In Miami we shrug off the less fortunate

By Weekly Archive On Jan 15, 2008

In
Miami we shrug off the less fortunate

By
Alvaro F. Fernandez
alfernandez@the-beach.net

The
more I read, hear and see, the more I realize that in Miami there is
enough money to do almost anything we set our minds to accomplish.
The challenge is a simple question of what are the problems we truly
want to solve. I wrestled with this philosophical dilemma when I
learned of the $30 million donation pledged by Miami banker and
philanthropist Adrienne Arsht to the city’s Performing Arts Center
(PAC). In exchange for the money, what was the Carnival Center will
now be known as the Arsht Center. And the cash-flow problem which has
plagued the PAC since its opening less than two years ago should now
become a thing of the past. At least I would hope so.

Last
week The Miami Herald also reported that a number of Miami-Dade
schools will be closed because they are operating at less than
capacity; in other words, there is room for more students but not
enough children to be found in the area where the schools were
located to fill the classrooms. Some of the schools on the chopping
block are ‘A’ schools — the rating system given to Florida
public schools based on the controversial FCAT (Florida Comprehensive
Assessment Test) rating system. ‘A’ is the top grade. The
possibilities of close-downs are a result of the need to pare $240
million from the Miami-Dade school system based on projected state
budget cuts over the next four years.

Hundreds
of parents of the children who attend the schools in question turned
out for a recent School Board meeting to protest the possible shut
downs. The decision is still in limbo.

In
2003, the federal government, together with the Miami-Dade Housing
Authority, announced they would raze the area’s two largest public
housing developments, the James E. Scott Homes and Carver Homes, and
replace them with 411 homes, townhouses and apartments in a major
overhaul of housing for the poor. Located in Liberty City, only 120
of the new units would be public housing. The rest would be earmarked
for purchase. Since the announcement was made all 856 units of public
housing have been destroyed. In 2003, the project’s cost, a
combination of federal, local and private funds, was estimated to be
more than $100 million.

For
nearly five years, community activists have protested what they label
a project meant to “gentrify” and thereby exclude the people who
once lived there. As activist Max Rameau once told The Miami Herald,
“With segregation, when we were told, ‘You go live there [Scott
and Carver Homes], we don’t want you here.’ Now with
gentrification, we’re being told, ‘We want to live where you are
now, so you move.’ It has to stop.”

To
date few houses have been built and those that have been constructed
are in the $200,000 to $300,000 price range, out of the reach of
impoverished Liberty City residents. Most of the former residents of
Scott and Carver Homes, many having lived in Liberty City all of
their lives, have been moved to the furthest reaches of south Miami
Dade and other communities including out of the county into Broward.
Others have been left homeless.

In
a related matter, thanks to a 2007 Miami Herald investigative series,
residents of Miami-Dade found out that over the past few years tens
of millions of dollars earmarked for low-income housing, some for the
aforementioned Liberty City neighborhood, have disappeared, been
wasted or simply stolen by developers and Housing Authority employees
or board members. Politicians have been implicated in the scandal.
Little has been done to bring about justice.

When
asked most Miami-Dade politicians and community leaders shrug their
shoulders when the mention of housing dollars is now brought up.
Pilfered by wealthy developers and their cronies on the inside of
government decision making circles, the shrug is a way of saying:
“There is no money to replace what has been lost.”

In
the meantime, while we cut back on our commitment to schools for our
children, the displaced poor and others who are in dire need, I was
flabbergasted to read of plans for a tunnel from downtown Miami,
close to the now Arsht Center, into the Port of Miami. Cost estimates
being bandied about are up to 3 billion dollars. A great deal of that
money would come from public funds. The idea is to turn over
management of the tunnel to a private entity.

Along
the way there is renewed talk of building a baseball stadium,
somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million. Again, the majority of
dollars coming from the city, county and state so that a billionaire
owner and ballplayers, the poorest making in the million dollar
range, can throw and hit a little white ball while well-to-do fans
sit in their $50 seats (these are the cheap seats), drink six dollar
beers and eat outrageously expensive hot dogs.

Have
they asked themselves, for example, how many of the displaced Liberty
City residents from Carver or Scott homes can afford to go to just
one of those games?

I’ve
lived in Miami long enough to realize that when money is needed for a
project promoted by politicians and city leaders, dollars always
appear. Anyone who knows me also understands that I believe in
funding the arts, culture and anything that makes our city better.
I’m also a die-hard baseball fan. My beef with these same
politicians and leaders is that they too often “shrug off” issues
dealing with the funding of schools, education and housing for the
less fortunate… as if buildings, tunnels and stadiums were more
important than people.