Some Little Haiti businesses have a new landlord: a developer who wants them out
BY RENE RODRIGUEZ
April 27, 2018 05:30 PM
Dozens of business owners in Little Haiti are facing the reality that they will have to close their shops. River Esquinas LLC, the company owned by Thomas Conway, is evicting the longtime tenants of two strip malls near Northeast 82nd Street and Second Avenue, which Conway purchased in March — even though the tenants say they all payed their rent on time.
Some of the businesses — which include a tuxedo shop, clothing store, tax and immigration services and restaurants — have been in business as long as 30 years. But because they are operating on month-to-month leases, Florida law allows the landlord to terminate their tenancy with only 15 days' notice.
The eviction is the latest clash between longtime residents of Little Haiti and real estate developers who are scooping up land in the area, betting that the development in nearby Wynwood and Edgewater will spill northward into the economically-deprived neighborhood.
"Little Haiti used to be a blighted, depressed area in the 1970s and 80s," said Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Family Action Network Movement (FANM), an advocacy group for immigrants and low-income families. "Little Haiti is now a very diverse, thriving, wonderful neighborhood built by Haitian immigrants out of sheer resilience and determination. Now several years later, developers are coming from left and right, displacing those immigrants who built this community, displacing businesses and forcing them out."
According to court documents, Conway has initiated eviction or termination of tenancy proceedings on 13 of the 15 businesses at 8200 NE Second Ave. and 201 NE 82nd St. The two unaffected businesses — a Metro PCS franchise and the art/design furniture store The Empty Apartment — both moved into their location in 2017 and have two-year leases.
Last Thursday, FANM organized a press conference, where 35 owners and employees from the affected businesses announced a series of demands: A six to 12-month stay of the eviction notices to allow the shop owners time to relocate, a commitment for the right to return once the buildings have been renovated, and equal treatment for all Haitian business owners.
"We're demanding a lot, but we deserve a lot," said Cartine Vilson, community organizer for FANM. "We Haitians deserve the right thing. We are asking for help. We have a voice and we need people to hear us."
Conway, who keeps an office at the Made at the Citadel co-working space a half-block away from the two malls, did not respond to repeated requests from the Herald for comment.
Government officials have not met with the store owners, according to Bastien.
The group says it has called on Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, District Five city commissioner Keon Hardemon and the Miami City Commission to help them secure new spaces for their businesses. Bastien said that the group has been requesting a meeting with Hardemon "for weeks," without response. She said Mayor Suarez had replied to the group's plea but a meeting has not yet been set.
In an email to the Herald, District Five executive assistant Kiara Garland stated that Hardemon's office is unaware of any conflict between the business owners and Conway.
According to public records from the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser's Office, Conway bought the 30,000-square-foot strip mall at 201 NE 82nd St. in March for $6.2 million under the corporation River Esquinas LLC. The sale of the 51,000-square-foot lot at 8200 NE Second Ave. has not yet been recorded, but the website RealtyTrac shows the property was sold in March for $6.25 million.
The impacted business owners say Conway wants them out because they are longtime tenants who pay lower rents for spaces that have not been renovated. Marie Jeannine Desir, who owns the clothing store Jeannine Variety Store Plus, pays $1,800 per month in rent for her shop, which she has run for 11 years.
"I don't have a husband: This business is what I pay my bills with," Desir said. "The developer told us he needs everybody out because he wants to rebuild the place. He's already brought people to look at the buildings. I need help. This is the only place I have."
Rene Rodriguez: 305-376-3611, @ReneMiamiHerald
U.S. Ambassador Highlights U.S. Government Partnership
with Haiti in the South Department
Les Cayes, April 27, 2018 - United States Ambassador to Haiti Michele J. Sison traveled to the South Department this week to observe firsthand how the United States is working with Haiti to strengthen government institutions, increase economic opportunity, improve health and education, and advance security and stability.
Highlighting priorities of good governance, the role of civil society, and providing support to Haitian security, Ambassador Sison met with key Haitian leaders during her trip, including Haitian National Police Nippes Department Director, Commissaire Divisionnaire Ludwige Bertrand, who graduated from the Inter-American Defense College (IADC) with support from the U.S. Department of State's INL Bureau; the President of the Cayes Municipal Council, Gabriel Fortuné; and Cardinal Chibly Langlois, the highest-ranking member of the Catholic Church in Haiti as well as local community and civil society leaders.
The Ambassador explored major U.S. Government investments in Haiti's development and resilience, visiting the FINCA Health Center, where the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) support integrated health services including vaccinations, nutrition, HIV care, and pre-and post-natal care to approximately 25,000 people in Les Cayes. She also visited Les Cayes' Emergency Operation Center with Dr. Jerry Chandler, one of 10 disaster preparedness centers across Haiti led by the Haitian Directorate for Civil Protection with support from USAID, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Department of Defense.
At the Haitian National Coast Guard Base, the Ambassador delivered remarks highlighting ongoing cooperation between the U.S. State Department (INL), the U.S. Coast Guard, and Haiti's Joint Maritime Task Force to strengthen maritime security and combat maritime narcotics trafficking. She also visited the Les Cayes office of Haiti's Tax Directorate, where USAID has supported the Government of Haiti with improved technologies to increase tax revenue that can be used to better serve the Haitian people.
Ambassador Sison toured Ecole Nationale Remy Zamor and donated books to the students and teachers, who received resiliency training through a partnership between USAID and UNICEF after Hurricane Matthew in 2016. She then traveled to Coteaux to see a microgrid supported by USAID and the United Nations Environment Program and highlight U.S. Government commitment to helping the Government of Haiti expand electricity access. While in Coteaux, the Ambassador met with local communities that sustained significant damage from Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and have rebuilt and created safer homes as well as community-based disaster response protocols with support from USAID and Catholic Relief Services. She also toured the impressive Botanical Gardens of Les Cayes with Agronomist William Cinea, a U.S. exchange alumnus.
She concludes her time in the region launching TechCamp Okay, a public-private initiative that gathered more than 30 entrepreneurs from the region and offered the opportunity to engage in hands-on capacity building and networking with the region's leading government, academic, civil society, and business experts. The TechCamp Okay program is themed "Entrepreneurship: Adapt, Empower, and Measure." All are encouraged to engage in the TechCamp conversation on Twitter April 27 - 29 using #TechCampOkay.
DJ Michael Brun wants to restore pride in Haiti
AFP
The Haitian DJ Michael Brun has participated in some of the biggest music festivals and his songs have been heard and streamed millions of times. But for him, this fast ascent is only the introduction of his new creation.
The 25-year-old young man abandoned the electronic music which made him a success for the sounds of his native Haiti, seeking to rediscover the prestige of this small Caribbean nation, which is generally in the headlines because of disasters.
His new song title, "Bayo" (Give, in Haitian Creole), offers a lively melody inspired by rara, the music of the Haitian carnival, with a suspicion of African rhythms and a dose of electronics.
His video clip of lively colors aims to be a celebration: children showing their best dance steps, and three featured singers, including the rapper Strong G. who was discovered by Michael Brun during a recording on the Island of La Gonâve.
A Port-au-Prince native, he settled in New York and spent the last five years perfecting his music.
" I reached a stage where I felt comfortable with my level as producer and where I could envision this mix of Haitian music by having a respectful and solid posture," the told the AFP, at a nearby café in Brooklyn.
Michael Brun and J Balvin collaborate on music for the World Cup
The song Positivo, the collaboration of the young Haitian DJ Michael Brun and the Colombian star J Balvin, was retained as theme of the World cup 2018 by Telemundo Deportes. The sports branch of the TV network in Spanish language in the United States took advantage of the ceremony of Billboard Latin Music Awards to make the revelation on April 26th. A video extract of the title was broadcast while the official release of the song was announced for Monday, April 30th.
Satisfied and honored to have been able to work with a big name of Latin music on a song for the World cup, Michael Brun promises other collaborations in future with other international artists.
With this composition, the television channel can boast of maintaining its concept of uniting the Latin American around this big sports event. But, for Michael Brun this is a golden opportunity to touch another audience and to assert his status of international DJ.
A Belgian relives Haiti earthquake eight years after Journalist and atheist tells how she got to appreciate the power of religion
BY HG HELPS
Editor-at-Large
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Journalist Maude Malengrez left Belgium for Haiti in 2003 with a blank page and pen ready to take notes of what the north Caribbean island was like.
The reality was one of wide-eyed amazement soon after the aircraft touched the Francophone soil similar to that of her native land. Her assignment was to cover a debut theatre festival in the country's capital, Port-au-Prince — which still continues. On that initial trip, she met people whom she described as “very interesting”, numbered among them writers, poets, and human rights defenders.
“I was kind of overwhelmed by all these people who were so bright, talented; but also, so much concern about what was happening in the society and trying to change it,” she shared with the Jamaica Observer during an interview in this humungously poor country recently. “I thought it was very inspiring. It was my first experience. Then I came back several times as a journalist to cover various things — development issues and things like that.”
It was at that point that she convinced herself that she wanted to have the experience of living and working in the former colony of France, the only country that she would have resided outside of her native land.
Ten years ago, in 2008, she made that huge step to relocate. During the early period Maude worked in media as a freelancer, and then she was snatched up by FOKAL — the Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty — to create a media support programme.
During the first week of her new employment, a life-changing event occurred, not only for herself, but for several hundreds of thousands who also called that huge country home. On January 12, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the country, its epicentre 25 kilometres southwest of Port-au-Prince. Not since the 18th Ccentury did such a quake hit the place. Two aftershocks the same day measuring 5.9 and 5.5 on the Richter scale also intervened. More aftershocks were to follow way into November of that year at various points.
“I was at work at FOKAL when the earthquake hit Haiti,” Maude recalled. “I was hired by FOKAL five days before the earthquake. When the earthquake hit, it was very terrifying. A part of the office collapsed. I soon found out that the house that I lived had also collapsed, so I had to, like others, stay in the parking lot for the first few days.
“The place shook so much that we all fell. That's how I stayed alive in that building. It is a brick building, but made of wires, but it can shake without collapsing right away. Its gonna stay as long as possible for you to escape.
“The first people that helped were Haitians helping Haitians. There was solidarity and the strength of the people. The people helped each other a lot, neighbour helping neighbour. There was so much tenderness in the way the people were behaving with each other. People were always touching you. It was kind of something about being alive. It was very strong. These people are heroes until now. I was feeling terrible that I could not help like some people.
“The Cubans had more doctors coming in, on top of the many Cuban doctors that were here before worked overtime. Cubans are loved here because of the health care. They are really the ones who did the job in the remote areas.”
Unlike in normal times when doors had to be locked at night, in the aftermath of the earthquake most doors remained open throughout the dark, at least for the first week after, oblivious of potential looting, which Maude said was almost non-existent, despite news to the contrary presented by major global news organizations.
The need to keep the doors open, she reasoned, was more to open the lines of communication… that others would know that there were people alive in the houses.
“I will always remember that everything was completely open. Only a few incidents of looting occurred downtown. Some international press focused on that, but it was not the true story. Some people were stealing in an effort to try and sell things back to survive, but the stealing wasn't major.”
A week after the quake struck, Maude left for her native Belgium to stay with family. She remained there for a little over a month.
Her supply of food had run out, she had no money, no place to stay and, despite her best wishes to help others, it was almost an impossibility to reach out to others without the requisite resources. That's why leaving for Belgium was the next best thing as, on the one hand, the scarce resources that were trickling in from foreign donors would be shared by one less body.
Practicing her journalism was hampered by telecommunication hurdles. Even trying to make a blog with friends, to put up names of some people who she knew were alive so that people in the Diaspora could know their status, almost fell flat, as the Internet connection was horribly weak.
By the time she returned to Haiti, there were thousands of aid workers and representatives of non-governmental organizations all over the place.
Now, eight years after, has the restoration process gone fast enough? This was the obvious question put to her.
“I wouldn't qualify fast enough. When you look at Italy or Latvia, there have been earthquakes 15 years ago and they still haven't recovered from them. Everywhere its difficult, but here the problem is that the way it was managed … the post-earthquake management. I don't think it did any good for the feeling of ownership for the people here, because it was like turning everyone into victims needing help for everything, which wasn't true. But because of the relations of power between the strangers and the aid people, and the Haitians and the politicians, it kind of resulted in collateral damage. It's not just the building and the dead people, but some social dynamics that were created and perverted things that did some harm,” the senior journalist said.
Despite all the challenges, Maude has no immediate plans to leave Haiti.
“I don't know if I am going to be here for the rest of my life or for how long, because I don't like to make pronouncements because you never know what will happen in your life, and I know it's a country where its somehow difficult to live; not necessarily for me, but its difficult to see my friends wanting to leave the country because they see no hope here and I understand there are so much challenges and so many ways to be disappointed by the situation.
“I love the people here. They are brilliant and funny, but sometimes they are traumatized too, so that's the difficult part of it.”
She will continue in her role as media support program coordinator for FOKAL — a job in which she mainly identifies training for young journalists in Haiti.
“It's also why I am staying here. Everyone is replaceable, but it's just that I feel that it can be useful for young people to create more job opportunities here, to also organize things like debates, conference, shows, screenings, and everything,” she said of her job.
First Lady of Haiti Martine Moïse Commemorates World Malaria Day, Expresses Commitment to Elimination Alongside Global, Political, and Scientific Leaders
UN Foundation Report
Hispaniola is the last malaria endemic island in the Caribbean. On World Malaria Day, Haiti declares it is ready to beat malaria – malaria elimination in the Caribbean is within reach.
Recently, the First Lady of Haiti Martine Moïse and more than 300 government officials, civil society representatives, scientists and technical partners of the global health and development community gathered to celebrate World Malaria Day and increase awareness of Haiti’s commitment to eliminating malaria, a preventable yet deadly disease that threatens half the world’s population and kills a child every two minutes.
In addition to causing severe illness and death, malaria has a negative impact on Haiti’s already fragile economy, exacerbating poverty, decreasing productivity, slowing progress in a country where more than half of the population already lives on less than U.S. $2.44 per day.
Yet, Haiti and its partners are committed to eliminating malaria by 2020. With the right resources, partnerships and momentum, the Caribbean can be a malaria-free region, thus bringing the world one step closer to global elimination.
“I am passionate about Haiti’s goal to keep our people safe from malaria,” said Martine Moïse, First Lady of Haiti and Chair of Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s Country Coordinating Mechanism. “Haiti is committed to working together with partners to eliminate malaria to protect every Haitian family from this disease.”
“We have the tools today to beat malaria in Hispaniola and know that the benefits of creating a malaria-free Caribbean far outweigh the costs,” said Dr. Dean Sienko, vice president of health programs for The Carter Center, a member of the Malaria Zero Alliance. “It is also important to work together with other vector-borne disease programs such as lymphatic filariasis, zika, and dengue, to maximize information and resources.”
To commemorate World Malaria Day, a special malaria health education video was created by the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) together with The Carter Center, as part of the Malaria Zero Alliance of partners. This video, titled “Malaria Alanba” (Malaria Go Down) brings together seven of the top performers in Haitian popular music and airs on television and radio stations across Haiti today. Earlier this month, Haiti’s MSPP Minister Dr. Greta Roy Clemen appointed musician and “Alanba” contributor Mr. Michael Benjamin, aka Mikaben, to be the country’s first Goodwill Ambassador for Health. The health promotion music video can be viewed here.
Hispaniola, which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is the only remaining island in the Caribbean where malaria is still endemic. According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), Latin America and the Caribbean have made significant progress in curbing the burden of malaria since 2000. Currently 20 of the 21 malaria endemic countries in the region have committed to end this disease for good. Today, 109 million people in the Americas are still at risk of contracting the disease, and approximately 7 million are at a high risk.
“Elimination in Hispaniola is within reach,” said Margaret Reilly McDonnell, Executive Director of the United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign. “Increased focus and funding on global elimination is critical, and we applaud the efforts of the country of Haiti toward ensuring that no one dies from a mosquito bite.”
“Haiti is ready to reach zero deaths and no more local transmission by 2020. Between 2010 and 2017, reported cases of malaria at the national level decreased from 84,153 cases to 18,983 cases,” said Dr. Jean Frantz Lemoine, PNCM’s Coordinator. “Malaria testing in the population has increased steadily since 2015 due to Rapid Diagnostic Tests and community-based care — more than tripling community case detection between 2016 and 2017. This proves Haiti can end malaria for good in the coming years.”
More partnerships and resources are required to end malaria for good. For more information about malaria elimination efforts in Haiti, visit http://www.malariazeroalliance.org.