With great fanfare, the inauguration of this building in Sweetwater for seniors and low-income workers was announced on Friday, February 17th.
Misael Herrera, who tried to apply, said: “to apply they had to be over 55, 1-bedroom rooms would cost $1,400 and 2-bedroom rooms would cost $2,600.”
But it came as a big surprise to potential tenants like Misael when he learned that the prices offered did not match his annual salary.
Raúl Rodríguez, a private investor from CREI Holdings, says, “If I don’t pay the rent to be able to maintain the building, I can’t build the building.”
Raúl Rodríguez, main investor in the ABNER 2 building, the second of its kind built with the financial support of the county, told us today that the rental price of the apartments, which incidentally differs from the price of the ABNER building 1, with payment ranging between $371 and $965 dollars, is mainly due to the high cost of their investment.
“This building cost 45 million dollars to build and what they gave me was 3 and a half million,” Rodríguez explains.
Jose Pepe Díaz, former commissioner of Miami Dade, assured that “when private jointly with the government, they can reduce costs because the government helps where it can”.
Juan Carlos Bermúdez, curator of Miami Dade, assures:
“A great opportunity for an issue close to our hearts in the county that has not been resolved, which is affordable housing.”
“I don’t think it’s correlated, not that they lied, but there’s something wrong with that, the county hasn’t really calculated what a low-cost employee makes versus what a person with a salary of over 50,000 pesos can earn,” says Herrera.
We called Miami Dade Commissioner, former Commissioner Pepe Díaz, Sweetwater Mayor’s Office today, but so far they have not offered an answer on this controversy.