"I don’t want to be a statistic and this type of stuff makes people statistics."

Leaning against the wooden gate in front of the mobile home she boarded up and painted herself, Brandy Sarut realizes that, at 24, she’s facing the threat of eviction for the second time in her life.

The first time was when she was still a kid, growing up in Miami-Dade County. But this time, Sarut is a caretaker. She works just three days a week as a waitress at a nearby Denny’s and has a 3-year-old girl, Mariana. Her father, who lives in a trailer behind hers, is retired and disabled.

What little she makes at the diner goes into paying her $600 monthly rent to live in a small trailer, about the same amount paid by the 30 families living in one of the few non-subsidized affordable housing options left in the city. And, as of now, homeowners are likely to lose the bulk of the investments many made on their trailers decades ago.

Residents of the Paradise Park Mobile Home Park, west of the 27th Street bridge near fast-growing Allapattah, received a six-month notice of eviction last November, just a few days after the trailer park was bought by Miami-based developers for $15 million and about a month before one of South Florida’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks. Although the park has survived through the threat of evictions and demolitions in previous years, this time it’s likely all residents will have to find new homes.

Read more at the Miami Herald