The Miami Workers Center - cont.
In four years of operation, the Center has redefined the
debate around poverty and justice in Liberty City, Miami, and Dade County.
The Center’s most significant achievement has been the initiation and
development of Low Income Families Fighting Together (LIFFT) – a grassroots
membership organization of and for current and former welfare recipients,
low-wage workers, and public housing residents. In a city with a very limited
history of progressive social change the Center and LIFFT have won significant
advances for low-income communities. They have:
- Successfully led a countywide coalition that - for the
first time on US soil – introduced independent observers to monitor
the 2002 elections in Miami-Dade County;
- Created a constituent driven grievance procedure for
welfare and WIA recipients to contest abuse within the regional system,
including denial of benefits and failure to provide services;
- Presented a community-developed alternative proposal
for housing redevelopment to the Miami-Dade County Commission; halted the
demolition of low-income housing in the neighborhood of Liberty City, preventing
the displacement of over 6,000 African-American families;
- Involved grassroots low-income resident leaders in county-wide
multi-ethnic and political issues around immigration, farmworker justice,
the anti-war movement, and globalization and trade.
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