A Hispanic family is left out in the open and helpless amid heavy rain.
“We lost everything, we had everything in the car, we lost everything,” says Kevin Barrios.
The family took refuge under the train tracks, having lost their last remaining possession; his car, in the floods of the heavy rains.
“We had been on the streets for 3 days sleeping in the car,” Barrios explains. “The car stayed with me, it turned off, I couldn’t get out, the crying child, I had to take the child out,” he adds.
Pamela Urraco, wife of Barrios and mother of the children, says: “It’s hard, it’s difficult, when he called me he was coming home from work and I broke down and started crying.”
After her tough testimony, along with her two children, aged one and seven, Barrios said, “We are left helpless. Unfortunately what happened to us was a disaster, it rained on us, we lost the house, the car, thank God she has a job”.
The Homeless Trust gave them a ray of sunshine in the storm. The organization’s president at Miami Dade, Ron Book, says, “We’re not going to leave a family on the streets living in a car, we’re going to take them alternately and temporarily to a hotel, while we see otherwise how can we help”.
“It’s difficult, imagine, I’m working and I’m distracted because we have nowhere to stay, with nothing, yesterday we found ourselves with nothing, we’re going to fight,” says Urraco.
“We lost our clothes, a computer, everything we had was in the car,” says Barrios.
And although the Homeless Trust has provided them with a hotel, the family needs clothes and food to get through this crisis.