The Problem

Why Fair Housing is a Problem in Immokalee

The Immokalee Fair Housing Alliance was created to focus on problem, and one problem alone. That is housing in Immokalee. Why?

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In 2017, Hurricane Irma devastated southwest Florida, including the town of Immokalee, home to many agricultural workers and their families. The storm also exposed the urgent need for safe and affordable housing for these hardworking people.

Already a serious issue before the hurricane, the significant destruction of housing stock left farmworkers and their families with even more expensive and yet substandard, unsafe and overcrowded housing. In many cases, rents tripled and even quadrupled due to unconscionable rent-gouging. Today, Covid-19 has shown just how dangerous the housing situation is in Immokalee. With extreme overcrowding, the virus is spreading through the population at an alarming rate, creating one of the nation’s worst hotspots for cases per capita.

 
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Many farmworker families have no option but to pay up to 70% of their income to live in trailers with some having vermin, mold, and limited bathing or toilet facilities.

These unmaintained houses have issues like: 

Deplorable Living Conditions

  • Rent is outrageously high for up to 12-18 people in a trailer ($75 per person per week, including children)

  • More than one family forced into one trailer

  • Keeps hardworking families in extreme poverty, lack of stability and safety

  • Refrigerator breaks down and is not replaced

  • Family unable to prepare food

  • Holes in the floors and ceiling

  • Rodents, bugs, snakes

  • Mold, a major health problem especially for children

  • In some cases no toilets, no showers

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Immokalee In the News:

Real Life Stories of Immokalee Residents

NOT HURRICANE RESISTANT

“The home we rented was destroyed by a tree that crashed through the roof into our children’s bedroom. The building split apart and all our possessions were ruined.”

— Ana

OVERCROWDED

“We found shelter in a rundown trailer shared with many other people, where the five members of our family now sleep in one room. Our children are good students, but they now have no quiet place to study or to get the rest they need.”

—Eduardo

INHUMANE

“My three children and I have lived in the same trailer for six years. We have never been late with our rent. When we asked the landlord to replace the refrigerator that kept dying, causing the milk and food to go bad, he kicked us out.”

— Maria

The Solution

Discover the Immokalee Fair Housing Alliance’s solution