
There will also be a new school, a medical center and leisure centers. Only with housing does a neighborhood not develop, he stresses.
The author is an EFE journalist
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