Carlos J. Rodriguez has lived for 30 years in a modest mobile home on the south bank of the Miami River, next to the 27th Avenue bridge. He bought the unit with money he’d saved up from his job as a courthouse clerk in 1989 and placed the structure on a lot he rents in the Paradise Mobile Home Park.
Rodriguez can afford the $600 rent with his modest retirement income of $1,500 a month. His trailer, which has unpermitted additions that include a closet and carport, sits on a corner lot near 34 other trailers that run the gamut from decent to derelict. Some homes look sturdier than others. The area, residents say, attracts drug dealing and prostitution from outsiders, a problem that calls for more policing.
Now, Rodriguez fears he’ll be kicked out of his neighborhood after the city slapped all of the 35 remaining mobile homes with serious code violations earlier this year, citing illegal alterations and unsafe conditions. City officials are recommending demolition of 34 of the homes over problems that cannot be corrected, an attorney for the residents said, leaving many wondering where they would go.
Read more at our news partner the Miami Herald.
