Haitian community stakeholders including Marleine Bastien, executive director of Family Action Network Movement; Sandy Dorsainvil, managing director for the Little Haiti Cultural Complex; and Leonie M. Hermantin, of Concerned Leaders of Little Haiti, listen and react to remarks made during a news conference concerning development in Little Haiti.
Philippe Henold Buteau for The Miami Times
What bothered Barnes wasn t just the absence of the people she d become accustomed to seeing people whose trust the group gained by showing up every weekend and providing necessities. She also felt disturbed by the sight of their belongings in heaps on the sidewalk. Barnes especially worried about one man she d come to know who used a wheelchair. By the time we got there, his wheelchair was on the corner, she says. There were piles and piles of tents, food, people s clothing, their belongings.
As she subsequently learned, the City of Miami had cleared out the encampment as part of a new crackdown on people living on city streets. According to lawyers and advocates for the homeless, city staff gave the people at the 17th Street encampment an ultimatum on February 10: go to a hotel and quarantine, or go to jail.