Agency determined to continue fight for low-income renters

The agency behind a much-criticized proposal to build a 15-story building of “micro” apartments made a public appeal to drum up support for the plan Tuesday.

Most of the 680 apartments proposed for downtown Fort Lauderdale, at 409 SE Eighth St., would be 16 feet by 16 feet — larger than a cruise ship cabin, but smaller than the average hotel room. Among those who’d live there could be the formerly homeless and working poor.

The plan has drawn fierce opposition from residents of the nearby Rio Vista neighborhood, who are concerned it instead could draw drug users and sex offenders.

Michael Weinstein, founder and director of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the organization behind the plan, said Tuesday at a news conference at the group’s Fort Lauderdale headquarters that tenants would be vetted and sex offenders and violent felons would not be allowed to live there. He argued the project is the right thing to do.

“At its core, for us, is a moral issue,” he said. “If not here, where? If not now, when?”

Weinstein had a warning for residents. “We own this land, it’s a great location. … We are as capable as waging a fight [as] anyone,” he said. “If your question is will we abandon this project: No.”

His agency’s main business is a network of phar-

macies and clinics that provide primary care to more than 41,000 patients in the United States, most of whom have their insurance claims paid by government insurance programs like Medicaid, according to a New York Times article from 2017.

The agency says it wants to be a good neighbor. It even has offered to buy the 17 townhouses immediately next door at market value from Villa Tuscany, but Weinstein said he has no takers.

Weinstein argues the $71 million project is not a homeless shelter or dormitory, rather an apartment building that could cater to the working poor who struggle to come up with onerous security deposits on apartments. The rent is expected to hover around $500 a month.

“I see cranes everywhere,” he said of Fort Lauderdale’s downtown. “If the drawbridge goes up as soon as it involves poor people, that does not speak well for this community.”

Each apartment will have four rooms — a kitchen, that comes with a fridge, sink and microwave, a living room, with cable access and a ceiling fan, a bedroom with a double bed with a curtain to separate it from the living room, and a bathroom. Storage drawers will slide under the bed. Washers and dryers will be on each floor, and the rent is likely to include utilities. Units include balconies.

The units, shy of 300 square feet, are designed for single occupancy, but couples might be considered to rent the largest units at 400 square feet.

The project is proposed by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation which owns the land, now empty space and a parking lot. It is next to its southeastern headquarters, the command center for the Caribbean and Latin America. The housing project will be geared toward “those previously unsheltered or homeless,” according to the project’s attorney in the application submitted to City Hall.

Construction in 2019.

Rio Vista resident Phil Keagy is among the neighbors who worry the plan would worsen traffic and lower property values.

“Nobody that I know, not one person, doesn’t care about the homeless situation in Fort Lauderdale, we all care about it,” Keagy said. “But there’s a better solution. You don’t warehouse them into a facility 15 stories — you need to have libraries, dining rooms, job-placement offices, you need to have a campus. These people need services. It’s just so obvious.”

A vote by the city has not yet been scheduled. is expected