‘They tricked me’: Cuban writer struggles after eviction from Miami-area apartment
Three cats, 16 published books, a mattress on the floor and a computer without a monitor. That’s all that Cuban writer Ismael Lorenzo has in his small Hialeah room. He is 76 and has been in the United States for 42 years.
Lorenzo pays $1,100 a month for the room after being evicted from his previous home a week ago.
“They tricked me,” Lorenzo said amid the dust and noise of construction at the efficiency he found after a frantic race to avoid homelessness in Miami, where the rent for a room could be more than $2,000. He receives $900 in retirement benefits.
Lorenzo had moved in September to a one-bedroom apartment in the back of a duplex in Biscayne Park, near North Miami. It was more spacious than the room he has now. He could walk to a main street and take free public transportation.
He paid $3,300 in total for the first month, the security deposit, and the last month. But when he signed the lease, no one told him that the property at 1257 NE 110th Ter. was in foreclosure.
Despite clogged bathroom plumbing and rain leaking into the living room and the bedroom, Lorenzo said he paid his rent on time every month.
He made the last payment of $1,100 on Jan. 15, with a check payable to the owner, Irlande Joseph, through an intermediary, who didn’t tell him either that the foreclosure process was already advanced in court.
On Jan. 21, a notice came from the court that the property was being repossessed and that he would be evicted. A few days later, police entered the apartment without warning him.
“At my age, I had never lived through such a terrible moment,” said Lorenzo, who was working on the computer on his digital radio show when he said two officers arrived, opened the door with a key, and stood at his room’s door.
“They threw my things outside. I’m a little disoriented,” he said.
In the rush to save some of his belongings and protect his cats, he lost his phone, with the contacts that help him organize his programs and run his cultural space, Creatividad Internacional (International Creativity), where he publishes articles on literature and movies.
The monitor of his Apple computer was also broken. His computer allows him to continue writing books and adding a few dollars to his monthly income.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS
When he was evicted from his apartment in Biscayne Park, Lorenzo had to leave one of the two mattresses that he doubled up to get to the height he needed to sit comfortably.
“Getting up is very painful. At a certain age you don’t have the same agility and I have a little arthritis,” said Lorenzo, who struggled to come up with the money needed to move to the new apartment. They still owed him the deposit and the last month’s rent in the Biscayne Park duplex.
El Nuevo Herald tried to contact the owner, Irlande Joseph, with whom Lorenzo
made the lease contract, but the telephone number that appears in public records is disconnected.
The foreclosure process against Joseph was initiated by HSBC Bank USA as trustee of Rennaisance Home Equity Loan, and had been going on since 2015, according to documents from Miami-Dade family and civil court.
After a temporary suspension, foreclosures restarted last year, in January reaching its highest number since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
“I’m almost homeless,” said Lorenzo, who this year had his pension increased by $40 and his food stamps reduced by the same amount.
“I was getting $160 and now this month I get $119,” explained Lorenzo, who decided to make his story public because it is the “situation that many in Miami are experiencing, especially older adults who have limited income.”
Before moving to Biscayne Park, the writer had to move quickly in August from the apartment where he lived for several years in North Miami because 12 buildings that occupied an entire city block were sold to a developer to build a new project.
Rent in Miami is up 34 percent since 2020, and the affordable housing situation has become a serious problem, to the point that some families are paying $1,100 for a 250-square-foot space in Liberty City.
Residents of a Hialeah apartment complex at
1501 W. 42 St. recently staged a protest because the new owners, real estate company Eco Stone Group, plan to raise the monthly rent by $650 all at once.
The Miami Beach City Commission passed a law in early February requiring landlords to give tenants a 60 days’ notice of a rent increase.
PRICE OF EFFICIENCIES
Efficiency prices have also skyrocketed. Four years ago, efficiencies were around $800 a month and already considered expensive by salarychallenged Miami residents. Today, you’d be lucky to find an efficiency for less than $1,000 a month.
Lorenzo, winner of the prestigious CINTAS award in the mid-1980s, remains full of energy to continue writing. The former professor, who taught Spanish in California and New Orleans before retiring, talks about his cats. Felipito, who is 15 years old, inspired two books, Soy Felipito (I am Felipito) and Felipito busca novia (Felipito is looking for a girlfriend.)
“They are now meditating in bed,” he said while waiting for a friend who has promised him a platform to raise the mattress.
Lorenzo has suffered three heart attacks, the first at age 52. He has diabetes and asthma. But he has not lost his sense of humor.
“Commander Hugo Chávez saved my life,” he said.
It turns out that the writer married a Venezuelan woman and went to live in her country, until he saw the danger that Chavismo posed and decided to come to Miami. A few days after returning, while leaving Publix, he had the first symptoms of a heart attack, and he called a friend, photographer Carlos Licea.
And he called 911.
“The only thing that works well in Miami,” he said.
RESOURCES
Ismael Lorenzo can be reached by email at ismaelo50@yahoo.com.
If you are facing a similar situation, go to Miami-Dade Small Claims Court, where you can file claims worth less than $8,000. A deputy clerk can help you fill out and file the claim. You will need an attorney to assist you. Forms to file the lawsuit can be picked up at the Miami-Dade County Courthouse, 73 W. Flagler St.. Call 305-2751155.
The city of Hialeah has an assistance program for residents who have experienced drastic rent increases. Call 305-8632970.
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