Residents of a Miami-Dade building still have hours to finish packing up their belongings and evacuate the place where they live, since the place has been declared unsafe.
At ten o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, the deadline for leaving the building, declared unsanitary since last week, is over.
The evacuation order comes as apartment owners are still recovering from a payment to fix the property’s roof.
“A very expensive job…it was about $250,000. I got about 7,000 just for the roof,” some say.
Cesar, an apartment owner in the neighborhood, says that since he is a musician and “worked all weekend, I had very little time to pack.”
Cesar is visiting friends, but many still have nowhere to go, so looking for options, they arrived at the town hall today.
Brent Latham, mayor of North Bay Village, said “a lot of them are going to go to a hotel that supports us at a pretty comfortable rate…we’re going to take care of the whole bill.”
Marina, who also owns the place, says she will benefit from this help. “It’s a loss, I don’t have my little house.”
He says living here was his dream and that’s what he invested his money in. “I was thinking of doing an Internet store to get some money back,” says Marina.
The big concern is how long they will have to stay outside and what the future of the building will be.
“It will have to be decided between them… I know that there is a purchase proposal, even if at the moment it is very difficult”, recognizes the mayor of North Bay Village.
Cesar confirmed that since last year the owners have agreed to sell their properties but overnight the developers have disappeared.
“They want it all…five acres of beachfront property. They want it but with the lowest price. That this is happening now may be a coincidence, but what a coincidence,” the man asks.
The mayor said he was upset by these rumors and that if the owners want to fix it, the mayor’s office will help in any way possible.