City must do more to help trailer residents
The news this week that residents of a Florida City-owned trailer park are being forced out so a developer can build market-rate rental apartments may make financial sense for the cashstrapped city. But the rushed and callous way the process is being handled has victimized the soon-to-be displaced residents a second time.
Trailer-park residents pay about $450 a month to live there — including utilities. Where on Earth can you move in Miami-Dade County in that price range? That’s the terrible situation facing the hard-up residents of Florida City Camp Site and RV Park.
Worse, it’s their own local government — Florida City owns the 15-acre tract — turning the residents out in such a pitiless fashion. That includes a 17-year-old high school senior who lives with his health-compromised dad. A 62-year-old hairdresser who retired after working for 45 years because she has health problems that cause her hands to shake. A woman with bipolar disorder. A 35-year-old woman raising seven kids. A 70-year-old man and his wife who live on his Supplemental Security Income checks, without enough money to fix damage from 2017’s Hurricane Irma.
Though the mayor, Otis Wallace, called the trailer park a
“campsite,” many of the residents have been there for a decade or more. Many are elderly. Many have physical or mental disabilities.
“This is the last place we want to be, but it’s all we can afford,” one resident told the Miami Herald.
There are about 70 campers and trailers on the site. Some residents believed they would never have to leave because the original owners of the property deeded it to the city in the ‘80s with the understanding that it would be used by low-income residents for 100 years.
The city says no such agreement exists.
Florida City’s decision risks tipping the residents into homelessness. That wasn’t lost on the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust and Camillus House, which sent teams to Florida City after the Miami Herald wrote about the residents’ plight. But it shouldn’t have come to that.
The plans to develop the prop
erty are not new. Wallace, Florida City’s mayor since 1984, told the Miami Herald he’s been advising residents to make other living arrangements since 2019. The pandemic stalled the sale plans but, in November, the city sent residents a letter reminding of them of the impending sale, adding they would get “as much time as possible” to find other homes.
That turned out to be a week. The city told residents Thursday that they would have until Wednesday to pack up their belongings and get out.
Lawyers have kicked into gear now, and the Homeless Trust is trying to find them affordable housing, despite the county’s chronic shortage. That’s what Florida City should have been doing all along.
About 40 percent of Florida City residents live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census. It’s a place that deserves far more attention by our county leaders. The mayor says it needs the $6.8 million that the TREO Group will pay for the property.
No doubt, that’s true. But a poor city can still help its neediest residents. It can reach out to organizations and elected officials. It can show some heart.
That doesn’t cost a dime.