ChuckE Law - Community Lawyering in Miami

What is the role of the grass roots left movement in the U.S. in relating to the new Obama administration. Frances Fox Piven in Obama Needs a Protest Movement ( The Nation 12/1/08) uses the early FDR administration as a model to lay out a particularly aggressive role for mass organizing. She argues that Obama, like FDR, was elected as a centrist and will govern from the economic center unless mobilizations and protests create a "white hot urgency" forcing him to respond. The parallels between the election of 2008 and the election of 1932 are often invoked, with good reason. It is not just that Obama's oratory is reminiscent of FDR's oratory, or that both men were brought into office as a result of big electoral shifts, or that both took power at a moment of economic catastrophe. All this is true, of course. But I want to make a different point: FDR became a great president because the mass protests among the unemployed, the aged, farmers and workers forced him...

On October 14, 2008 I wrote complaining about the terms of the Miami World Center Development Agreement currently being considered by the City Commission. As I read it, the Development Agreement grants a number of unprecedented City concessions to the Developer. For example, for twenty years: ● The City cannot do anything that decreases the allowed density on the property; ● The City cannot change its Comprehensive Plan in any way that threatens this development; ● The City must facilitate all future land use approvals, including DRI approvals; ● The City agrees to provide all the necessary infrastructure; ● The City agrees that the Development (which is nowhere described) conforms to the Comprehensive Plan. These are not all necessarily bad things - and they may be necessary to get the long term financing that such a project requires. What is somewhat amazing, however, is that the City Commission failed to exact any concessions from the Developer in return for...

It seems everyone with a blog must comment on the Obama election, so here goes. But first I wanted to refer you to a post by Makani Themba-Nixon of the Praxis Project which I came across after I wrote this. She says everything I wanted to say (and much more) but also much, much better. If you have limited time jump right to the link. As for my thoughts: First, this election demonstrates that the tools, language and values of the type of community organizing that is going on in Miami resonate and payoff when applied on a scale much greater than we are currently utilizing them. So we know how to do it, we just need the resources, campaigns and vision to do it. Second, for lawyers, it demonstrates that change can take place without lawyers playing a central role (at least as lawyers.) There is always some role to play. The thousands of lawyers that Obama utilized for poll watching in Florida, linked with all the other civil rights groups, and the peremptory lawsuits, may wel...

I worked at an early voting polling place in Fort Lauderdale this weekend. I saw the best and the worst of American politics. The worst - the Republican Florida legislature had limited early voting to a total of eight hours during the entire weekend. Broward County decided to keep their polls open for five hours on Saturday and three on Sunday. Since the Legislature also limited the weekdays to 10 o’clock to 6 o’clock, these weekend sessions are the only non-working days for many working people. The lines were enormous. Even though the polling place closed at three o’clock on Saturday, it wasn’t until almost five o’clock that the last voter voted. On Sunday, the voting continued for almost three hours after the line closed. I understand the lines at early voting places in African American neighborhoods were voting for more than four hours after closing. The hold up was not the voting itself. It was the laborious process the state legislature set up to verify voting status,...

Coalition to Chicago Housing Authority: Let people live in public housing near Bucktown by Matt Field Oct 23, 2008 Chicago news story reports that while foreclosures are mounting and $750 billion goes to Wall Street, good public housing sits empty. Residents of the Lathrop Homes, a North Side public housing development, say the Chicago Housing Authority has stalled too long and that it’s time to fill empty units with people who need housing. A coalition of residents and community groups said that half of the 600 vacancies at the 925-unit development should be filled. They say the housing crisis has put many families in danger of losing their homes and that those families could be good, rent-paying tenants of Lathrop. “This is a terrible waste of housing,” said John McDermott of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, an organizer of the rally. “Six hundred units mothballed and a plan that they will continue being mothballed.” Why is it empty? Because the Housing Authority claim...

On this Thursday, October 16, 2008 the City Commission will consider the Miami WordCenter Development Agreement. If anyone wonders whether the bursting of the real estate bubble has caused second thoughts among the City of Miami leadership, they need only look at this Development Agreement. The full development agreement is available on the City of Miami Legistar website. The fourteen page agreement covers a huge parcel in downtown Miami and guarantees that the City will not interfere with the zoning of the property, will facilitate all planning permits, and even expand the Development of Regional Impact which currently covers the area. Prohibition on Downzoning. For the duration of this Agreement, the City may adopt new or change land development regulations that purport to apply to the Properties;however, no such new regulations shall be enforceable against the Properties if a DeveloperParty determines in its sole discretion that the new regulation limits or restricts d...

In a post on October 3, 2008 I described the Florida Department of Community Affairs (DCA) rejection of the City of Miami Comprehensive Plan Amendments implementing the Evaluation and Appraisal Report. What does this mean for affordable housing advocates? Quite a lot. First, a little history. The City conducted an Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) of its Comprehensive Plan in 2005. Several organizations objected to that evaluation because, while the City admitted it was losing affordable housing faster than it was building it, the EAR did virtually nothing to respond to that. Advocates argued that the City plan focused the city housing programs on upper income families and virtually ignored the needs of the lower income families. The City responded that those objections would be dealt with not in the EAR but in the comprehensive plan amendments to follow. After the EAR was approved by the Department of Community Affairs in 2006, the City passed comprehensive plan amendme...

The New York Times ( Full NY Times story) reported today that the Chicago sheriff refused to continue to evict residents in foreclosed properties. Law enforcement officers in Chicago will no longer evict residents from foreclosed properties, Sheriff Thomas J. Dart of Cook County announced Wednesday. In Miami, hundreds of tenants are being put out when their landlords, who bought the property within the last couple of years, were caught in the bubble burst before they could flip it. Many of the landlords, often shell corporations continue to collect rent while they effectively abandon the property and the tenants. Sheriff Dart said he took the measure because an increasing number of the residents being evicted were renters who might have been dutifully paying their rent, and might have had no knowledge that the owner was behind on the mortgage. . .Sheriff Dart said the families in foreclosed properties were often not notified that they would have to leave, and were not given this gra...

This is a graph of the national debt adjusted for inflation - thanks to U.S. National Debt Clock FAQ by Ed Hall. I downloaded it this morning after listening to a radio show which traced the country's debt orgy back to Reagan. While I am happy to believe that Reagan started it all, I thought I ought to check it out. Sure enough, adjusted for inflation our national debt remained fairly constant, even through the Johnson administration and the Vietnam war. The spiral upwards begin shortly after 1980 and continues unabated until the Clinton administration when it abates and retreats. It then skyrockets over the last eight years. The point of the radio show was that so much of our recent growth was fueled simply by debt, national debt, corporate debt and personal debt. Keeping the interest rate almost at zero fueled the debt accumulation even further - particularly contributing to the real estate price spike. Now that we have reached some debt crisis the entire house of cards collapse...

Miami Today - - Week of September 25, 2008 Miami land-use changes on hold through 2008 By Yudislaidy Fernandez Because the state has "significant concerns" about how Miami has altered its land-use plan, all land-use changes in the city are on hold pending a state review. At least a dozen are waiting. Early 2009 is the soonest the city could consider any of them, city officials say, and zoning changes that require altering land use are also halted. The city commission cannot approve any now, City Manager Pete Hernandez said. Some on today's (9/25) agenda are to be deferred. The Florida Department of Community Affairs objected to parts of the city's proposed amendment to its comprehensive plan, said Ed George, department spokesman, referring to changes the city presented to the state planning agency. The department returned the plan to the city in July, giving it until November to make required changes. Meanwhile, the city can't change land use or accompanying zo...

For years the National Low Income Housing Coalition and others have struggled to get Congress to pass a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, similar to the Florida Housing Trust Fund, with a dedicated source of revenue. Finally this year they were successful. In fact, so successful that several Congressional leaders were considering providing some of the Bailout bill funding to the Trust Fund as part of the package of reforms to help "Main Street" instead of Wall Street. Unfortunately the right wing attack machine is attempting to use this effort as a smear against ACORN as well as an illegitmate attack against the Trust Fund itself. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued an "alert" which has been picked by right wing bloggers claiming that the Trust Fund will be used to fund ACORN and that ACORN is a dishonest, fraudulent organization. Both of these claims are easily verifiable lies but the smear continues. In fact the Trust fund cannot be used by AC...

Miami Today --- Week of September 11, 2008 584 people at a ballgame prove folly of building a stadium For the 455th consecutive time last Wednesday afternoon, 96-year-old Fenway Park in Boston sold every seat for a Red Sox game, tying baseball's record. At the same time that Boston's Daisuke Matsuzaka was throwing his first pitch before 37,373 paid customers, Florida Marlins pitcher Chris Volstad was throwing one at 21-year-old Dolphin Stadium before 584 fans — counted by the players themselves. That's all you need to know to understand why government's frenzy to waste half a billion dollars to build a Marlins stadium is off base. . . . The Marlins want us to build a retractable-roof ballpark because, they say, bad weather cuts ticket sales. But last Wednesday was clear in both Boston (37,373 at the game) and Miami (584). A great day in both places, but people showed up in only one of them. . . . Elected officials still can rally. The county must sign five more ...

The Tampa Tribune September 26, 2008 Fla. Gets Big Cut From Foreclosure Grant To Prevent Blight By SHANNON BEHNKEN TAMPA - Florida will get more federal money than any other state to buy up abandoned, foreclosed homes as part of the Bush administration's foreclosure relief plan developed this year. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development department today said Florida is getting $541.4 million - part of a $3.92 billion payout to states and local municipalities with neighborhoods particularly hard-hit by foreclosures. The money will be used to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties so they don't contribute to blight. "To those areas trying to recover from the effects of foreclosure and declining property values, help is on the way," HUD Secretary Steve Preston said. "Clearly, the intent is to put this money to work in communities with the highest need and to have a meaningful impact." State and local governments can use their neighborhood stabilization g...

South Florida Times 9/26/2008 Word from the streets: Who's on welfare now? By Sushma Sheth For years, the rich have condemned and criminalized women of color who survive dire poverty with a little cash assistance from the government. But now, big business wants to cut the welfare line. In the last two weeks, multi-billion dollar banks, investment houses, and the largest company in the history of the world collapsed into financial crisis. The very architects for our current recession and the source of our affordable housing crisis are falling victim to the very systems they created. Instead of facing due process or criminal conviction for the pain, havoc and loss they inflicted on hundreds of thousands of Americans, they are getting paid, big. That's $700 billion, so far. We are paying $2,000 each (man, woman and child) to the very corporate entities that set the trend to cut school budgets, raise our property taxes, eliminate our jobs, and foreclose on our homes. With the f...

While people in Miami are truly hurting, losing their jobs and their homes, our leaders are wining and dining with super-developers who want those same leaders to give them the right to turn downtown into a "Miami WorldCenter" and a "high end" gambling destination. The Miami Herald, Fri. Sept. 26, 2008 Developer wants casinos in Miami Beach, downtown Miami BY MARY ELLEN KLAS AND MATTHEW HAGGMAN meklas@MiamiHerald.com The developer of a massive project in downtown Miami is quietly considering a campaign to amend Florida's Constitution to allow Las Vegas-style casinos in the city and open the door for a similar casino at Miami Beach's famed Fontainebleau Hotel. A political committee financed by Marc Roberts, who along with Art Falcone is developing the 25-acre Miami Worldcenter, has spent more than $850,000, hired 13 petition gathering companies and has lawyers working to write an initiative for possible placement on the 2010 ballot. . . . According to draft...

The American Prospect February 1, 2008 The Year of the Organizer By Kelly Candaele and Peter Dreier | The Obama campaign's commitment to the principles of community organizing has proved decisive to their primary victories so far. It has also brought new voters to the political process who could make the difference for Democrats in the general election ... Full Article | web only

In Miami-Dade County there were over 4,700 tenant eviction cases filed during the first four months of 2008. This is 1100 more than during the same period last year. If this rate continues, almost fifteen thousand families will have been threatened with being summarily tossed out of their homes by the end of the year. And this number does not count many of the tenants who are evicted as part of the foreclosure process, or tenants who are illegally locked out or move when an eviction is threatened. Nor does it count the home owners who are evicted through the foreclosure proceeding. While there has been a lot of attention recently on the foreclosure process, with some judges going so far as to summarily halt foreclosures to force the lenders to talk to the home owners, landlord tenant cases operate below the radar. For reasons that go back as far as medieval feudal society tenants have always possessed few rights when compared with owners. While at first glance that might seem to...

In 1992, the Florida Legislature established a dedicated revenue source for affordable housing along with creative and highly accountable programs for the use of those monies, known as the William E. Sadowski Affordable Housing Act. The resulting affordable housing trust fund became one of the best in the nation. The Sadowski Act state and local housing trust funds have produced or preserved over 200,000 homes for Floridians. The design of the funding for the trust funds was deliberately tied to documentary tax revenues so that as real estate cost increased, doc stamp receipts would also increase and the monies available for housing would increase proportionately. However, beginning July 1, 2007, an arbitrary cap of $243 million per year was placed upon distributions from doc stamps to the housing trust funds—$150-$300 million per year less than the dedicated revenue would have generated for housing in accordance with its design. There is an ongoing major campaign to “Scrap the Cap....

After many years of fighting, led by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, we finally have a new National Housing Trust Fund. It was passed as part of the large foreclosure package. While there were many compromises, and the amount of funding is not as great as was hoped, it accomplishes the key objectives of the campaign. The key objectives were a dedicated source of funds, its use for rental housing production and targeting on Extremely Low Income households. All have been accomplished. The three most important provisions: (1) It provides a permanent dedicated source of funding without a sunset provision; not subject to the annual appropriations process. It is on the mandatory side of the budget and does not compete with HUD budget. Funds will go into the Trust Fund. (2) Primarily targeted to rental housing - at least 90% of the funds must be used for rental housing; up to 10% for homeownership. It may be able to be used for an operating subsidy but only for opera...

In addition to foreclosure relief, the new Foreclosure Bill contains significant changes to the Section 8 program. Currently, Housing Authorities are permitted to "project base" up to 20% of their tenant vouchers. However, the project based vouchers cannot exceed more than 25% of any building and the contracts cannot exceed ten years (although they are renewable.) The Foreclosure Bill allows Housing Authorities to exceed 25% in any one building as long as the entire "project" does not exceed 25%. In addition, the new bill allows Housing Authorities to enter into project based contracts for 15 years.

There is increasing pressure to subsidize housing for those earning 100% - 140% of median income - so-called “workforce housing.” In Miami-Dade County that is families earning $60,000 to over $80,000 a year. Certainly, there are families earning over $70,000 that have trouble finding affordable housing. But should scarce affordable housing subsidies be focused on these families. One way to answer is to look at who is spending the greater part of their income on housing. HUD measures families who are spending over 50% of their income for housing. These families are considered to have especially serious housing need. The following charts show the distribution of that need in Miami-Dade County. Household Size 1-2 Miami-Dade County Household Income Cost Burden 50%+ Percent of Median Income Household Count Percent of Total 21503 26.9% 20-29.9% 21314 26.7% 30-39.9% 12503 15.6% 40-49...

If you read the prior post you know that "affordable" housing generally means that the targeted family - the family it is "affordable" for - need only pay 30% of their income for housing related expenses (rent or mortage and taxes, utilities, etc.). You also learned that "area median income" or " ami " is used to measure housing expenses for different income levels, for example, HUD provides data on how many families making 50% of " ami " in Miami Dade County are living in "unaffordable" housing (paying more than 30% of their income in rent.) Where we left off in the last post, I showed that median income can vary dramatically from County to County in Florida and this can cause problems. Thus someone who is making 50% of " ami " in Palm Beach County can move to Hamilton County with the same job, same salary and be making 100% of " ami " just because Palm Beach County is a rich county and Hamilton Cou...

What do we mean when we say " affordable housing ?” For example, the newspapers say the City of Miami is the least affordable City in the country or that Miami-Dade County is the least affordable County in the country for renters. What does that mean? Affordability is defined as paying less than or equal to 30% of your gross income for housing expenses (including taxes, utilities,etc.). • So the Census simply looked at all households and of all the cities measured, City of Miami had the highest percentage that paid more than 30% of their income in rent. • The Census then looked at all renters households. Of all the Counties measured Miami-Dade had the highest percentage that paid more than 30% of their income in rent. One problem with using affordability as the only measure of housing need is that it has become increasingly common for families to pay over 30% of your income in rent. So planners have looked at higher rates of payment. Extremely high rates of paym...