A cross section of Miami-Dade County and City of Miami leaders gathered together at Corpus Christi Catholic Church this week with a charge from the local faith community: Commit to supporting Miami-Dade’s underprivileged and low-income population with actionable plans.
While elected leaders pledged to support some initiatives proposed by faith leaders — like securing funds for a long-languishing mental health recovery center — other affordability commitments were put on hold.
The gathering was called by a local coalition of religious groups called Miami People Acting for Community Together, or PACT. It held its annual “Nehemiah Action” on Monday, when faith leaders directly confronted elected officials like Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Miami City Commissioner Ralph Rosado.
The action is named after a chapter of the Christian Bible where the Hebrew prophet Nehemiah called an assembly of local leaders to hold them accountable for the suffering of their people.
The Rev. Sherlain Stevens, of Ebenezer United Methodist Church in Miami, who also serves as President of Miami PACT, said the struggle most of her people suffer from is affordability.
“ What we do is we gather every year to listen to the conversations in our congregations about the things that keep 'em up at night. That's the best way of explaining it. What are the concerns they have for the community,” Stevens told WLRN.
Miami PACT had three demands as part of its Nehemiah action for 2026:
- Open the Center for Mental Health & Recovery;
- Amend the County Code to define Area Median Income (AMI) by census tract and define “workforce housing” as housing for individuals and families earning below 100% of AMI. The current AMI for an individual is $68,300 and $123,900 for a household of four people.
- Create a sliding scale of developer incentives based on levels of affordability, ensuring deeper affordability where it is needed most
Mental health
The Center for Mental Health and Recovery is meant to be a diversionary facility where people who are homeless and/or deal with mental illness can seek treatment when they run afoul of the law, rather than going straight into incarceration.
READ MORE: Mental health facility will help with anti-homeless law, says judge
The center was approved as far back as 2004, but the opening has lagged for decades awaiting funding and approval. The facility has been built, but the county hadn’t found funding to make it operational until recently.
A proposal from Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado would put two nonprofits in charge of running the center and fund operations for a two-year pilot period.
Miami PACT asked county leaders to support the proposal that would fund the center as a not-for-profit, and Levine Cava pledged her support for the plan.
Miami-Dade Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III said he would request that it be heard at the next meeting in April and vote in favor of it.
While the City of Miami doesn’t have a role in the Center, Commissioner Rosado said he would push his colleagues at the city to continually contribute funding for its operation because it falls within the city’s borders.
Area median income
The remaining two demands from Miami PACT relate to a concept in housing development known as “Area Median Income” or “AMI.” AMI refers to the median household income within a specific area, usually a county or city.
Affordable housing and workforce housing projects will often have carveouts that say a certain number of units will be for people making a certain percentage of the county AMI.
The median income for a household of two in Miami-Dade County is $99,100 as of May 2025.
As Miami PACT and other affordable housing advocates have pointed out, many of the people most in need of housing make well below the county AMI. Many cannot qualify for workforce units that can charge up to 140% of AMI.
“ Using a county-wide scale will include other people of higher income, maybe within the same zip code, but in another area which skews that range. So you have someone who may be making $140,000 and that income is going to make a higher average cost for people who are not able to afford it,” Stevens said.
The PACT asked local leaders to amend the definition of workforce housing to make it more affordable for people on the lower end of the income scale, and to define AMI by census tract rather than countywide. That way, the AMI for an area will include people of similar income levels and be less skewed.
They also asked that developers be offered incentives on a sliding scale, so housing projects with more affordable units equal more savings for developers.
Levine Cava pledged to support these initiatives, but Miami-Dade Commissioner Gilbert asked for more time to consider the implications of such changes.
“I need to fully understand what those changes will have as far as unintended consequences,” Gilbert told attendees at the assembly. “Changing AMI which is actually calculated at the federal level might have some consequences that I'm not willing to commit to right now.”
Miami PACT, said Stevens, will continue to follow up with elected leaders over the coming year to ensure they are held accountable for the commitments made this week.
