MIAMI, FL - Former residents of the Scott-Carver housing project in Liberty City returned to the area recently with hopes of laying a blueprint for the rebuilding of environmentally sound dwellings. More than 150 people attended the Designing Green Competition kick-off, where former Scott-Carver residents chimed in on the development of homes slated for that area.
The project, which is a collaboration between the Miami Workers Center and the U.S. Green Builders Council, allows students and recent college graduates the opportunity to draw up plans for energy-saving, non-toxic residences. The annual challenge encourages competitors to create designs that use less water and less power. The former residents on April 26 said they hope the design of the new "green" residences will replace the 850 public housing units that were demolished in 2001 and 2002. "Eleven-hundred families were displaced. Some lost their Section 8 voucher and became homeless," said Aiheshia Hudson, a Miami Workers Center organizer, and coordinator of the Designing Green event. "We want to give the people the right to return to the area."
More than 20 green design teams across the state will compete. The winner will walk away with $2,500 and be eligible to enter the Green Builders Council's national competition. Suggestions for the project ranged from building wider doors for the elderly and the disabled in wheelchairs to building larger rooms for easier access.
While former residents of Scott-Carver attended the event to give input about the design, a few attendees jumpstarted the program with a reflection of the development many dubbed a village. "I moved in Scott-Carver in 1994," said Inez Fulton. "I have four boys. When I was there, I had my village watching them. But now since we moved out, they are out of control. Now that we are in a new place, my kids say they want to move back home. I told them 'we are home,' but they say they want to move back to Scott."
"Scott was home to me and my three children," said Yvonne Stratford, leader of the Low-Income Families Fighting Together (LIFFT) organization. "We got along like family. We had a yard, plants and flowers. It was just a good environment.'' She continued, "They even built a YET (NFL Youth Education Town) Center so kids could come across the street to play."
Stratford has been leading the struggle to redevelop low-income housing at the Scott-Carver site, but said she realizes that there are roadblocks that hamper the rebuilding on all of the land once appropriated for Scott-Carver homes. "I didn't even know that toxins were under the ground," said Stratford. "Half of it won't be rebuilt because that's where most of the toxins are," she said, pointing to the area north of nearby Gwen Cherry Park. "They say they ain't got no money, but the government got lots of money," Stratford said.
In 1999, Miami-Dade County received $35 million through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Hope VI project to rebuild better homes on the Scott-Carver site. Residents at the time were skeptical about the plan and refused to move out of their homes. But after community leaders convinced them that the deal was a win-win situation for their families, residents put hope in the Hope VI project. "At first they told us they were going to build 500 units," said Mae Smith, a former resident who lived in Scott-Carver from the time it was built in 1954 until she was forced to move out in 2003. "Five years later, they told us they want to build 300. Now, I hear them saying 80 houses."
In February 2007, Miami-Dade Housing Agency signed an agreement with the Miami Workers Center committing the county to building 850 extremely low-income units to replace the ones that
Source: South Florida Times