Make Miami for the People, Not Billionaires

As Policy and Research Director at Miami Workers Center, I've seen firsthand the impact of our organization in the lives of working families. Every day, members of our community come to us for guidance when their employer doesn’t pay them for their work and when landlords try to evict them without due process. You can read more about our impact here.

Founded in 1999, MWC builds power with working-class tenants, workers, women, and families in Miami-Dade County. Through leadership development and grassroots campaigns, we seek to transform our workplaces and neighborhoods to win the respect, rights, and resources we all deserve.

This year, we knocked thousands of doors as part of our research into corporate landlords and housing subsidies. We asked tenants about their most pressing concerns, the quality of their housing, and their relationship to often faceless landlords. We found slumlord conditions, cushy tax breaks, and how landlords were spending their tenants' rent dollars. You can check out our report here: Our Money, Their Monopoly: How Corporate Welfare Exploits Miami Renters.

We also continued the fight to get the Eviction Diversion Program funded in the Miami-Dade County budget for a third year in a row. The program alerts low-income tenants that they've had an eviction filed against them and connects them to free legal services. Along with many other community organizations, we fought the county's austerity measures (while they hand millions to FIFA for the World Cup) and restored $1 million in cuts to the program.

Organizing is slow, difficult work. The deck is stacked against our communities, and too often pleasing billionaires and developers is the top priority for our elected officials. Organizations like MWC are figuring out how we change that by building the leadership of real people in our communities. The greatest hope I have in this moment is every time a renter or a worker that once felt powerless tells us that they want to fight for a better future, and that they know we'll be standing with them.