On a hot sunny day at a shiny nearly new Burger King in North Miami, a tall Haitian immigrant and his three school-aged children sat on high chairs munching on burgers and fries to the sounds of piped-in soft rock music. For the father and his children, the visit to the eatery was likely a well-deserved respite from the confines of their one-room apartment a few blocks away.
The family, or at least the father, had lived in the apartment they call home for 12 years. Currently, he and his wife pay $1,700 a month for rent. He said he has been searching for a larger apartment that would better accommodate a family of five but hasn’t had any luck as housing prices continue to soar in Miami-Dade.
Meanwhile, at a nearby booth in the restaurant, there was a family of four, including a son, a daughter and two parents. The boy, named Dylan, just graduated from Alonso and Tracy Mourning High School in North Miami Beach. Like many children of immigrants, Dylan acts as translator for his parents whose English is a work in progress.
Dylan, who speaks English like a native, arrived in Miami with his family seven years ago from Venezuela when he was in sixth grade.
“We live in a two-bedroom rented house in North Miami Beach which used to be part of a larger house before it was split into two a few years ago,” he said.
Dylan’s parents, who have been looking for an affordable house to buy in North Miami Beach, are not having any luck. Dylan’s father, Elvis, works as a server in a restaurant.
These two families’ situations are not unique in Miami-Dade. Their plights are symptomatic of a housing shortage in Miami-Dade. Even as thousands of new apartments are sprouting up in North Miami and elsewhere in the tri-county area, many of them are too expensive for the people who need them the most.
BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS
(Instagram)
Little River, Miami
The bad news is that Miami-Dade County has a deficit of over 90,000 affordable housing units, according to the local housing advocacy organization Miami Homes for All. But the good news is that there is progress in erasing that deficit.
A few sizeable developments that could help raise the living standards of thousands in Miami-Dade are in the works or have been recently built.
The new developments are more than just housing developments. They are linked to transportation, shopping, and jobs. In short, they are recreating urban life and ditching the suburban model.
In April, a $3 billion project planned for the Little River District of Miami led by S.G. Holdings, a joint venture between the Swerdlow Group and Alben Duffie, was approved by the Miami-Dade County Commission. It will be the largest affordable housing development in Miami with 5,700 affordable and workforce housing units alongside major big box retailers, small businesses, a major grocery store, green public space and transit infrastructure in addition to a new train station.
But even as this and other urban developments are being constructed and planned, poor housing choices remain a reality for many residents of Miami-Dade.
An example of the limited affordable rental units available through the city of North Miami’s Community Redevelopment Agency was posted on the agency’s website: five affordable rental units at the Residences at Griffin Park. These two-bedroom, one-bath units were renting for $1,786 per month for those who qualified. The occupants had to have a minimum credit score of 580 and no more than 70% of the area median income, which, according to the US Census Bureau was $51,909 in 2023 dollars for North Miami. The application deadline to compete in a lottery for the units was Oct. 11, 2024. There were no 2025 listings on the agency’s website as of June 19. The executive director of the North Miami CRA, Ann-Bo Emmanuel, did not respond to questions about current affordable housing rentals available for North Miami residents by the deadline for this issue.
(Courtesy Andrew Arocho)
Artist Andrew Arocho
Ned Murray, associate director at the Jorge M. Perez Metropolitan Center, a think tank associated with Florida International University, said that many people who flee South Florida’s high housing costs end up in the Gulf Coast or in cities Nort
h of South Florida which are less expensive than South Florida, but still in the state. Others simply move to other states.
Many who leave South Florida because of the housing crisis tend to be young and/or lacking college degrees or specialized skills, said Murray. Between 2018 and 2023, 33,000 young workers between the ages of 20 and 29, some with college degrees, left South Florida. But between 2023 and 2024, there was a net international migration of 124,000 people into Miami-Dade, a figure that was unprecedented in the last 20 years, according to the US Census Bureau. Thanks to international migration, Miami-Dade is not losing population.
AN ARTIST’S STRUGGLE
People in the arts often have a hard time finding affordable housing in Miami-Dade. Many visual artists, for example, do not have steady incomes unless they have widely recognized names in the art world.
Alternately, many artists have sources of income not derived from making art.
Painter Andrew Arocho pays some of the bills by working at the Museum of Modern Art in North Miami (MOCA) by day and periodically shows his paintings at the Camp Gallery on 125th Street in North Miami across the street from MOCA. Among his paintings are impressionistic visions of the industrialized world. He gets some of his inspiration from his hometown of New York City.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava
Arocho, lives on Miami Beach with his partner, in a perfectly civilized apartment, but their good luck in finding decent housing followed the couple’s sojourn at another apartment that was the stuff of nightmares, also on Miami Beach.
There was no end to the unpleasant surprises the couple experienced in their old apartment. At one point, when Arocho bent down to pick something up off the floor, pieces of the floor came apart in his hands. He also reports that a neighbor, with her baby in her arms, fell through a hole in the floor, most likely because of water damage.
“We had to find another place quick,” said Arocho. “But unfortunately, it takes 30 days just to be approved for an apartment.”
Arocho and his partner sued the former landlord for damages.
“We had to throw out some of our furniture,” he said, because of water and mold damage.
(Courtesy Annie Lord)
Annie Lord, executive director of Miami Homes for All
WORKING TOWARD SOLUTIONS
While finding solutions for the lack of affordable housing in Miami-Dade may feel like a Herculean task, there are many people in government and in the non-profit sector, working to alleviate the shortage.
In January of 2023, County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava proposed a $2.5 billion general obligation bond issue, $800 million of which would have been dedicated to creating or building affordable housing.
“The bond issue didn’t go anywhere,” said Annie Lord, executive director of Miami Homes for All, a non-profit organization mentioned earlier.
Although the housing shortage persists in Miami-Dade, there are glimmers of hope, such as the $3 billion project mentioned at the beginning of the story. And even the Florida Legislature has contributed a little to alleviating the affordable housing problem by passing legislation meant to streamline the processes involved in approving new housing.
For example, part of one bill that passed this spring gives permission to religious institutions to build affordable housing on their land with no need for a land-use change. With changes such as this one, the legislature seems to be thumbing its collective nose at planning rules that have stood for decades.