MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Midnight marks the end for the remaining residents of Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park, once a bustling community of about 900 families.
It’s when the property in Sweetwater is expected to be cleared of all remaining tenants to make way for a new workforce housing development.
Construction has already been underway for months.
Several lots have been stripped of their mobile homes. Some units have been relocated, while others appear abandoned and looted.
But an attorney for the remaining residents says more than 220 families — roughly 1,000 people — still live on the property.
That’s down from the estimated 5,000 who called the park home before eviction notices were issued last November.
Since then, protests have been near-daily as residents push back against what they say was an improper and unjust eviction.
“It wasn’t right,” said Martha Torres, who still lives in the park with her extended family — 11 people, including children, under one roof.
Torres is one of many residents now part of a class action lawsuit aimed at halting the evictions and holding the owners accountable.
“We’re paying. This isn’t free,” she said in Spanish, showing proof of rent payments even as she points to rashes and health issues she believes are linked to the deteriorating environment around her.
County inspections previously detected asbestos in four demolished homes at the park, though the property owners have denied any hazardous conditions.
Past county inspections discovered asbestos on at least four demolished homes in the development. The property owners deny hazardous conditions here.
Still, Torres says she is holding on to hope.
“We have faith in God and in the judge,” she said.
What happens next may be decided not by bulldozers — but by the courts.
Read the complaint and petition by the community in the documents below.