Family Moves Into 1st Completed Opa Locka HUD-Grant Home

OPA LOCKA (CBS4) - For more than two decades Maria Esperanza and Melanio Rojas have rented a modest apartment in Little Havana.
But they took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday afternoon, officially welcoming them to their new house in Opa-Locka, where they will live with their 2 adult children, and grandchild.

Maria Esperanza told CBS4's Natalia Zea, "We are very happy, this achievement is the result of two years of fighting to get a home."

The Opa-Locka Community Development Corporation gave them financial help and advice to qualify to buy the home- at a very low price.

And the Opa-Locka CDC used a 20-million dollar Federal Housing and Urban Development grant to rehab this house and has 82 others in the works.
The plan is to do even more than help low-income families live the American dream.

"We realize that in order to really affect change in the neighborhood we really need to focus block by block," said Willie Logan, founder and President of the Opa-Locka C.D.C. He says this is the largest grant Opa-Locka has ever gotten and it is only a springboard to longer-term success.
"You can use that 20 million dollars to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars from other sources," said Logan.

Neighbors hope these new efforts will get rid of the abandoned homes in their neighborhood and they also hope it will clean the area up. Many of the abandoned homes' front lawns are littered with whisky bottles and beer cans.

Not only are the homes in Elmore Williams' Opa-Locka neighborhood being improved, he and several other people who live in this area are being put to work to repair the houses.
"When people come into your neighborhood and do something good for your neighborhood, it makes you feel good," he told Zea.

HUD's Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development Mercedes Marques says this Opa-Locka program shows that with some federal help, even struggling cities can shine.

"I can't think of a better example of great investment which leads to justice, than what you're doing here in Opa-Locka," said Marques.